Belgian 1883 .44 revolver

[Bob Riebe]

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/971596010

I was searching on Gunbroker for all things .455 (actually a part for my Webley Self-Loading) and this revolver was listed under .455 revolvers.
Well one look at the cartridge listed , it was a guess they do not know what it really is, as no German revovler from the Erfurt Armory was ever a .455 and the 10.6x25R they used was no where near a .455.

So I sent the lister a letter stating that that cartridge is a .43 plus or minus, not a .455.
He wrote back what do you think it is; I said probably Belgian and gave him a link that is dedicated to Belgian Firearms but is very time consuming to search.
Anyway.
From back when I was very involved in European Firearms this did not look , at a glance , like an Erfurt Reichs Revolver, so I had time to kill and did some searching; By the grace of the Good Lord, I found one site with a picture of an exact same revolver with a listing as to what is was.

I sent him the information after cut and pasting that sites definition (Which sadly they/he posted exactly what I copied) , so not the history is not even of this revolver but one just like it sold 3 years ago.

https://veryimportantlot.com/en/lot/view/revolver-reichsrevolver-1883-double-action-belgi-329176

That price is way to high , and if it were not on consignment, I would offer a trade with a high bucks gun I would not mind parting with, but mine is worth more than that guns normal price.
Belgian big bore revolvers, and a fair number of European revolvers back then were variations of a .44 and or .45, not .455 (they did those too) but Europe had cluster of. 45s from very short to approx. the same as the .45 Colt.
One .44 they had was for all practical purposes the same ad the .44 American but often in metric measure.


The place with the listing, Off Grid Armory, is 165 miles straight North of me.
As I write this, we are at a balmy 16 degrees, up ther it is 4 degrees.

[ulav8r]

It looks like a near copy of the 1883 Reischrevolver used by the Germans when the various German states banded together.  The 1883 was a modified version of the 1879 that was initially designed be a commission.


Wikipedia info:TheM1879 Reichsrevolver, or Reichs-Commissions-Revolver Modell 1879 and 1883, were service revolvers used by theGerman Army from 1879 to 1908, when it was superseded by the Luger.  The two versions of the revolver differ in barrel length (The M1883 had a 5-inch barrel) and grip shape. Although the design was dated, the weapon was extremely robust, and they were still used through World War I. The M1879 is referred to as the "cavalry model" and the M1883 as the "officer's model," by collectors, which were not official designations.  Both models were single-action, solid frame, non-ejecting six-shot revolvers. The caliber was an indigenous 10.6×25mmR with a medium-length cartridge case, comparable to the contemporary .44 Russian round in size and power. Loading was via a gate on the revolver's right side, and the cylinder was released by pulling the hammer to half-cock. Removing empty cartridges could be done by removing the cylinder by withdrawing the axis pin, and then removing the casings by hand, but in actual practice a separate small rod (stored in the ammunition pouch) was used to push the casings out without having to remove the cylinder. A unique feature among these revolvers was the safety lever, which was often applied with the hammer resting in the half-cock position.  Most revolvers came with a lanyard ring for attachment to the uniform.  Military Small Arms of the Twentieth Century, 7th Edition, Weeks, John, Hogg, Ian V.

I have the 1879 model that my dad brought back after WW2 in his duffel bag.  It had a broken firing pin.  In 1969 I had the firing pin repaired and got info from P O Ackley about reloading it.  Using 44 Spec. cases cut down to just under and inch and .429 Lee 214 grain bullets, it is a blast to shoot.  The first time I fired it I was shooting at cans at about 30 yards and the bullets were ricocheting from the ground.  When they hit the trees about 100 yards away, it sounded like an axe hitting the tree sideways.  A few years later we were in Colorado.  The wife and I had climbed up to a basin that a stump about 2 feet high that was about 150 yards  away and had a high hill behind it.  After the third or fourth shot we had found a aiming spot that let us get 4 or 5 out of six shots on the stump.
Info I just found says the proper bullet is .451 diameter and heeled.

[Bob Riebe]

There is a major difference in the frame.