1895 Nagant Revolver

Beautiful! Refurbished or not that barrel looks pristine.
I think the Central Committee mandated it should take two men and a small boy to pull the trigger on Russian double action revolvers as a way to conserve ammunition. I can’t think of another reason.
Looking forward to a range report when you have ammo

Robk13 said:

I remember the adds for these when they were 79.99

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In 2000, Century was selling these for $50.

Nice looking example. I don't know anything about production numbers. In fact, I am surprised the Russians were still making these as late as 1944. They were not very pistol oriented.

Supposedly, there are .32 acp conversion kits out there for them. Of course, it might be easier to find actual Nagant ammo now than .32........

My Dad has one of the actual Belgian service Nagant revolvers, resleeved for .22 rimfire. It is a beautifully made gun, believe it or not, with an excellent trigger and gorgeous straw bluing. Of course, that model dispensed with the gas sealing feature.

Robk13 said:

Hanno, looking back these would have made a really good investment. As many as there were back then I could not have imagined they price jump they experienced but the same can be said about many other surplus items I suppose.

Monac I would have thought that production of the tt33 would have taken priority in these factories. I wonder why they just kept cranking them out. I also seen an example of a 1946!

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You answered your own question, my friend. Continued high-rate production took precedence over retooling or development for different/ newer models, and the Nagant was "good enough" for its very limited wartime purpose- mostly executing prisoners and defectors.

Same reason the Germans kept the Luger and MG34 in production long after their supposed replacement weapons, the P38 and MG42 were fielded. They always needed more guns- like yesterday.......

NIGHTLORD40K said:

Supposedly, there are .32 acp conversion kits out there for them. Of course, it might be easier to find actual Nagant ammo now than .32........

My Dad has one of the actual Belgian service Nagant revolvers, resleeved for .22 rimfire. It is a beautifully made gun, believe it or not, with an excellent trigger and gorgeous straw bluing. Of course, that model dispensed with the gas sealing feature.

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According the littlegun.be

Quote from littlegun.be

They are actually not that bad. I have a 1938 Tula and would feel far from unarmed with it, especially using milspec ammo.

Hopefully you will get surplus 108 grain ammo. It is very much hotter than the PPU commercial stuff. Unless you have gorilla hands SA is the way to go with the Nagant 1895. Accuracy is not that bad in my experience, especially when shot two handed.

Hard to believe but Nagants were still being used by guards well after 2000.

They are still used today by various Russian security firms and railroad police.

When people first see the following image, they think that the commissar looks like that because he is angry.

I did, too ... until ... I bought a Mod.1895 revolver and quickly realized that that poor guy is just trying to get the bloody thing to fire.

Your holster is likely made of the Russian synthetic leather KIRZA. Natural fibers with various binders - eggs were used early on if memory serves. They rolled that pebbly texture onto it to resemble pig skin. Hundreds of thousands of Russian boots were made from Kirza.
The ammo pouch appears to be something else.

I can recall seeing the ads for these ~20 years ago and being fascinated at how "steampunk" they look.

I did not initially buy one because the 7.62x38r milsurp ammo costs were WAY out of line with other com-bloc chlorate-primered milsurp ammo flavors.

Several years later, long after they had disappeared from the distributor's ads, I decided that I needed to have one in my collection. A couple of years after that some EXC-conditions popped up (2013, SOG, $128.70, delivered) and I bought one.

At about that time I came across a couple of half-off clearance sales on PPU and Fiocchi Nagant factory ammo (~800 rounds remain), so I stocked up on the bunny-fart rounds with a firm eye on reusing the cases.

To date, I have not yet gotten around to developing loads for the 7.62x38r, although I have everything that I will need to accomplish the project.

Someday.

EDIT: Funny. I used the term bunny-fart to refer to the PPU & Fiocchi commercial rounds before reading Post#5 where the OP makes the same reference. <chuckle> I guess that represents a basic meeting of the 1895-Owners' minds regarding these commercial offerings.

NIGHTLORD40K said:

My Dad has one of the actual Belgian service Nagant revolvers, resleeved for .22 rimfire. It is a beautifully made gun, believe it or not, with an excellent trigger and gorgeous straw bluing. Of course, that model dispensed with the gas sealing feature.

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Quote littlegun.be
Swedish .22 LR Nagant M.1887 revolver.

Pretty much the only thing I don't like about the Nagant series of revolvers is the "free wheel" nature of the cylinder at rest. The Russians at least figured out to use an extension on the loading gate to engage an extra cylinder detent and provide some resistance. My Swedish Husqvarna is no different than a 2nd Model Iver Johnson- nothing keeps the cylinder indexed. I guess it's not a problem if the cylinder is fully loaded, but could definitely cause an issue if fired and then manhandled a bit.

Robk13 said:

Hanno, looking back these would have made a really good investment. As many as there were back then I could not have imagined they price jump they experienced but the same can be said about many other surplus items I suppose.

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Yeah, I bought one for the princely sum of $49.87 shipped. Wish I had bought a few more. I take mine out once in awhile for plinking.


The better deals back then were the $100 EG Maks. Oh, for a time machine.

Rex in OTZ said:

Quote littlegun.be
Swedish .22 LR Nagant M.1887 revolver.

The revolver was manufactured by Husqvarna, Sweden, as indicated by markings located on the left side of the frame, just in front of the cylinder.
Husqvarna manufactured only 14,000 revolvers from 1897 to 1905. Due to attrition over time, collector desirability, and such low production numbers, the M1887 revolver is getting difficult to find.
The revolver is almost identical with Norwegian M.1893. The major difference is a square front sight, instead of the rounded one on the Norwegian gun.
The revolver was converted to fire .22 LR by means of inserting subcaliber tubes into barrel and cylinder's chambers.
Right side of the revolver's frame displays Swedish military property number, "L No. 308".
4.5 inch long octagonal barrel.
Many thanks to "COLLECTIBLEFIREARMS" for the nice pictures​

View attachment 981742 View attachment 981743 View attachment 981744 View attachment 981745

All the weapons made in Belgium by manufacture NAGANT carry the inscription “PATENT NAGANT” on two lines, followed serial number.
For the weapons in service in Luxembourg, it’s about the only marking. The weapons in service in Norway have a front sight in half-moon with setback.
View attachment 981747
So my take from the littlegun.be site is that Nagant did produce .22 rimfire revolvers for Sweden and Norway in small numbers.​

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Wow, neato, thanks for that!

Its been many years since Ive seen Dad's rimfire Nagant, but I seem to remember the conversation being much cruder, most likely a gunsmith special.

NIGHTLORD40K said:

Wow, neato, thanks for that!

Its been many years since Ive seen Dad's rimfire Nagant, but I seem to remember the conversation being much cruder, most likely a gunsmith special.

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I'd like to hear back on your dad's rimfire, is it a flat front sight Swede or a halfmoon Norwegian?
Or is it just as you said a Stateside conversion?
The littlegun.be sight has quite the coverage but like baseball trading cards, there are some out there we have yet to see.

7.62x54r.net is proud to take over the duties of hosting this page on the M1895 Nagant revolver from Njanear. "Njanear's M1895 Nagant Revolver Collection Page" was the best source of information on Nagant revolvers on the internet for many years.
http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinRareNagant.htm

As I remember a few spiffed up ex-soviet nagants came in that were interesting.
Example photo below

The first time I fired one of those PPU loads in my Nagant....I couldn't believe my senses. Was there any powder in those things? Or was it all primer powered like a BB cap? I tried a little experiment and shot a 2X4. You guessed it..... it did not go through! The bullet penetrated about 3/4" and stopped. Russian surplus loads were a little stronger, but not by much. All in all, the gun and its ammo would not be my first choice for a carry gun!

Rex in OTZ said:

I'd like to hear back on your dad's rimfire, is it a flat front sight Swede or a halfmoon Norwegian?
Or is it just as you said a Stateside conversion?
The littlegun.be sight has quite the coverage but like baseball trading cards, there are some out there we have yet to see.

7.62x54r.net is proud to take over the duties of hosting this page on the M1895 Nagant revolver from Njanear. "Njanear's M1895 Nagant Revolver Collection Page" was the best source of information on Nagant revolvers on the internet for many years.
http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinRareNagant.htm

As I remember a few spiffed up ex-soviet nagants came in that were interesting.
Example photo below
View attachment 981785

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Its probably so deeply buried in one of his many gun safes, it wont see the light of day until he retires down here and we have to move it all. I doubt he even knows exactly where it is........

Only reason I'd buy one is for the cheepness. Given a choice between it and a TT-33... despite my love for wheelguns, I'd take the tt-33.

I used one as my go-to home defense gun when I was younger and poorer. Felt better after I upgraded to a Smith, but wasn’t quaking in my boots with just the Nagant, either.

For what they’re made for, they’re not THAT bad. DA trigger is atrocious, but they were really only ever intended to be SA guns anyway (to save ammo.) DA was an afterthought. And the service ammo is fairly hot. Thought being, if you need to reload your revolver in a hurry you’re screwed anyway. So in a pinch, you have 7 shots of a hot .30 caliber, with revolver reliability. You could do a lot worse. I’d rather be issued a Nagant than a Ruby, for instance. And I say that as a .32 fanboy. Fun to shoot? Not really. Effective? Yeah.

tark said:

The first time I fired one of those PPU loads in my Nagant....I couldn't believe my senses. Was there any powder in those things? Or was it all primer powered like a BB cap? I tried a little experiment and shot a 2X4. You guessed it..... it did not go through! The bullet penetrated about 3/4" and stopped. Russian surplus loads were a little stronger, but not by much. All in all, the gun and its ammo would not be my first choice for a carry gun!

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You know there was a guy around the Forum who had successfully suppressed one of these, it was pretty darn quiet !