Help with revolver history: Rohm RG10s

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The history of Rohm began in Bulgaria where goats were bred to have muscular intestines. These goats were fed ferrous and alloy scrap metal and kept in huge mountainous pastures. Each day afterwards, the peasant farmers would gather Rohm revolvers among the toadstools.
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XavierBreath,

That is, without a doubt, one of the most hilarious statements I have ever read on THR! Well done! :D

Guess the best you could say of a Rohm is that it'd probably hurt if you threw at a bad guy. Then again, it might come unglued in midair.

Swidgen,

MCGunner offers good advice on the Rossi. I'd also recommend a used Taurus, they can be had on the cheap as well, plus they have a lifetime warranty.

Then again, depending on what part of the country you live in, their are TONS of S&W Model 10s on the market. A Model 10 in fine mechanical condition with a fair finish can be had for under $200. Maybe less. Go check out a gunshow in your area and have a look around. Make yourself familiar with Jim March's revolver checkout procedure at the top of the Revolver forum.

Here is an example of a Model 10 (well, pre-model 10 designation) at gunbroker for $200:

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=61468037
 
...a bench vice and 100yds of string
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Actually, Jim, if you are talking about a .44Mag RG, I think your string is about 150 Yards short... :evil: :D

I have owned a few different RG's over the years, and most of them sent at least as much lead sideways and back toward the operator as they sent downrange.

I do currently have a .38Spl 'snubby' RG that shoots decently, but I don't put any load even remotely hot in it. The PMC brand of 132-gr or so FMJ round nose works about the best in it.
 
Got an RG .32 S&WL. It's never failed to fire and accuracy isn't all that bad. But it is a piece of ****. The history of Rohm began in Bulgaria where goats were bred to have muscular intestines. These goats were fed ferrous and alloy scrap metal and kept in huge mountainous pastures. Each day afterwards, the peasant farmers would gather Rohm revolvers among the toadstools. Actually, a piece of goat****.
 
My Grandparents, staunch Republicans that they were, were also very anti-gun oriented. (The arguments between my Democrat Dad, who was very pro-gun and my Mom's parents were the stuff from which bizarre dreams are made and still linger to this day)... but I digress.

Grandparents home was broken into by some nefarious teenage type so they had bars installed over every opening and bought... A. Gun. (Which I never saw or heard about)

Fast forward to about a week after my Grandfather's death. My Grandma took me aside and said, "Here Bob. Grandad wanted you to have this." And she told me the entire story.

Yes. An RG10. Pristine. Virginal. Unturned. Sticker tag of $32.95 on the box. An unopened box of WW Wildcat .22's inside as well.

Yes, I did take it out and run a cylinder full through it. Took it home, cleaned it put it away and there it sits to this day.

Anti-gun Repubs who bought a something. Felt safer for doing so. Never loaded it, or (as best I can tell) took it out of it's box. Probably felt safer for doing so.

My Dad and I shared a small chuckle from it all.

My son and daughter know the story.

They can dispose of it someday if they choose. It might even be worth $35 by then. They are forbidden to shoot it. Both have much nicer things that go bang they have received from their father.
 
A friend gave me one about 20 years ago. It sat in my gun cabinet for 18 years until I got $50 for it at a local police "Buy Back" If nothing else, take it from your friend and do the same. As a matter of fact, my gun was featured on the news as the type of weapons they were trying to get off the street and " it was a success just to get another Saturday Night Special off the street so no one would get hurt with it". Never mind it was locked up for the past 18 years so that wouldn't happen....:D But what the hey, I got $50 for my Rhom!!
 
I got a .22LR RG-24 from my brother in the late 80's (actually, it would be more accurate to say I stole it from him, but, hey, what are brothers for?). He got it from the hardware store where worked - another employee left it and a .38 revolver (unknown manufacture - the manager took that one) - for free. By the time I got it, the extractor was broken loose (still worked, though, you had to make sure it didn't fall out), and the rib along the top of the barrel was bent to one side ever so slightly. I never fired real bullets in it, but I did fire a few blanks; it generally took twelve trigger pulls to fire all six shots. In the mid-90's I took it to a nearby gun store to see if it was at all worth repairing. It was not, so I gave it to them to destroy; they gave me $5 for the parts.

A postscript, I told my brother about this a couple of years after disposing of the gun, but he had long since forgotten even owning it, so he just shrugged it off with a laugh.
 
I love these reviews. I've even thought about becoming a troll, just so I could post messages on RG handguns. Seriously, the gun isn't worth spit, but I'd take one for free as a collector's item. I'm convinced that one day they may actually have some sentimental value for guys who bought them before they got good advice.

I had a single action .22LR that was junk, but I wish I could get one now for next to nothing. It was chrome plated and mostly made from aluminum and pot steel. It had brown plastic grips that were always coming loose. But it was a great gun when I couldn't afford anything better. It always shot, but rarely hit what I aimed for. And even though I have a nice stainless Ruger Single-Six, I always think about the RG when I clean it.

It was lightweight and I never feared losing it or breaking it. But if I had two new ones in the boxes, I'd go get it and look at it every now and again. Remember, though, that the gun I had was vastly superior to the gun you mentioned. RGs are junk. Get a good revolver and you'll find the shooting sports to be wonderful.

apr28_01.jpg

This is the "deluxe" model of the pistol used to shoot
President Reagan. You can tell because of the gold pimp
grips. The ejector detaches and pokes out all the .22 cases
one by one.
 
Oh, I just came across this for sale at Guns America and it's priceless. This one is for sale for $110. See the description under the photo.


976754611-1.jpg


I just purchased this firearm for my wife
a few weeks ago. She put about 36 rounds
into it, and then realized she rather have a
Sig-Sauer after seeing her friend with one.
This is in its original box, works fine, and
again only about 36 shots went through....
Uses .22 Short.
 
My wife's cousin David handed me a box full of parts on Friday. I never knew about RG pistols until today. I just finished putting the thing together - RG10s with white plastic grips. It was fun to learn how a revolver trigger assembly goes together (new to me) but after reading the above comments, and seeing the play in the cylinder, I'd be afraid to ever shoot it. It'll be a curiosity piece - particularly its origin. David's Dad was a retired LEO and passed away Oct. 05. He remembers his Dad messing with it about 10-15 years ago, which means he aquired it while he was on the force. So why did a cop have a crap Saturday Night Special like this?
 
Since I own a CZ52, a Mauser C96 and a Webley (they should star in a movie "The Ugly, the Ugly and the Ugly")
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Perhaps not pretty, but they're good firearms.

The Rohm is not.

I've had the displeasure of handling one, a .22lr revolver. The front sight was welded on crooked, and it took an average of 2.5 strikes before primers would be ignited.

I met a guy who'd worked for their American marketing division in the 1960s (?!?), and even he acknowledges that they were junk. There's no real steel in them, and theoretically, you could melt one on a household stove.

Other members have pointed out great "cheap" revolvers, and I couldn't agree more.
 
If I were you I would accept the gun, just to make sure that your friend doesn't give it to someone that might fire it.

I have enjoyed firing a number of RG pistols. I have not enjoyed firing RG-10s. They are inaccurate, inconsistant, and, in my opinion, dangerous to shoot.

You might keep it to make all of your other guns look better.
 
Got one. Hate it. Not accurate. Fires occasionally. Keeping it cause it was my mom's (and my dad dremeled her name and SS# on it.) I took it away from her and gave her a S&W Model 36 instead.
 
I have an RG23 (given to me.) First time I took it out, my hand cramped from the stiff DA trigger. I have not had any misfires in SA. But, don't recall that I hit anything with it either.

It looks like a gun. But not like a quality gun.
 
OMG, a thread where EVERYONE agrees on something! :eek:

And I'll concur. I had one. I never even TRIED to shoot it. I dropped it in the deepest part of the lake.............and I felt really bad about it. Even catfish deserve better guns to poop on.

PJ
 
I had gotten a few .22 l.r. and .38 Special Roehms from law enforcement auctions. A friend with an FFL bought them by the drum and I bought them off him starting at $5 plus tax. Some worked pretty well. One .38 Special with a swing out cylinder wasn't bad at all but I always expected parts failure.

If you can buy it for $20, it's okay but they are not worth a whole lot more, especially with .22 short being kind of expensive.

I actually got a small .22 l.r Roehm because the grip was small enough for my sons to shoot at that time. They were probably 4 years ols and did not aim, just pulled the trigger.
 
I had one in the early '70s. I've always been a decent shot but I couldn't hit the side of a barn with the RG .38 spl.

As a matter of fact, by ten yards that bullets were hitting the targets sideways (keyholing). I'll swear, a 3' group would have been doing good at ten yards. However, as a starving college kid, I delivered emergency fuel oil to rough parts of town at night and needed to have SOME sort of protection.

Eventually, the POS broke a spring so I took it by a gunsmith. His store was packed with customers so I waited for things to quiet down before finally pulling it out and asking him how much it would cost to replace the trigger spring.

WRONG MOVE!

In a VERY LOUD voice (so everyone there could hear) he said,

"Son, that's a G___Damned RG. If you want to tell someone you pissed away twenty dollars, tie the twenty to that POS and chuck in in the river!"

You could hear a pin drop as every eye in the store looked to see who the bozo was who had the RG. I've never been so embarrassed in my life . . . and I slinked out the door! He WAS right though, as any RG owner knew back then.

Eventually, I took a sledge hammer to it, reduced it into parts that no one could get hurt trying to shoot . . . and chucked it in the river anyway!!!

After that, I've bought only quality and left those 3 foot six-shot groups at ten yards behind and returned to the one inch groups at that distance from my Smiths.

Yep . . . in "the day," they were called "Saturday Night Specials," and Congress eventually banned 'em . . . forcing the bad guys to upgrade their arsenals to dependable weapons that shot dead on.

In retrospect, I'm not sure that IMPROVED safety for the decent folks!
 
Eventually, the POS broke a spring so I took it by a gunsmith. His store was packed with customers so I waited for things to quiet down before finally pulling it out and asking him how much it would cost to replace the trigger spring.

WRONG MOVE!
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This is funny. I had heard stories about this brand, but never had seen one... until this past July 4th. A family member asked me to take a pistol to my gunsmith to "see if anything could be done" (there aren't many gun enthusiasts in my family). So I'm thinking maybe it's a Taurus or Rossi... but I saw that RG on the side. It was a .38 Special.

We loaded up a cylinder, and 2 rounds fired okay and then "click" - with the trigger getting stuck pulled back and having to be coaxed back into place. Probably a busted spring. Not very confidence inspiring, I was definitely underwhelmed.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that the gun probably wouldn't be worth the repair bill nor the gas to get it there... IF my 'smith would work on it. Which I was fairly sure he would not have wanted to.


I fed him some line about losing touch with him basically in order to avoid a scene like S&Wfan's. If I had read this thread first, I probably wouldn't even have tried to fire the gun at all.
 
I have to laugh at this thread, because I have an RG-10. It was my grandpa's nightstand gun, so it's hard for me to get rid of, but it's without a doubt the worst piece of junk I've ever fired. Just awful. My grandson doesn't even like it.
 
MAYPOP , DOORSTOP, BOAT ANCHOR,
Might give you the edge in a KNIFE FIGHT, but don't count on it!
 
I Bought 2 of them many years ago for $10.00. My buddy and I shot the crap out of them just for the fun of it. I ended up giving him one and he still shoots it on occasion. Yes it will fire, yes it is junk. But 2 of them for $10.00, I have spent more on other junk.
I still have my Rohm RG10, I have not shot it in many years, it is a good reminder of what not to buy.
 
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