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 one of the guns they are
going to be selling in their upcoming June of 2019 Regional auction.
Specifically this is a double barrelled, rolling block style pistol.
This is in fact a Belgian Model of 1877 Gendarmerie pistol. And it's pretty cool.
This is actually a product of the Nagant brothers, Emile and Léon Nagant,
and they were ... Belgian gun makers who set up shop in Liège in 1859,
and started one of the major Liège Belgian manufacturing companies.
Now they did some inventing of their own, but this wasn't a business that was entirely based on
creating their own guns. They did a lot of work with patents that they obtained from other people
and contracts that they made with other people and other manufacturers.
For example, the Remington Company. The Nagant brothers at some point
met one or both of the Remington brothers, probably at one of the big world expositions,
and they came to an agreement that would last for 35 years, until right about 1900.
This led to Nagant ... manufacturing rolling block rifles. Probably the best known are the
rolling block rifles made for the Vatican Guards, which came from Nagant's shops.
And this is also another example. So, ... it's unclear exactly if they were paying royalties
or if they had some other agreement by which they were allowed to use the rolling block patent
of Remington's, but one of the guns that they went about creating was this double-barrelled pistol
specifically for the Belgian Gendarmerie. Let's go ahead and take a look at it.
This was the first metallic cartridge firearm used by the Belgian Gendarmerie,
and by all accounts it was fairly successful, and it worked nicely, and they liked it and it did everything they wanted.
These weren't actually replaced until right about 1900 or 1901
when they were replaced with the Browning Model of 1899,
which was a semi-automatic .32 calibre pistol (which would actually go on to be tremendously successful),
but we're talking 30 years, a little more than 30 years, where this was the
standard armament for the Gendarmerie.
So we have two separate hammers, a single breech block there that has both firing pins in it.
We have a centrally mounted extractor, right there.
By the way, the Nagant brothers did actually patent some improvements to the rolling block,
including an improved extractor to use in the system.
This was chambered for the Belgian 9.4mm revolver cartridge, basically a small black-powder
revolver cartridge. Similar to the 9.4mm Dutch, although not interchangeable with it.
So you get two of those, close the breech block, and then
the trigger is a single automatic trigger, and you can't fire both barrels at the same time.
Pull the trigger the first time, it'll drop one hammer, you then have to release it, let it reset,
then it will drop the other hammer. If you only have one cocked,
even if it's the left hand one, one trigger pull will fire that.
After you've fired both then, of course, you have to re-cock the hammers,
pull that down, that will extract the two empty cases, and then you can reload it.
Presumably the Gendarmerie didn't find themselves getting in a lot of extended gun fights with these.
The rear sight is actually mounted on the breech block, which is a little bit interesting,
and actually bigger sights than a lot of guns of the period have.
There are a couple markings on the side here. We have what is, I believe, a government property marking.
And we have 'EM', that's Emile, and 'L' for Léon, Nagant of Liège.
Typical Belgian proof marks there.
And then 'Brevet Nagant', meaning Nagant patent, and a slew of serial numbers on all the relevant parts.
And then another serial number on the butt, along with this 'W' mark.
'W' is a letter indicating issue to the Gendarmerie, Belgian arms at this point were marked by the unit,
or the regiment, that they were issued to. And 'W' is the letter that was assigned to indicate Gendarmerie.
Total production of these was 2,000. So we're towards the end, but still well within the bulk of production here at 1466.
Handling wise, the gun's not bad. This grip is kind of unusually long,
but it doesn't really cause any problems, but it seems like it's rather longer than it needs to be.
It's possible that this is the result of, like, carrying these things in saddle holsters with a big covering flap,
and this extra length to the grip may have been useful to just get easy access to the gun out of the holster.
If that's not the explanation, I am not really sure what is.
But the trigger pull's not bad. The hammers are quite heavy to cock,
these have very strong firing pin springs in them. So I'm sure that was part of why they were reliable and well liked.
Well this is definitely one of the more unusual actual police pistols out there.
And when I saw it I just figured, do you know what, that's a neat story and a neat gun,
and just really pretty cool, and I thought you guys would probably enjoy it as well.
If you would like to own this one yourself, of course it is coming up for sale here at Rock Island.
You can check out their catalogue page for their photos, their description, their price estimate, all that sort of stuff.
Any they have a nice system where you can bid on-line nice and easily, if you are so inclined.
And, of course, you can take a look at everything else that's in the catalogue for that sale as well.
Thanks for watching.