Looks like a lego revolver

Officially referred to as the Pope's Police, but everybody just calls it the Po-Po

Pietro, Giuseppe and Luigi has to be the most Italian trio of names possible.

Bastards got a hold of my technical sketches from when I was 4

The cylinder rotating counter-clockwise makes sense. Most loading gate revolvers open on the right, to be loaded with the dominant hand while held in the off hand; this one opens on the left, to be loaded with the off hand like modern swing cylinder revolvers. Rotating counter-clockwise means you won't have a live round under the hammer until you load your sixth shot, and in a pinfire gun that's extremely important because the firing pin on each cartridge is exposed and prone to going off when struck. It's an incredibly simple, but effective, safety mechanism to prevent some dork from accidentally firing his gun while reloading.

"The Pope? Bah. How many divisions has he got?" "Less than one, Comrade Stalin, but they do all have these sweet pinfire revolvers."

I'm amazed after all these years of Ian showing and explaining guns I've never seen before, that he still finds more forgotten guns. How many are remaining Ian? Thanks for everything so far. You truly are a blessing for the gun world.

The holy Handgun is clearly a better choice against a Rabbit.

Not gonna lie, I always love when Ian breaks out something from the Papal States or Swiss Guard.

"Papacy went looking for a Pistol" is definitely the title of a underground rock song.

Mario is going to be pissed when he finds out his brother Luigi is running a side hustle business in the arms industry. lol

11:20 Between 1866 and 1870 the Papal Lira, the Italian Lira, and the French Franc were all fixed at the same value. Exchange rate in 1868 was 2 Francs to the Dollar: so each gun cost $28.

Just when you thought Ian had plugged the depths of forgotten weapons... He comes back with this little gem.

This is exactly what I envision a holy weapon would look like. Upon looking at it you know it's gonna deal some holy damage.

I always enjoy seeing the late 1800s designs, as so much needed to be done without small, fine springs. This revolver has a delightfully elegant design.

I love when forgotten weapons makes videos about these smaller german and italian pre unification states. Tnks for the simple yet awesome presentation.

Castel Sant'Angelo was originally Hadrian's tomb.

I could see John Constantine using this. +6 holy damage .

Imagine how pimped out they would be if the Pope was armed and always carried personal, Pope-ified pair of revolvers.

first choice when fighting the vampires.

Seeing the hammer I suddenly wondered if there ever was a revolver that had a hammer built into the frame to strike from below.

The older I get, the more fascinated I become with older firearms. Great vid.

I'm proud to be a Okie from Mazzocchi! A place where even squares can have a ball That is Beautiful!

Catholic fact: If a saint has owned a firearm, that gun is considered a class 2 relic. Class 1 relics are actual body parts of the saints so class 2 is as high as a gun can go.

An actual literal holy weapon

That is very intriguing little gun. I wish someone made a replica of it so we could see it fired. I doubt any few owner's of such guns were willing to lend an original for firing...

Next video.... The Holy Hand grenade of Antioch .... . Ian must be visiting family.

Interesting to know that the papal states had a long history of existing and controlling a territory on their own, even if that territory was usually divided in vassals or subjects. The Catholic church was an administrative organization, and they had a lot more power that people imagine, much more than the religious aspect.

Is the pistol still being rendered?

It's always neat to see Papal arms. The Papal States is such a unique part of history.

Looks like a revolver drawn by an artist who knows little of firearms in the 19th century. Lots of paintings with weirdly proportioned revolvers around that time period, and this looks like one come to life

The value of 50 Papal Lira: One dollar was approximately five liras, in silver value, so 50 were about 10 dollars. A Colt navy cost 13 dollars in 1872.

Gotta say this looks very much handmade, with much care and proficiency, those parts really fit together well and smooth

Nice shield around the base of the cylinder to protect the pins against accidental bump and discharge. Neat!

Ian is more than an expert gunsmith with a penchant for historical weapons, he again shows here an understanding of history.

the thread on the cleaning rod is for the full auto version , you screw the rod to the barrell and acts as a forward grip to help control the recoil

I am pretty shure the rod in the grip is thread on the top to screw a brush on to clean youre gun after fireing it and because the rod is usable as a ejecter rod and a belt attachment too....the rod is in the grip for belt and eject using in service and after using at home also the rod for the cleaning brush so one part has 3 functions.... Pretty smart design:)

+5 against the undead Double damage against demons and devils

Fascinating little piece! Between the somewhat “unfinished” look (lack of cylinder fluting, miserable sights etc) and the furious marking of every single surface, it reminds me of those Chinese mystery pistols you covered back in the day.

After furious internet searching, I have an answer. At the time, the USD was worth 5.18 Lira. An 1868 USD is worth approximately 21.60 2024 USD. So the Pope's Gendarmerie Gat cost a current day $233.51. With the total contract being worth $583,775 in 2024 dollars or $27,026.62 in 1868 dollars.

Neat, it is amazing how simple this firearm is.

I often wonder does Ian ever have any ‘ oh shit I don’t know how to put this back together’ moments

Clearly the ejector rod is threaded to screw into some other parallel bit for a handy crucifix in the field.

For when the exorcism needs a lil bit more oomf than holy water

What a great pleasure! A sweet and elegant pistol with a concise history lesson. Brilliant job. Congrats.

We are not mentioning the frame crack?

Holy Damage Revolver

The Papal Lira was based off the silver price as the coins issued were made from silver. Converting the mass over with todays silver price (historic low though) we get 56PL≈188USD. Adjusting for the higher silver price at the time we get todays equivalent value of ≈317USD per gun and ≈790k USD for the entire contract

Excellent job Ian!

Looks like Really smooth clay

very interesting that castel san angelo (aka hadrian's tomb) was used as a gun factory.

Anyone else notice the broken frame at the bottom right corner of the recoil shield?

That's an interesting little pistol. Every piece of this firearm is handmade, and it's amazing. These are my favorite types of firearm; where an idea moves along to creation.

That is the cleanest revolver I have ever seen. Nifty video, thank you

Neat little revolver. I'm glad you were allowed to take it apart, it was amazing to see that level of work and serialization for the age of the item. I noticed some distortion in parts of the video, nothing major, but the parts where you're speaking onscreen seem scuffed compared to the lovely close-up work. Still an amazing video, just wanted to point that out in case it's pertinent. Could be a camera or software issue you'll need to wrestle with. Thanks for another great video!

Ver cool, thank you for the report. Missed seeing you at SOT SHOW so far.

Great revolver and history on it and the Vatican, thanks as always, this would be cool in the revolver class BUG match!

I would agree with your caption about the threaded jag. Its likely a brush was carried in the holster alongside it. But a black powder gun was never kept far from cleaning kit in this period i can't imagine. So i would agree based on its length and the thread being less than the threat at the bottom of the rod itself.

As I learned at Liege's gunsmithing school the same techniques used to craft this gun, it's odd to recognize the same kind of marks and scratches that I would make on my learning pieces. The same kind of file marks and finish. It give me a feeling that I know that gun even though the mechanism is new to me. The quality of the craftsmanship may look a bit crude but from what I see it is just that it is not made to look good. My rough work-in-progress "finish" was pretty much looking like that but I tend to over do it (and lose too much time). In term of technique what differentiate this gun from a luxury handmade shotgun is that there would be an other step of maybe half a weeks of work or so to make it smooth and shiny polish and maybe some gold plating on the trigger and bluing the internal links.

Finally! This is the kind of weird ass gun that made me fall in love with your channel!

Very nicely made. Beautiful little revolver.

You'd think they'd get water pistols that squirt holy water

Pinfire cartridges are so neat-looking and different from our radially-smooth modern ammunition! The evolution makes sense, and you understand why they did what they did...with limited chemical supplies and technology, and different material strengths. It really shows why keeping old relics helps understand technological progression, which keeps us from unnecessarily repeating mistakes from the past.

Ian finally got around to reviewing the Scarecrow's revolver from The Wizard of Oz.

Fun fact from a Swiss. The serial number 1291 is also the founding year of the earliest Swiss confederation/ state. Coincidence?

Hi Ian, more than Napoleon taking the garrison out of the Vatican, it was after sedan that that Italy took the chance of taking Rome. If France didn’t lost the war, there would still be Napoleon to protect the Pope, and Italy wouldn’t take the risk. Nice video as always.

"Our Father, BLAM! BLAM! Who art in Heaven, RELOADING!"...

It always stresses me out watching Ian take these apart just because I know if I was doing it personally I probably would struggle massively to put it back together again...

Excellent historical piece.

Can't help but wonder, whatever happened to the Mazzocchi Bros after 1870?

Ian is very relaxing to listen to.

I've never really thought about it but the gun community usually has the best dad-like jokes in the top comments, amazing

I think the threading on the end of that extraction rod may be for a cleaning head attachment to clean the barrel and cylinders. The extraction rod/lanyard loop can then also function as your cleaning rod.

The gun deals +5 Holy damage

Historical correction on the fall of the Papal States. Their end was slated from the start of the unification process, as only Rome could be accepted as capital of Italy - hence why the patriots first and the Kingdom of Sardinia (the state that was leading the unification effort and would eventually become the Kingdom of Italy) tried multiple times to establish a confederation, with the Pope as president - except the Pope was Pius IX, whose personality was such that Bismarck tried to offer him asylum in Germany with the expectation he'd drive the German Catholics into Protestantism. Thus no dice. Napoleon III, to keep the support of the French Catholics, made a treaty with Italy to keep Rome to the Pope, with Italy accepting to wait Pius' death and negotiate Rome becoming Italian with his successor and the French garrison being there to keep the uncontrollable Garibaldi out. Pius of course took it as license to provoke Italy at any chance... Then the Second French Empire fell, invalidating the treaty just at the same time Pius was trying to have the First Vatican Council proclaim him infallible in both spiritual and temporal matters, and Italy finally invaded. Thus on September 20 1870 Rome was taken... And just to be extra petty, almost all cities and towns in Italy have a street dedicated to that day leading to the local main church (the only exception is Rome, where the street starts at the breach in the walls the Italian troops entered the city).

Love Marzocchis. Especially the Monster T, 888, and Z1

I do like a sprinkle of history with my morning cup of Forgotten Weapons

Ian, it would be very interesting to see some videos of manufacturing machines and methods of this period

Ejector rod probably doubles as a cleaning rod, hence the thread on the end, for the cleaning accessories.

You think you have seen everything and this guy still pulls out something new

There was probably a long bore brush for cleaning sold with each pistol and threaded onto the ejection rod, but it is missing today.

I think the threading on the end extraction rod/lanyard loop is to also function with a cleaning attachment so that one can clean the cylinders and barrel with the same tool. Not 100% certain but it would make sense.

I forget that the vadican has a crap ton of land. Really cool to learn about this forgotten weapon!

I will say I do wish you would have short test fire portions of these videos

What a cool piece of History!

Pulled put the Kiejl Armistice A9

The rod is threaded to screw into lead shot/bullet that hasnt been fired. The threads bite into the soft lead shot to remove unspent round from the barrel.

Awesome thanks

My obscure Italian family name has finally achieved significance!

This kind of content is the reason I watch FW.

The lanyard rod/ clearing/ cleaning rod is threaded for cleaning jag

The machining, fit and quality of the revolver after all this time.🤠

The ejector rod is threaded for a cleaning jag or slotted tip probably carried in a little pouch located somewhere on the holster. HTH.

Theory for the threaded tip of the lanyard: it could screw into barrel or body for easier cleaning/maintenance especially with hand fitting parts.

Maybe this was the gun that St. Gabriel Possenti (the unofficial patron Saint of hand gunners) used to blast that lizard and ward off the bandits. Fascinating little piece. Odd, certainly, but still looks like it would be more user friendly than a Reichsrevolver.

I imagine that the ejector/lanyard ring is also the cleaning rod and you could screw a bronze brush on it.

What craftsmanship 😮

Loved the video on this interesting little piece of history, but I have to say that I winced when he popped that v spring out like that. Those things are typically removed under a spring clamp for a reason. The way those old V springs are made, they are prone to stress risers at the meeting point. Many a v spring has snapped in half taking them out the way he did there.

Looks well made

shoots holy water-infused bullets, thrice-blessed and does extra damage against demons