[ Manufrance Civilian Mle 1892 ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at Morphy's
taking a look at a French Model of 1892 revolver.
But this isn't a military example, this is actually
a commercial civilian production example of the 1892.
Now the Model of 1892 when it was adopted by the French military
was really a pretty revolutionary improvement in the military handgun of the French Army.
Prior to this they had the Model 1873, that was a fixed cylinder, black powder, 11mm gun.
It had an ejector rod built into it, kind of like a Single Action Army.
It was a double action gun, but it was pretty old-fashioned,
it was very much a 19th century gun.
The Model 1892 was much more along the lines of a 20th century gun.
It has a flip-out cylinder, all the cases eject simultaneously.
It uses the new smokeless powder, which in 1892 was still
fairly new having only been invented 6 years earlier.
This was ... was a hot new gun, this was cutting-edge military technology at the time.
And so when the French military adopts it,
it becomes very interesting to a lot of other people in France.
And what you would see is a rush to acquire this new revolver pattern
by a wide swath of people in France.
So this appealed to officers and reservists who wanted to get their own private handguns.
This appealed to police and security forces.
This appealed to people who were going overseas
to go live in some of the French colonies in Africa or Indochina.
It is in many ways actually I think very similar
to what we see these days, like right now with the SIG 320.
We see the US Army adopting a brand new handgun.
Like this is the 21st century gun, it's got an optics cut, it's got modularity to it,
it's not like that old-fashioned Beretta 92.
And with the army adoption of this new thing, everyone's jumping at the chance to get one themselves.
Police forces, security forces and individual civilians who want the "military-grade" handgun.
And that's what you see in France with the 1892.
So ... actually there are a bunch of different organisations
that start manufacturing these pistols for the civilian market.
Some of them are foreign, there are shops in Spain and Belgium that both start making copies.
And there's ... a company in France that starts to do it.
... It's a pair of former MAS ... workers by the name of Jean Lamure and Antoine Gidrol,
they set up a shop in Saint-Étienne and start producing guns.
They hire some help and they're making 2-300 guns a month,
and initially it's a wide variety of different revolvers.
Pretty soon like the 1892 becomes their star product and the focus of most of their work.
And by the way, there's a potential confusion here
that I want to just touch on for a moment and that is: what is Saint-Étienne?
This is similar, to make another US comparison, similar to Springfield.
Saint-Étienne is a city in France, it's an industrial town.
And in Saint-Étienne is the civilian company
The Saint-Étienne factory of bicycles and weapons.
A big industrial concern that has a huge catalogue like Sears Roebuck.
You also have the
which is the military arsenal located in the same city.
So this is like Springfield. Springfield is a town.
Springfield is also a US National Armoury (or was).
Today "Springfield" is also an arms company
that's civilian and unaffiliated with the government arsenal.
Same sort of thing going on with Saint-Étienne.
It is a hub in France of weapons manufacture for the military and the civilian sectors,
and so it can get really easy to confuse what exactly all of these things are and how they interact.
Also I should add in, the fourth element is there is a French National Proof House
(as many European countries have), it is located in Saint-Étienne.
So you'll see markings of the proof house on civilian guns that don't show up on the military ones.
But yeah, there's all sorts of different things that are all called "Saint-Étienne".
So let's go ahead and take a closer look.
Let me point out what makes this identifiable as a civilian gun,
and how the different manufacturers of the civilian guns varied.
Basic functioning of the Model 1892, this is a double action gun,
or single action if you prefer.
For loading you take this loading gate, pull it back, and then the whole cylinder pops out to the right.
The opposite of what is more typically seen.
The idea here is that the soldier would have a sabre for his right hand, the pistol would go in his left.
And so reloading would be done holding the gun in the left hand and reloading with the right.
Anyway, there is a star ... ejector here, it kicks all the cases out simultaneously.
Reload it, pop the cylinder back up, lock it in place and it's ready to go.
On a military production example you would see
Manufacture d'Armes de Saint-Étienne
And a serial number with a letter prefix down here.
On this we have actually really almost no markings.
The only thing we have is up on the top strap
in really tiny letters,
So right up there, that identifies this as a gun that was sold by that catalogue company.
The shorthand, usually it's called LAMU, l-a-m-u.
We will then have Saint-Étienne commercial proof marks.
So there's one on the barrel and then there is one on the cylinder,
there it is, right down in there.
We also have a serial number there on the cylinder.
And that will be repeated on the inside of the gun, which we'll see in a moment.
So this particular gun is one that was sold by Manufrance, the commercial establishment.
They contracted with a variety of partners for the manufacturing of these guns.
And there's a good chance that this one was actually mostly made in Belgium
and then finished at Manufrance and proofed in France.
So that it was able to have a French proof mark,
which makes it a more desirable gun for sales in France.
This is sort of the equivalent of the "Made in America" thing.
You know, made in America of parts that actually were mostly made somewhere else.
Now some of the other manufacturers will have some different markings.
Gidrol and Lamure in 1900 added a marking here
Acier Forgé Saint-Étienne
But in the very same style and script and size and location as the military markings.
And then they added serial numbers, they typically used an "H" prefix serial number
which is not to be confused with the military "H" prefix serial numbers.
You see where this is going, this is kind of like the idea of having a clone correct
hot new military pistol literally 125 years ago, just like we still see people wanting today.
... Manufrance ones don't have any markings on the barrel.
The military ones are going to be marked Model 1892 with a date of production.
And the French domestic manufacturers started doing that a little later on as well.
Now the ... two main features that allow us
to discern this as a civilian gun (aside from the markings), one is here.
This little screw is what holds the firing pin in the hammer.
On the military guns that is not a visible screw, it's a pin that is then polished over.
So if you see this obvious separate screw, that's a civilian gun.
The front sight is also distinctive, you can clearly see how this is a
separate front sight dovetailed in place. It's sort of a fin style.
The military guns, the front sight is forged into the barrel.
And ... it's like lowercase "i" shaped, it's a vertical bar that has a larger round peg on the top.
In general, the quality, the manufacturing and the materials, the fit and finish
of the civilian guns were generally considered to be a bit inferior to the military ones.
Although that doesn't mean they were necessarily bad.
For disassembly, we have a captive screw here on the side.
Open that up and the frame pivots open, this is just like a military version.
And it is in here ... that we find our actual serial number.
... Actually it's on the cylinder as well, but then you'll find it on the frame
and here on the inside of the side plate.
For what it's worth Lamure & Gidrol had their own sort of proof mark,
... it's modelled after the lanyard ring on a revolver that they would stamp up in here on the inside.
So that can help identify those guns.
And we've got a serial number on the grips as well.
There is also a separate number, in this case it's 4455, marked on the cap there.
And I believe that is Manufrance's internal inventory number.
I've seen that sort of thing done on other types of pistols that were sold by Manufrance. ...
So Manufrance started offering these in the mid-1890s,
they would continue offering them through the inter-war period.
And unfortunately, I don't know of any good way to
actually date one of these specifically Manufrance guns.
Some of the French made ones were actually dated which is helpful.
Manufrance ... made and sold 32,000 guns like this over the course of their whole production.
So this one was 24,000 and change.
Probably that means a later inter-war gun,
but I don't actually have any specific data to say for sure.
In total there were about 366,000 military issue Model 1892s
manufactured between 1893 and 1924
when they finally ... ceased production because they had enough.
For civilian guns the manufacturing starts almost as early,
the first ones are I believe 1894, maybe 1896.
And production will continue through into the 1920s again.
Manufrance, the
will list these commercial revolvers in their catalogues at least into the 1920s.
Although I don't have an exact date when they did pull them out of the catalogues and cease sales.
But there were a grand total of 88,000 of these ... civilian versions proofed in France
in addition to the 366,000 military ones, which gives us 454,000 total manufactured.
Now that does not include copies made in Spain and Belgium that were proofed in Spain or Belgium.
Those are usually pretty easily distinguishable.
But the upshot here is ... while the civilian guns are substantially rarer than the military ones,
there was a really pretty substantial number of these guns being sold.
They were really quite popular with a number of different elements of French civil society,
as well as the military societies that weren't actually getting them issued by the army itself.
So they are really interesting sort of a side note to a French military collection,
because they are the military pattern revolver.
Just with a ... few little differences in features and markings. So.
I obviously think they are pretty cool just because they are French revolvers.
But hopefully you guys enjoyed the video. Thanks for watching.