Despite the fact that revolvers were supplanted at the beginning of the twentieth century by pistols, this class of weapons has not disappeared or become obsolete, but continues to be quite common and sold where it is allowed. Giving preference to the highest reliability among all models of short-barreled weapons, people continue to acquire revolvers, and they are not stopped by a number of shortcomings inherent in this weapon, not a small number of cartridges in a drum, or skeptical views of friends. Still, whatever one may say, but the history of this weapon is very long, the revolver managed to stand in service with many armies, was and remains an excellent means of self-defense, is in no way inferior to pistols in recreational shooting and is even used for hunting. In general, it is quite difficult to single out from the whole variety of revolvers those models that differ from the main mass, whatever one may say, and the design of most is the same, but if you try, you can find really interesting and unusual samples. I will try to introduce you to one of these weapons in this article. The conversation will focus on the Galand M 1868 revolver.
It would seem that such a weapon as a revolver, known to everyone for its high reliability and reliability, never had any problems, but this, of course, is not the case. Just like other types of weapons, the revolver did not appear immediately ready for use in the form that is familiar to us now, and the designers had to solve many problems of the weapon before it received the status of reliable and reliable. One of the problems with revolvers after the start of the proliferation of cartridges with a metal sleeve was that the sleeve could get stuck in the chamber of the drum when fired. On the one hand, this did not in any way affect the reliability of the weapon, since all subsequent shots occurred without delay, however, the time that the shooter spent when reloading, pushing each stuck sleeve out of the drum chamber was unacceptably long. To reduce the time for reloading the weapon, quite a few options were proposed, which mainly involved the simultaneous extraction of spent cartridges from the drum chambers when reloading. But many of the proposed options did not find recognition, since they were designed for low resistance of one or two stuck sleeves, while the sleeves could get stuck all at once, and a rather large effort was required to remove them. One of the solutions to this problem was taken up by the famous gunsmith Charles Francois Galan. In 1868, he, together with his English colleague Sommerville, patented a revolver, with a rather interesting way of extracting spent cartridges from the drum chambers. This revolver had a design that stood out not only in the way of extracting spent cartridges, in addition to this, the weapon also had other unique positive aspects that significantly affected its distribution. But first things first.
From the first glance at this weapon comes the understanding that it was not just a talented designer who worked on it, but a person who was very fond of firearms and his work. Regardless of who and where produced this revolver, the weapon turned out to be very beautiful. So to speak, this is the case when it is simply impossible to spoil the sample with anything. The very first revolvers of this design appeared first in Great Britain, where their production was established by the arms company "Braendlin, Sommerville & Co", the revolver was designated as Galand Sommerville. Galan delayed the production of this weapon a little, but by the end of 1986, the mind managed to establish the production of these revolvers in Belgium under the name Galand M1986. The revolvers were generally identical, differing only in minor details. The weight of the revolvers was about 1 kilogram, they were fed from a drum with a capacity of 6 cartridges 11, 5x15, 5. The length of the weapon was 254 millimeters, and the length of the barrel was 127 millimeters. The muzzle velocity of a bullet fired from the barrel of this weapon was 183 meters per second.
The main feature of the weapon, as noted above, is the original scheme for extracting spent cartridges from the chamber of the revolver drum. The drum itself consists of two parts - a drum and an extractor. The frame of the weapon is also divided into two parts, one of them has a revolver barrel, the other part consists of a pistol grip and a firing mechanism. All this is interconnected on the long axis of the drum and is interconnected by means of a lever, which in the folded position acts as a safety bracket. Thus, when this lever moved forward, the front part of the frame with the barrel and the barrel of the weapon began to move from the shooter, quite freely. In the last centimeters of the lever movement, the extractor was separated from the drum, which led to the extraction of spent cartridges. The distance between the extractor and the drum itself in the unfolded position was slightly more than the length of the weapon sleeve, which made it possible to completely pull them out of the drum chamber, and the use of a lever system significantly reduced the effort required for this procedure. After the casings were removed from the drum, they could simply be shaken out and replaced with new cartridges, while the length of the cartridge with the bullet was greater than the length of the spent cartridge case. That is why, during the reverse movement of the locking lever, there were no delays due to the sticking of the cartridges, but the cartridges themselves had to be held with the hand from the bottom of the sleeve so that they did not jump out of the weapon drum during loading, so there were still some inconveniences. Subsequently, this problem was eliminated by replacing the extractor with holes for the cartridges, with the familiar "asterisk" that covered the cartridges only half and was hidden in the drum of the weapon. This addition also had a positive effect on the reloading speed, since with it the spent cartridges spilled out on their own after being removed from the drum chamber.
An interesting feature of the weapon was that the gap between the barrel and the barrel of the weapon with such a movable structure was minimal, which shows not only the high quality of the revolver production, but also the fact that the designer thought through everything in his weapon to the smallest detail. The revolver very quickly became widespread throughout Europe, its variants with a caliber of 7 to 12 millimeters were successfully sold on the civilian arms market, were adopted by the armies of many countries, and also proved to be quite accurate samples in sports shooting and hunting. Despite the fact that the design of the revolver did not allow the use of relatively powerful cartridges, this revolver quickly took over the weapon market of the time, and many other companies also took up the production of this sample. So the Nagant company did not refuse to join the already large list of companies producing this revolver.
This weapon was accurate for a sample in which the barrel was attached, in fact, on the axis of the drum, and was also movable, this accuracy was achieved by carefully adjusting the parts of each individual revolver, also thanks to the reliable fixation of the lever for extracting spent cartridges for the second part of the frame, with which he was not associated. In addition, the movable part of the weapon frame with the barrel had protrusions that entered the second part of the weapon frame, additionally making the mount more reliable. It was also important that the revolver had a double-action trigger mechanism, which made it always ready to fire, and it was this quality that was appreciated by the military at that time, completely abandoning single-action revolvers with a trigger.
And now the highlight of the program. This revolver was in service with the Russian Navy. This revolver was adopted for service in 1871, and the weapon was slightly modernized and already had the name Galand M1870. In the Russian Empire, however, this revolver took root under the name "four and a half linear boarding revolver". The supply of these revolvers to Russia was carried out by the companies of Galan and the Nagan brothers. In addition, in Tula, the gunsmith Goltyakov also established the production of these revolvers, but the idea of producing these weapons in Russia burned out, since our craftsman never managed to achieve the same quality of weapons that were supplied from Europe. However, no one was upset because of this, since the revolver did not last long in service. Unfortunately, the design of the weapon was not adapted to the use of a powerful cartridge, and the characteristics of the 11, 5x15, 5 ammunition were clearly insufficient for the weapon to cope with the tasks that were assigned to it. So soon the Galan revolvers had to say goodbye to the more powerful, but less interesting Smith & Wesson revolvers.
In addition to the fact that this weapon was in service with the Navy of the Russian Empire, they also tried to push it in the armies of other countries. So the revolver was tested in the armies of Great Britain and Switzerland, but the weapon did not find success there, due to the same low-power ammunition. Separate designers tried to create Galan's revolvers for more powerful cartridges, but the weapon turned out to be far from durable, because these samples did not find distribution, remaining unique experimental models. In general, the age of this revolver in the army was short-lived. Although many officers of the armies of Europe acquired this weapon privately, already as a purely personal one, which suggests that the revolver was still popular.
In the civilian arms market, revolvers with a caliber of 9 millimeters with a shortened barrel up to 94 millimeters, as well as the Galand Sports model, which differed in an elongated barrel and the presence of a removable folding shoulder rest, which was attached to the back of the weapon handle, were especially popular. The length of the revolver with a caliber of 9 millimeters was 229 millimeters, the "sports" model had a length of 330 millimeters. In general, although it was an effective weapon for self-defense, it was very uncomfortable to carry. That is why these revolvers have become widespread as a weapon for recreational shooting, as well as for hunting, which was a novelty for many both now and then.
The British, for some unknown reason, did not like the lever, which was intended to extract the spent cartridges, or rather, they liked the idea itself, but the length and the fact that the lever served as a safety bracket was perceived by many as a minus of the weapon. Then English revolvers can be found most often with a short lever, which is fixed in front of the revolver frame. A shorter lever meant more effort when extracting spent cartridges, but it was not required so much, provided that the weapon's ammunition was relatively weak. English versions of the Galan revolver were produced chambered for.380 and.450 cartridges. In addition to England, the production of this revolver was also established in France, where these revolvers were produced purely for the civilian market in calibers 7, 9 and 12 millimeters under the name "Galand Perrin". The French revolver did not have any distinctive features, although many note that the French revolvers had a round section of the barrel, while all the others were hexagonal. Along with this, there is an opinion that absolutely all revolvers intended for the civilian market had a round barrel.
The main disadvantage of the Galan revolver is its relatively fragile design, which is not suitable for the use of weapons with powerful cartridges. Nevertheless, the fact that quite workable samples of these revolvers have survived to this day indicates that this revolver was not so weak, but was made with a significant margin of safety for its ammunition. So, whatever one may say, this weapon was very good for its time, not to mention the fact that the revolver had a very interesting design. However, it should be noted that Galan solved the problem that related to the ammunition of weapons, and ammunition developed just as quickly as the weapons of that time, because we can say that the solution to the problem was belated, but the idea itself and its implementation personally delight me …
