Small Arms of WWI Primer 139: Portuguese Abadie 1886

In this episode, you mentioned a revolver that you have not covered yet. If you are interested, I have and would gladly loan you a 1887 Swedish Nagant made by Husqvarna (sp?). The gun seems to be serviceable although I have not tried to fire the few rounds that I have for it (the ammo is in the holster and I have no idea how old it is nor how it has been stored).

Rob, that is nice of you!

Here is a bunch of information about the Swiss/Swedish Nagant 7.5x22mmR revolvers and the ammunition, which is very rare these days, although Geco in Germany once loaded the cartridge and surplus Swedish and Swiss ammunition (sometimes black powder cartridges?) used to turn up every now and again: http://www.gotavapen.se/gota/artiklar/swedishpi...

Storing the old ammunition in the leather loops might lead to verdigris or green oxidation of the old cartridges. So you might want to store it separately, I'd think. As you can see, it once used a paper-patched lead bullet, and then used a heeled lead bullet. Some of the Swiss revolvers have been imported relatively recently, so a forum or something like that dedicated to them might turn up some sources for components, parts, ammunition, etc. I have to laugh a bit because many people confuse or confound Sweden and Switzerland to the degree that wags have created the fictitious spoof nation of "Swederland." In the case of revolvers, the confusion is real since the two basically used the same Nagant revolver design. Both nations remained neutral in WWI, although Swedish commerce suffered under the British blockade of Germany and there were mobilizations a time or two... Sweden maintained its neutrality, but was right next to warring powers on all sides: France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Also, the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino must surely have made the Swiss wary of Italian nationalist irredentism?

Gotta say, I'd buy a reproduction of the Abadie-system revolver or the Beaumont-Adams or Kerr revolvers in a heartbeat... We've got reproduction Single Action Army, Remington, and S&W revolvers for Cowboy Action shooting and whatnot, but not much else, unfortunately... There were rumors of a forthcoming Merwin & Hulbert copy, but that fell through. I just don't know if those cool old revolvers could be manufactured today without costing a huge sum of money, given the amount of machining and so on, although these old military revolvers are admirably simple.