I think he's already the Tyler Durden of French gun club.

@@walkingcontradiction223 can you blame him? The French have done so much weird and wonderful stuff.

Interesting! I’ll have to look it up.

You can still find ammo here and there, but it's getting more uncommon. Didn't last long as the ATF ruled that if any combustion was going on it's a firearm and not an air gun. That applies to liquid fuels as well-- I asked a while back for one of my hairbrained ideas.

​@@gresvig2507 All the more reason for a Railgun.

Yes indeed, there is even a semi official serial number block for the batch somewhere. I chose to remain vague since I don’t have concrete facts for the US service.

I suspect it fouls up quickly from black powder gunk blowing back into the cylinder.

Im pretty sure Daisy used it in the 50s for their caseless rifle.

@@MandoWookie They did indeed.

@@MandoWookie interesting I did not know this. I'll have to check that out. thank you

I'm sure it would be fun, but insure your fingers before you load. Best given to a rich elderly relative for testing. I hope you have some machining success.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen numbered chambers on revolvers. Maybe something g to do with proofing requirements at the time?

This fired a black powder load, not smokeless powder. That would come later..in 1886

in the armies of the time, mass was often preferred over individual firepower, especially for handguns as they were more often a last resort and even for the frontline troops who were equipped with them (cavalry), they were a sidearm to the sabre or the lance there was also the fact that it was a relative period of peace for the european powers, and a period of colonial expansion so needs for having "the better gun" weren't as pressing, while concerns of shipping troops with arms and ammunition were very much across all minds (everything had to be ultimately carried by the footman as the motor carriage was still a long way) there was also simply that metallic cartridges hadn't fully matured yet, be it in their conception or fabrication, and they costed a lot in a period of large (for their population) armies these days armies are much smaller than even 30 years ago, so the individual qualities of the equipments matter more, also while the weapons evolved a lot and cost a pretty penny, so did their targets, we fire millon dollar missiles at jet fighters that cost 10x more

@@quentintin1 As you say, when you are putting a million troops in the field as opposed to ten thousand, price matters in a very different way. We certainly think in vastly different scales than armies once did, and that makes a big difference to the comparisons. Much like a business now might consider an hour of labour to be a higher cost than a few dollars of consumables, whereas in the past a penny could be saved by a single person's daily labour. These equations change.

@@quentintin1 Well put, Max

Was it one of these: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/nNdnn6WbsJvFdJ8.html

Munitions- und Feuerwaffenneuinstandssetzungsbüchsenmacherwerkstattzentrale Niederlassung Chapingdorf

No because the pinfire revolver was patented a year before the Rollin White system.

No more than any other percussion revolver. And many pinfire revolvers/pistols/pepperbox/rifles/shotguns had a guard around the exposed pin.

For 38 colt to work it would have to have been a (civilian) 9mm pinfire revolver. However the conversion to centrefire is entirely possible, I’ve seen it done on several examples.

From my research I am of the opinion that they were initially produced blued. Examples are seen in Henri Vuillemin’s « Les revolvers militaires français » and D.Casanova/J.B Bastie « Les armes de la royale ». It is entirely possible that the bluing was then stopped early in production and stripped when revolvers went in for repair or upgrading in the mit 1860s since I have never seen an example of a blued one with a rod guide or an NT or T modification. It would make sense to remove the bluing when machining and soldering needed to be done. The bluing on this one is 100% original and even throughout.

​@@thebotrchap Interesting ! As far as I am concerned, all the untouched navy 1858 I've seen were polished, just like the other weapons of the navy (like the 1870 revolver you show). Even the repeating 1878 Kropatschek rifle, which was only used by the navy, was polished even though the Gras 1874 the army used then was blued since the very beginning. Some 1858 were blued, but most often these guns are those made for the private market and used in quite large numbers by the French officers during the 1870 war. But they are easily recognizable as they don't have, first of all, the markings of the Manufacture impériale de Saint-Etienne. It should be interesting to know what Vuillemin says about this, if he says something. Anyway, a splendid revolver you have here, I envy you...

Outside of my collecting sphere unfortunately

@@thebotrchap yeah not much information about them

@@fireformedwind9376 I see there are a few in the Royal Armouries collection. Perhaps they might be persuaded to feature them in an article or video.

It isn’t quite as cumbersome as you might think. The pin being exposed allows one to more readily line up the pin via touch, and it is certainly faster than using a percussion cap revolver, even with paper cartridges.

What about them?

@@thebotrchap Shocked to see them, do you have a video about the reloading process?

@@nono-jj9rr Someone wasn't paying attention 😜 As hinted at in the thumbnail and mentioned during the shooting section, the full reloading process vid will come out on Utreon next week 😃

@@nono-jj9rrthere are videos abound on reloading pin fires. It is rather simple.