Arms Inspection Observations from World Championships

[Mike OTDP]

I got tagged to do arms inspection at the World Championships last month, and had some observations that might be of interest. I'm primarily a pistol shooter myself, so my comments will be mostly on the pistols.

Repro revolver (matches "Mariette" and "Malson-R"): About 85% of the guns are Hege-Remingtons. Another 10% are Feinwerkbau "History #2" Rogers & Spencer repros. All other types combined might have made up 5% of the guns. It actually got a little boring...Hege, Hege, another Hege.

Original revolver (matches "Colt" and "Malson-O"): Remington, the occasional Rogers & Spencer. Nothing else.

Repro percussion pistol (match "Kuchenreuter-R"): The underhammers are dominating these days. Feinwerkbau's "History #1" is the most popular, but there are other makes, as well as the custom guns from smiths like Baumkircher and Dedinski. A few sidelock guns, but most shooters have gone underhammer.

Original percussion pistol (match "Kuchenreuter-O"): A grab bag of sidelock percussion target pistols. No maker dominates. Nice guns.

Repro flintlock pistol (match "Cominazzo-R"): The Hege-Manton is by far the most popular. Odd, considering that the gun has been out of production for about 10 years. A few Pedersoli LePages, a few custom guns. Very little else.

Original flintlock pistol (match "Cominazzo-O"): Flintlock duelling pistols. A real mix of makers. If I do this again, I'm bringing a camera. There are some gorgeous guns out there.

Repro matchlock pistol (match "Tanzutsu-R"): Another grab bag, with a fair number of custom guns.

As for rifles...the offhand rifles, other than the military arms, are very heavy. 15 lbs or more. And peep sights are standard, even on the flintlocks.

Shotguns? The Pedersoli offerings were fairly popular. It's really not my specialty.

Thought it might be of interest.

 

[swopjan]

"Original revolver" had a few Rogers & Spencers? Aren't there only a handful of those, if that, floating around in museums?

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Thank you!

Do they have an unlimited class, sort of like the free pistol at the Olympics?

I was wondering if things like the Yazel, Lewis, etc show up.

 

[Mike OTDP]

Swopjan: They made 5,000 R&S revolvers. I'd say that 4,900 are in private hands.

Zimmerstutzen: No, all arms are required to be either original or a replica of an original.

 

[kBob]

Mike I am not at all sure the 5000 number is for total production. I understand that the 5000 number was for the US Army contract and that others were produced. I have read somewhere that a batch was sold to France when the French were buying everything they could get as anti Prussian material a scant half decade after the War Between the States and long before Bannerman bought the 5000 pieces of iron scrap. This might well acount for originals in Europe.

Some one recently posted that some R&S had been reissued to US troops fighting the Moros. I think this is the result of a painting That used to be seen a good bit where in an Officer has one as he leads Krag rifle armed troops and I suspect that the artist simply painted a handgun he knew.

-kBob