Adventures with a Reichsrevolver.

[Crank]

Recently, I was able to get a Reichsrevolver for a good price and decided it would be a fun addition. Well, I had seen all the posts about us in .44 Russian/Special brass and ammo, so I didn't expect much of a surprise. Yeah, that didn't happen. The charge holes are straight through at .455" and the groove depth is about .435 ish. Now I didn't want the bullet getting lost as it transitioned from the case mouth to it's eventual meeting with the forcing cone. After looking at some .444 Marlin brass, I remembered .445 Super Mag. Well, it just so happened that 53 case were on GB and I snapped them up. They showed up yesterday, but it took me until today to find my case trimmer. Here is the brass modified by shortening them to 1.520.

148398

148399

148400

Now obviously, the bullet will be seated flush and the case will be like a Nagant, in some ways. For now , all I have are some .427 bullets laying around. Ideally, I will be able to find some bullets closer in size, preferably a wad cutter design, but this should work for now. It should shoot a wee bit better than some of the things people are doing. Here is a shot of it as I am having to make some new grips for it because some previous owner decided to alter the frame and it has a grip more like an SAA.

148401

Until our next exciting episode!

Mark

[Nocturnal Stumblebutt]

I have some 230 grain NOE wadcutters that cast to about .433 with COWW +2%. I'd be happy to send you some if you PM me your address.

[Crank]

Thank you very much for the offer, PM sent. I am curious how well this old girl will shoot. I am amazed no one mentioned any concern about the sizing variations, it seems like a recipe for wantonly hurling bullets downrange. I am on the fence to try loads with Trail Boss, since I still have some and not too much use for it. It might be a good way to burn some up and it might actually work well. I am that rare individual that has had less than ideal results in other calibers with this stuff. I have used it in some larger BP cartridges and it just never responded well, so maybe the smaller powder charge will respond better. Otherwise I will use some American Pioneer BP alternative.

Mark

[Nocturnal Stumblebutt]

I find the throat less cylinder to be both fascinating and dumbfounding. How one could have the skill to design and build a revolver without understand the purpose of, and need for, cylinder throats is beyond me. How consistent are the chambers? Are they all cut fairly straight and to the same size.

Also, I wish I had some bullets from NOE's hollow base wadcutter mold to offer you, maybe someone here will be so kind.

[oscarflytyer]

Dang - that HAS to be a labor of love! Good Luck!

[oscarflytyer]

So what size bullets you need? and weight? Not sure. But I would donate some H&G 200 grn SWCs at ~.452; or some 217 ~.430 RN, or something else if they will get that old thing shooting. Cool project!

[runfiverun]

this looks like the job for some neck turningand blowing out or some inside reaming for a boolit stop.
a wad cutter and some black powder.
or a hollow based 433 ish sumthin or other flat nosed and a powder column of the right height with a slight roll crimp over the nose.

[Crank]

Well, to address this in order.
The best guess I have is they intended a heeled bullet and the cylinders are very consistent, so they must have felt comfortable with the bullet squeezing down .020" since it would have been a soft lead.

Labor of love? Nah, just me keeping things interesting. I do appreciate the kind thoughts. Look at some of the other daffy things I play with, normal never comes into the equation. I have never shared it here on the forum, but I have a Dreyse rifle in an unknown caliber that I made brass for and very much enjoy shooting since it causes quite a stir at the range. When everyone else zigs, I zag.

I appreciate the offer for the projos, but if I do need something, I actually need bullets as close to .435 as I can get, or as noted, a hollow base design.
Thanks to all!

Mark

[Crank]

runfiverun,
You posted while I was replying, but you are right on track. That is my ideal, at least in my head. The brass won't need any neck thinning, since it will work as a bullet guide. This is a neat revolver, it's built like a brick outhouse. I do need to machine a new cylinder pin, the original was damaged somehow and the retaining parts are missing. I just have to sit down and use my case trimmer on the remaining 47 pieces of brass, then I can start loading.

Mark

[Crank]

In the meantime, I threw the first coat of boiled linseed oil on the grips yesterday, so now that slow process begins. I cut them from a slab of burl walnut and did my best to mirror the grain. The photos don't do the wood justice, once the sanding, filling and polishing is done they should help give the gun a bit of class. Whoever altered the frame, did a very skilled job, but the grips were some material similar to Bondo and they used white house paint on them. The toughest part of the grips was the inlays for the escutcheons, which miraculously stayed with the gun. Again, I want to express my sincere thanks to all of the generous offers and support from the great members of this forum.

Mark

[runfiverun]

I got to thinking about this a little bit.
a cork filler plug like they used to use in shotguns might be an ideal height positioner here and it would be a good way to protect the base of the boolit too.
a load of unique could then be settled on [8ish grs] it's fluffy and takes weight on top of it well.
then you'd just have to slide the boolit in and lightly roll crimp to hold everything together.
it would be similar to a roll crimped shot-shell, but with good neck tension.

[Crank]

I have a set of 44-40 dies that should provide a bit of a rolled edge without squeezing the case down once the bullet is seated full depth. At best, this casing will have about the same capacity as a .44 Special, so with a nice bulky powder it should be fairly mellow. I would be happy to get the bullet on it's way around 750fps, it would have enough authority, but be pleasant to enjoy with mild recoil. If I need horsepower, I have plenty of alternatives, this old timer will lead a life of leisure. I do have plenty of Unique, but no cork, I would have to hit the craft store or auto parts store for that one. I think a charge that heavy, would risk my wife collecting on my life insurance policy.

Mark

[Ballistics in Scotland]

My Reichsrevolver is also the short-barreled 1883 model like yours and is stamped V.C.S. & C.G.H. SUHL for Valentin Christoph Schilling & C. G. Haenel. The cylinder with matching serial number, certainly isn't straight-chambered. It measures .457 at the rear and .437 at the front, although there is no perceptible shoulder and it must come close to a straight taper. This last was by no means unusual at the time at a point when a non-heel revolver bullet was still something of a novelty, although my single-action Smith and Wesson Russian has a pronounced step. I make my groove diameter about .438in. at the muzzle, and the barrel lead unlike many of the time, isn't oversize in either diameter or length.

The cartridge virtually is the 10.6mm. Mauser, developed for the zig-zag revolver which the German government declined to adopt. Books on cartridges tend to either parrot one another's errors or reflect the full variety of bullets which have actually been found. But the RWS ammunition catalogue of 1904 lists the diameter of the bullet as 0.9mm., or about .429in. While initially a hollow base bullet may have been considered or even used, there is no indication that the service bullet was. Not was it a heel bullet, although it has no grooves on the portion that was covered by the case, although that would possibly have been a better place to put them than out in the fresh air and the dust.

This would be a bad combination of lead and steel diameters in a revolver that demands a jacketed bullet or really hard alloy. But this one didn't, and I think in soft lead this combination would have worked well.



148440


I like this revolver very much. Although I have never shot mine, it would be far better for the modern recreational shooter than for military service in the field. It has good sights and trigger pull, and the axis pin is faultlessly held and released. It is very well made indeed, and assuming the metal to be good, should be very strong. Not long before, people who fought duels in which one shot was all you would ever have, favoured just that shape of grip, and it works. I don't think anybody need feel worse armed with it, than with a hardball 9mm. automatic. I am pretty sure Wild Bill wouldn't.

It is, however, far more primitive than the excellent double-action revolver, with the lockwork easily exposed without tools, which the French had introduced in 1873. It lasted until the introduction of the Luger in 1908 too, if not longer, and some were certainly carried in the First World War. I think this may be the reason for the many old arsenal refinishes we find.

Your modified butt interests me, because I have a Dutch 9.4mm. ordnance revolver of the rare small but not five-shot model which was made for private purchase. I can just make out the ghost of the usual broomhandle butt (which resembles no broom I ever saw), grafted into the flared butt you see here. The stocks are made by myself, since it came with crude ones, backed with paper, in what I take to be WW2 aircraft plexiglass. The join is so good I can't tell whether it is brazed, welded or what - so different, in fact, from the standards of the plexiglass butcher that I assume it to have been done at some other time. I wouldn't exclude the possibility of its being a factory job. Webley supplied solid frame revolvers for the bodyguard of the King of Monte***** in which the factory brazed on an almost horizontal rat-tail grip. Ours would make more sense than giving a nasty shock to someone who assumed it to be the customary flintlock protruding from a bodyguard's sash.

The asterisks aren't mine, and fell foul of the autocensoring of a word sometimes used to refer to a black person.

[Mytmousemalibu]

Wow, those throats are generous! Just like you, I was thinking the 10.6x25R it was chambered for is of a heeled boolit design, makes sense. I found a picture of the ammo that looks to be a heeled design.

Ian at Forgotten Weapons has a couple of good info/videos about the Reichsrevolver, pretty neat, I wouldn't mind having one of those tanks! I am an admitted Forgotten Weapons user, I can't get enough! It's always neat and or obscure firearms Ian features!

MODEL 1879 Reichsrevolver
http://www.forgottenweapons.com/model-1879-reichsrevolver-at-ria/

MODEL 1883 Reichsrevolvers
http://www.forgottenweapons.com/model-1883-reichsrevolvers-at-ria/

[jumbeaux]

FYI there was an excellent WWII movie with Richard Baseheart and Werner Oskar that showed these revolvers in use. Don't know if any were actually utilized during WWII.

[Crank]

Ballistic
Thanks for the wonderful details, this example I have is an Erfurt production from 1894. Oddly enough, as you mentioned, the modified grip is well executed, the grips however were abysmal. The modified grip on the Dutch revolver is quite awkward in appearance, but looks interesting.
Thanks

Mark

[Crank]

I just want to let everyone know that Nocturnal Stumblebutt is a great forum member! I just got a nice bag of boolits that should help this old girl back onto the firing line.
Thanks

Mark