What is this 22 Revolver

[shootstraight57]

I was recently given this old 22 revolver but cannot find any information on it. If anyone out there has seen one before please let me know.
In front of the cylinder on the right side is the name Senorita with the serial number on the left side. The grips has the letter B.
Any info would be appreciated.

 

[navajo]

Llooks like a pot metal RG.

 

[tahunua001]

I don't know who you think you are but you better take a look where you're at

wrong forum, perhaps in one of the pistol forums or the firearms research forum instead. I doubt you'll get much help in rifle country.

 

[shootstraight57]

Sorry about that!!

 

[gopguy]

Not really the right section for this but I will tell you what you have.

One of many different variants of inexpensive .22 revolvers made in Germany and imported into the US from the 1950s and 60s prior to the 1968 gun control act. This looks like a Rohm product. After the import ban parts like the barrel and cylinder were made in Germany and shipped in Hialeah Florida where they continued to make guns like this under the RG name. Again cheap and of little interest to most collectors.

It is what anti gunners would call a classic example of a Saturday Night Special. Glad you paid nothing for it as they have very little value. Best used as a paperweight. At the age of 15 I bought a RG 23 for $15, this was in the 70s. Found it in a antique shop. The revolver was a six shot in .22lr with a swing out cylinder. It was only reliable to fire in single action and not accurate at all. I gave mine away too, to an old girlfriend while in college.

Another example of this breed from back in the day... As you can see they were quite cheap.



Your gun looks exactly like an RG 10. This one made in 1967 prior to the import ban.

 

[Ash]

It is proof that just because something is made in Germany, it does not necessarily mean it is any good.

Rohm is the company that made them, and the products were generally not very good.

 

[shootstraight57]

Thanks for the information gopguy. I wasn't paying attention to which forum I was on when I started the thread.

 

[baz]

It is an sbr (short barreled revolver), often mistaken for an SBR (short barreled rifle).

 

[Carl N. Brown]

According to the gun propaganda of the 1960s, just looking at that gun will transmorgifry an honor student into a juvenile delinquent. Throw in a copy of "Tales from the Crypt" or "Vault of Horror" and the youth is corrupted beyond redemption.

In real life some people carried guns like that in their fishing tackle box out of fear of snakes. Or kept them in a bedside night stand for defense against burglars. Because they were common, they ended up getting stolen frequently and often turned up in criminal hands. The gun control advocates in the 1960s therefore labelled them a "weapon of choice" of criminals. The hoods in my neighborhood bragged if they scored a Police .38 or an Army .45, they never bragged about scoring an RG10, so I doubt they chose them.

 

[Onmilo]

Crooks used cheap guns then as they do today for the same reasons.
If the gun had to be fired and someone wounded or killed, it was easy and cheap to ditch the gun.

 

[gopguy]

Thanks for the information gopguy. I wasn't paying attention to which forum I was on when I started the thread.

You're welcome. Don's sweat it most of us have done it. Sorry the information I had for you was not better. Cheers.

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

There was an importer in Jacksonville,Fl. names F. A. Bower that used to import the frames in one box and the barrels and cylinders in another. That way he got a lower rate of duty (gun parts as opposed to a firearm). After clearance by Customs he would take them to a local gunsmith for assembly and fitting. I think he continued this way past the gca of 1968 until his demise. My Dad was his Customs Broker. We went to his shop and he sold me and my brother a knife for .01 cents as was the custom back then.

By the way these guns were pure junk and I would not shoot one on a dare. BTW they were never made in Germany persea. It was W. Germany after WWII.

 

[Ash]

And West Germany is not Germany? That's a might fine hair to split - both West Germany and East Germany considered themselves the legitimate Germany (Federal Republic of Germany vs. the German Democratic Republic).

 

[The Bushmaster]

Whatever it is...It sure is UGLY!!

 

[icanthitabarn]

Please watch what you post

 

[scaatylobo]

Rg 23 ?

Looks like the same model of RG that was used to try and assassinate Pres. Ronald Reagan.

I bought one right after as I thought they would become 'collectors' - they didn't and they were Ka Ka to shoot.

Most of the lead shaved out the side of the barrel into your arm.

Pot metal for sure.

 

[backbencher]

I've actually shot an RG, lived to tell the tale, & gave it away to someone who had given me some .22" LR ammo before the scare. You just want to manually make sure the cylinder has locked up before you drop the hammer.

 

[Ash]

What's wild is that RG made 38 specials and even 357 revolvers.

 

[CraigC]

Revolving Grenade???

 

[Radagast]

Yup. Some where in the depths of the archives of THR or TFL is a post by a guy who was shot with an RG back in the late 60s or early 70s. He ended up in the same hospital as the shooter as the RG kaboomed, preventing the armed robbery from becoming a murder.

 

[pharmer]

RG 10. Had one 25 years ago. It was good for killing mudfish from 2" away. Any further and couldn't hit anything. Lost it wading for bass before getting "gator smart." Only time I was glad to lose a gun. Joe

 

[1madss]

I have a RG38 that was given to me in the late 80's. Never had the nerve to shoot it until a couple of years ago. I ran a couple of cylinders of a target JSP SA without a problem. Within the first two rounds of DA the cylinder locked. The timing was so bad that the forcing cone shaved most of the jacket off of the round locking the cylinder. I managed to get the gun open and cleared, but never to be fired again. It serves as a dry firing tool now. The trigger is so heavy that it's better than a rubber ball for hand strength

 

[Jim K]

"RG" stands for Röhm Gesellschaft (the equivalent of "Inc."). The company originally made starter pistols and tear gas guns, then got into cartridge guns in the post-WWII period when the U.S. market was wide open and West Germany desperately needed hard currency (and the U.S. dollar at that time was about as "hard" as there was). The guns were very cheap, selling at retail for as little $10; they were often called "Saturday Night Specials" and were condemned as "being used only in crime" and so on. Importation was finally banned by GCA '68. They were poor quality; the frames were a zinc alloy, the barrels were usually zinc with a steel liner.

The Röhm name still exists as a trade name of UMAREX; I understand they are back to making blank cartridge pistols.

Jim

 

[kBob]

WHEn I was a kid in the 1960's a friends father kept one of the .22 Short RG like pictured in his truck supposedly to dispatch the occasional rattler or cotton mouth that the workers turned up in the tobacco fields. Naturally we fished it out and had to try it a few times.

Some times the DA function worked, most of the time the SA function worked, but if you lined everything up by hand and shot SA it went boom every time. It was unfortunately less accurate than my smooth bore BB pistol and a lot less accurate than my friend's rifled pellet shooting Benjamen pump.

My dad once found a center fire RG 38 along side the road and he last I heard still has it. Someone once gave me an RG 38 at a gun safety class. After they had taken the class, mostly shooting a borrowed Rossi and a borrowed Taurus, they decided they did not want the RG around their family. It was donated by them to my club's collection of BAD IDEA guns we displayed in our classes along with one of the .22 shorts. I think they replaced it with the Taurus version of the S&W M10HB. (84?) I did fire that RG38 gun a number of times during that class and afterward. It was not too awful fired SA compared to crowing rocks but had to still be amongst the most inaccurate handguns I ever shot.

-kBob

 

[Tom K]

What's wild is that RG made 38 specials and even 357 revolvers.

I can beat that - RG even made a .44 Magnum! It was labeled the Model 57, and I accidentally found one on Gunbroker while looking for a S&W Model 57 (.41 Magnum). The seller said he had shot factory rounds through it and while it looks much better made than the usual pot metal RGs, I would stick to .44 Specials at most.

I posted about it on the S&W forum, here: http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-re...29-2-its-spanish-american-german-cousins.html