Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at the Rock Island Auction
Company taking a look at a
Russian produced Smith & Wesson Number 3 pattern revolver
that's in their upcoming April of 2020 Regional Auction.
The Russian government was far and away the biggest
purchaser of Number 3 Model Smith and Wesson revolvers
of anybody around the world ever.
And at the very end of their use of the revolver they actually
tooled up and produced these guns domestically in the Tula Arsenal
in Russia. And that is what we have here to take a look at.
Now a quick run-through of the development of this pistol.
Smith & Wesson originally introduced it. Number 3 designates the fact that it was their third frame style of revolver.
I think it's important to point out, to remind people that Smith & Wesson owned Rollin White's patent
on the concept of a bored through cylinder. Meaning
they were the only company that could manufacture a ... modern cartridge firing revolver until ... 1871.
Which is why this revolver actually predates the Colt Single Action Army.
Smith & Wesson still had a patented monopoly on this concept when they introduced it.
So, they originally introduced the revolver in .44 Henry rimfire, and then also in a .44 centrefire cartridge
that basically duplicated the Henry rimfire design.
Now what's worth pointing out about both of these cartridges is that they were heeled bullets,
... that was the standard at the time. And the idea was the bullet and the brass case were exactly the same diameter.
Which is not what we have now. What that means is that ... the bullet is
.44 calibre in this case, and then where it encounters the brass case it steps in slightly.
So the heel of the bullet is actually smaller in diameter so that it'll fit inside a brass case that's .44 calibre on the outside.
This was easier to machine. This is why cartridges had originated that way.
However, there are a couple of downsides to it. The first one,
well, the most significant one is you had to have lubrication in the bullet,
so there'd be a couple of grooves in the bullet (and this is true for all lead bullets).
And the lubrication grooves had to be outside of the brass case, because they had to be the full diameter of the bullet.
Which means they couldn't be inside the brass. What that means is that the lubrication that was used,
the grease and wax combination, was exposed to the elements. And ... if it were not handled very carefully it would pick up
dirt, dust and debris and stuff that would stick to the lubrication, and then cause damage to the inside of a barrel.
Now when this revolver in its original form, the original Smith & Wesson Number 3,
was presented to the Russian government for potential adoption
The Russian Military Attaché, a guy named General Gorloff, liked the gun.
He liked the ... fast reloading of a top break revolver like this, what he didn't like was that externally lubricated cartridge.
And he said, "We're interested, but you need to redesign the cartridge so that the lubrication is protected inside the brass case."
And what that necessitated was reducing the whole diameter of the bullet and having a step in the chamber.
So you'd have a ... bullet that was basically reduced to the diameter of the step inside the case of the original.
That is why we have .429 calibre bullets in what are called .44 calibre revolvers.
Because that step at the base was .429 in diameter, 0.429 inch.
What Smith & Wesson did to accommodate this Russian request was they reduced the whole bullet to .429.
They then machined chambers that have a step in them, so that the brass is .44 and the bullets .429.
Now the lubrication grooves can be on the back part of the bullet where they're protected by the case,
presto, we get the .44 Russian cartridge.
And this would set the standard for basically all cartridges developed thereafter.
And it's still the concept we use today, although we ... no longer need the lubrication grooves.
But we still design cartridges that same way, where the brass is larger in diameter than the bullet.
So, that's the brief overview of how the Russians really modified the original Smith & Wesson.
There were a couple changes to the revolver itself, but let's take a look at those up close.
There's a good argument to be made that the Smith & Wesson Number 3 was in fact the best revolver of the Old West era.
... As a matter of just pure numerical fact, it was the most popular, the most manufactured
revolver of this type up until 1900. It wasn't till after 1900 that Colt and the Single Action Army
actually caught up and exceeded production of the Smith & Wesson Number 3.
A fact that I think a lot of people don't realise.
It had a far faster reloading process,
put it at half cock, pop this, the automatic ejector there pops all 6 cartridges out. And then you stick 6 new ones in there.
This is way faster than the gate loading and unloading of the Colt Single Action.
Now when it comes to the Russian model, the Russians made a couple of changes.
The original Smith & Wesson Number 3 had a grip very much like the Colt Single Action that would come later.
The back strap was smooth through here, and then flared out a little bit, and square on the bottom.
And this had a tendency to roll in one's hand when fired, which was actually kind of the idea.
You would fire the gun, it would roll back much like a Colt, and that would actually
position the hammer closer to your thumb to be easily re-cocked for the next shot.
However, the Russians didn't like that style. They wanted to modify the gun a bit
so it would have a grip that would stay stable in your hand better.
And so what they did is they they developed this rounded butt design, and put this knuckle up on the frame.
And those two features combined to make this a much more static gun in the hand, it doesn't tend to move around as much.
Which is perhaps better for target shooting, although not quite as fast for rapid, perhaps combat style, shooting.
At any rate, this would be introduced into the ... Number 3 Russian pattern, that's where this grip comes from.
We won't get into details on the Smith & Wesson Schofield model,
which was the version that was developed more for the American cavalry.
That has some changes to the ... top break release.
But it was this pattern that the Russians would produce at Tula.
The best way to distinguish these are by the markings on the top strap of the barrel.
They're pretty small, but they're in Cyrillic here, and if you translate that, it basically says "Imperial Tula Arms Factory."
Manufacturing date here 1888. We have a serial number, this one is just under 7,000.
We have the Russian Imperial Eagle, and then we have this Russian property or proof mark back here at the very end of the rib.
Now the Smith & Wesson produced, the American produced, contract versions of the gun
are also marked in Cyrillic because they were made for a Russian contract.
However the markings when translated say that they're made by Smith & Wesson in the United States, not in Russia.
The dates here are also very distinctive of the Russian produced guns, so
production at Tula didn't start until 1886, which is well after most of the American contracts had been fulfilled.
Production ran until about 1893, certainly it was ceased by 1895 when the guns were formally replaced.
You will also find a Russian proof mark there on the front of the butt.
As well as the serial number on the bottom, right there.
The Tula produced guns have 8 inch barrels, which is the same as the early contracts with Smith & Wesson.
Interestingly, the later Smith & Wesson production contracts reduced the barrel length, but Tula went back to an 8 inch barrel.
One last cool anecdote about these guys.
The contract was valuable enough to Smith & Wesson that when, ... as they were tooling up, Grand Duke Alexei
of the Russian royal family came over to inspect progress and see what was going on and see the guns,
came away very impressed with them, Smith & Wesson gave him an extremely fancy, very expensive, engraved Number 3.
And they also sent him off on a ... free buffalo hunting trip with none other than Custer and Buffalo Bill Cody,
which apparently he also enjoyed quite a lot.
The Number 3 Russian model would be the Russian service revolver until 1895,
when it was replaced by the Model of 1895 Nagant revolver.
... When that was adopted the same sort of story took place, not with a new cartridge development,
but the first batch of Nagant revolvers were purchased from the Nagant brothers in Liège
while Russia tooled up to manufacture them domestically, so.
The difference there is with the 1895, they bought a relatively small number of guns and then manufactured a tremendous number.
With the Smith & Wessons they actually manufactured only about 10% of what they ended up buying in total.
And they bought about 50% of their supply from Smith & Wesson directly,
the remainder coming from Ludwig Loewe in Germany. That's a subject for another video entirely, which we'll do at some point.
Anyway, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video, got a chance to look at a ... in the United States
a pretty rare pattern of Smith & Wesson Number 3.
If you're interested in this one, it is coming up for sale here at Rock Island,
along with a bunch of other Smith & Wesson Number 3s, and a whole slew of guns beyond that.
So check out Rock Island's catalogue for all the details on this, and everything else that they've got.
Thanks for watching.
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