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Scully
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2 hours ago, Konor said:

A couple of photos of cousins Wilson Combat Commander in. 45 and Walther Creed 9mm. I far prefer shooting the. 45.

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Cousins wife's Taurus. 38

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Very nice. Am very envious. The Taurus however is a S&W; easy mistake to make. 

9 minutes ago, Centrepin said:

Probably handed out to criminals in some kind of government good will amnesty venture. 

🙂

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17 minutes ago, Konor said:

Definitely a Taurus he was too tight to buy the Smith and money was the decider. 

Sorry to disagree, but it is a S&W. I appreciate you should know as it’s a relative, but I’m very familiar with both Taurus and S&W and it is without doubt the latter. 
The stamped lettering on the front of the frame below the cylinder reads: 

Made in USA

Marcos Registradus 

Smith & Wesson

Springfield. Mass

 

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17 minutes ago, Scully said:

Sorry to disagree, but it is a S&W. I appreciate you should know as it’s a relative, but I’m very familiar with both Taurus and S&W and it is without doubt the latter. 
The stamped lettering on the front of the frame below the cylinder reads: 

Made in USA

Marcos Registradus 

Smith & Wesson

Springfield. Mass

 

Sorry Scully my mistake, it was a picture he had sent on WhatsApp when I asked what he was carrying that day. I assumed it was his wife's Taurus with different grips. The Taurus had a 3 inch barrel though and that looks like 2 inch (along with the fact it has the Sand W stamping you spotted 👍) As  a by the by I believe S and W sold Taurus machinery for the production of the revolver which had been the S And W model 19.

I like your pythonesque 686, I had a Model 17 with target trigger and hammer prior to the ban, a K frame with the advantage of cheap. 22 ammo. Its a shame that the possession and pleasure of owning the likes of your Steyr has been denied to everyone. I had a friend who owned an artillery luger with buttstock holster and a snail drum magazine but I never graduated to fullbore pistol before the ban. Plenty of experience with the Browning 9mm carried in the 1970s in Armagh City and thereabouts. 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Konor said:

Sorry Scully my mistake, it was a picture he had sent on WhatsApp when I asked what he was carrying that day. I assumed it was his wife's Taurus with different grips. The Taurus had a 3 inch barrel though and that looks like 2 inch (along with the fact it has the Sand W stamping you spotted 👍) As  a by the by I believe S and W sold Taurus machinery for the production of the revolver which had been the S And W model 19.

I like your pythonesque 686, I had a Model 17 with target trigger and hammer prior to the ban, a K frame with the advantage of cheap. 22 ammo. Its a shame that the possession and pleasure of owning the likes of your Steyr has been denied to everyone. I had a friend who owned an artillery luger with buttstock holster and a snail drum magazine but I never graduated to fullbore pistol before the ban. Plenty of experience with the Browning 9mm carried in the 1970s in Armagh City and thereabouts. 

 

 

No need to apologise at all, I assumed there was some confusion as to the pics. 👍

My first S&W was a K-framed Model 19 coincidentally! It was nickel plated, as was my Model 29, as I like a shiny revolver for some reason! 🤷‍♂️
It was said the K-frame wasn’t really designed for full weight magnum loads, but I didn’t put many magnum loads through mine anyhow, unlike the Model 29, as I hand loaded most of the time. 
A friend in the club asked me how to get an off ticket Artillery Luger ( no stock ) on his ticket. He’d had it years apparently, inherited from his Father who had brought it back from the war. A couple of months later Dunblane happened and it was confiscated along with everything else. 

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Shiny revolvers! Much loved by British officers serving in India (and Americans in the humid Southern States) as nickel plating was more effective as an anti rust measure than mere blued steel. It also makes the pistol "look big" and as such possibly a visual deterrent?

Nowadays polished stainless steel has succeeded nickel plating on handguns.

Anyway come 1914 a nickel revolver that "looked big" wasn't a good idea on the Western Front. Thus the daybooks of Webley for late 1914 and early 1915 have on many pages entries for revolvers sent back to them with in the comments space the words (from memory when I last saw the books some thirty years ago) "remove nickel and re-black".

Edited by enfieldspares
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I remember the model 19 was a popular first centrefire revolver along  with the model 10. My cousin has around a dozen handguns including a smallish 9mm Smith and Wesson not unlike the old model 59.

I don't think we will regain any ground sadly. 

 

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1 hour ago, Konor said:

I remember the model 19 was a popular first centrefire revolver along  with the model 10. My cousin has around a dozen handguns including a smallish 9mm Smith and Wesson not unlike the old model 59.

I don't think we will regain any ground sadly. 

 


I used my Model 19 for slow fire bullseye target shooting in postal leagues, for which it was fine really, but it wasn’t in the same league as a mates .32 Manurhin revolver. Just a sublime piece of engineering. 
I think the Model 10 was a common Police issue in the USA in its day? 
I’d have to agree with your last statement, but I sometimes wonder if I’d be that bothered nowadays. I really enjoy live quarry shooting and if I were given the choice I think I’d have to come down on the side of shotguns. There were a lot of stifling restrictions which came as baggage with handguns, and I’m not sure if I could be bothered with that again. Who knows? 

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2 hours ago, Scully said:


I used my Model 19 for slow fire bullseye target shooting in postal leagues, for which it was fine really, but it wasn’t in the same league as a mates .32 Manurhin revolver. Just a sublime piece of engineering. 
I think the Model 10 was a common Police issue in the USA in its day? 
I’d have to agree with your last statement, but I sometimes wonder if I’d be that bothered nowadays. I really enjoy live quarry shooting and if I were given the choice I think I’d have to come down on the side of shotguns. There were a lot of stifling restrictions which came as baggage with handguns, and I’m not sure if I could be bothered with that again. Who knows? 

When in the states a few years back I attended a cowboy shoot day where everyone had made the effort to get kitted out in cowboy get up.The main event was a timed shoot on metal plates and silhouettes starting off using a lever action rifle then a pair of single action revolvers  then finishing with a shotgun to stop the clock by knocking over two metal silhouettes. There were a few side shoots one of which where the course of fire was carried out while sitting on a wooden horse while a guy rocked the horse up and down. Everyone was in good spirits and it seemed like great fun. Coupled with the enjoyment from reading up on the history of the West and  the firearms used I think it would be an interesting way to enjoy target shooting .

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Just the opposite, I see myself a hunter / naturalist. Guns are just a tool of the job, I have several of course but they are just lumps of metal and wood that I use to shoot (at) various birds and animals. In fact I will go as far as saying there is something a bit odd about those who like guns for their own sake. 

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1 hour ago, scolopax said:

Just the opposite, I see myself a hunter / naturalist. Guns are just a tool of the job, I have several of course but they are just lumps of metal and wood that I use to shoot (at) various birds and animals. In fact I will go as far as saying there is something a bit odd about those who like guns for their own sake. 

There is a lot of enjoyment to be had from reading up the history and development of sporting firearms. Books by Donald Dallas on Purdey ,Holland and Hollland , David Mackay-Brown and John Dickson for example or any of the books by Diggory Hadoke ,Gough Thomas and Geoffrey Boothroyd or American writers Michael McIntosh or Bob Brister for example 
I think an appreciation of the history of our sporting firearm development is not unusual among long time hunter/naturalists as you call them and adds another layer to the enjoyment derived from our sport.

As regards target shooting many people have derived a lot of pleasure from punching holes in paper solely for the purpose of taking some satisfaction in improving their scores. To label them as odd is akin to those who label Hunter/naturalists odd for pursuing a hobby which entails ,as they would call it, “shooting animals for fun”. 
I would be classed as odd by both camps having been a target shooter in the past and presently a wildfowler, deer stalker , rough shooter game shooter and game fisher and have been from my early teens.

That some people may think of me as odd because of this I don’t care one jot ,I’m too busy enjoying myself to be worried about their concerns.

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11 hours ago, Konor said:

When in the states a few years back I attended a cowboy shoot day where everyone had made the effort to get kitted out in cowboy get up.The main event was a timed shoot on metal plates and silhouettes starting off using a lever action rifle then a pair of single action revolvers  then finishing with a shotgun to stop the clock by knocking over two metal silhouettes. There were a few side shoots one of which where the course of fire was carried out while sitting on a wooden horse while a guy rocked the horse up and down. Everyone was in good spirits and it seemed like great fun. Coupled with the enjoyment from reading up on the history of the West and  the firearms used I think it would be an interesting way to enjoy target shooting .

Sounds fun. 

10 hours ago, NoBodyImportant said:

So at the time did you have to option to add the rod to the back or was the barrel length an automatic no.  

Although carbines weren’t included in the ban, adding a permanent skeleton stock to a pistol wasnt then an option, and I wouldn’t have chosen it anyhow. At the time, HOME Office officials tried to tell me I wouldn’t be compensated for reloading gear etc as I could use it for carbine shooting, but I told them I wasn’t interested in carbines so insisted on being compensated, which I eventually was. 

10 hours ago, scolopax said:

Just the opposite, I see myself a hunter / naturalist. Guns are just a tool of the job, I have several of course but they are just lumps of metal and wood that I use to shoot (at) various birds and animals. In fact I will go as far as saying there is something a bit odd about those who like guns for their own sake. 

Odd? You mean like those who kill stuff for entertainment? 🙂

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Another one for the shiny gun club. 🙂

It is a S&W New Safety Departure Model, chambered for the .38 S&W. It came complete with its own holster and had belonged to a Subaltern ( 2nd Lieutenant ) in the Welsh Fusiliers, who had bought and carried it as his personal sidearm during his time in Flanders. 
His wife had found it amongst his personal belongings after he died in the early 1980’s, and took it to York Guns ( when it was a proper gun shop ) in the city, where I bought it. 
Unlike many Subalterns, he obviously survived, which leads me to believe he never had to depend on it, as whilst it was definitely better than nothing, it was a feeble cartridge and not even up there with the 9mm. More suited as a little purse gun really, rather than frontline service. 
It had a grip safety, sometimes referred to as a ‘lemon squeezer’, and you could feel when you had taken up the first stage and it was cocked.
A really very nice little piece of history.
A friend swaged neat little wadcutters for me to hand load, which printed on a target as if the holes had been cut with a very sharp punch. image.jpeg.0db57462ecba3e4cbd59084b2ee7bd15.jpegimage.jpeg.76c78b704aedd765431d91fefc2ea138.jpeg

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4 hours ago, Scully said:

Another one for the shiny gun club. 🙂

It is a S&W New Safety Departure Model, chambered for the .38 S&W. It came complete with its own holster and had belonged to a Subaltern ( 2nd Lieutenant ) in the Welsh Fusiliers, who had bought and carried it as his personal sidearm during his time in Flanders. 
His wife had found it amongst his personal belongings after he died in the early 1980’s, and took it to York Guns ( when it was a proper gun shop ) in the city, where I bought it. 
Unlike many Subalterns, he obviously survived, which leads me to believe he never had to depend on it, as whilst it was definitely better than nothing, it was a feeble cartridge and not even up there with the 9mm. More suited as a little purse gun really, rather than frontline service. 
It had a grip safety, sometimes referred to as a ‘lemon squeezer’, and you could feel when you had taken up the first stage and it was cocked.
A really very nice little piece of history.
A friend swaged neat little wadcutters for me to hand load, which printed on a target as if the holes had been cut with a very sharp punch. image.jpeg.0db57462ecba3e4cbd59084b2ee7bd15.jpegimage.jpeg.76c78b704aedd765431d91fefc2ea138.jpeg

Scully....revolvers and pistols in 1915 were extremely scarce so anything in fact would have to do. But such as your Safety Hammerless they were bought not to kill Germans but to kill oneself. Suicide guns in case you were severley wounded such as disemboweled by a shell and with no hope of survival. My late grandfather carried a Webley pistol in WWI for the same reason.

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59 minutes ago, enfieldspares said:

Scully....revolvers and pistols in 1915 were extremely scarce so anything in fact would have to do. But such as your Safety Hammerless they were bought not to kill Germans but to kill oneself. Suicide guns in case you were severley wounded such as disemboweled by a shell and with no hope of survival. My late grandfather carried a Webley pistol in WWI for the same reason.

I have no idea what year this subaltern enlisted or was conscripted, but Service revolvers were in plentiful supply, and issued to all manner of personnel, both British and Colonial, throughout the war, with only officers expected to buy their own. 
The Webley .455 service revolver was issued to many, including tank Corps, machine gun corp, the RFC ( although some had the Colt New Service or even a Colt 1911, but always in .455 ) and some even had the quite rare ( nowadays ) Webley self-loading pistol. 
Why this subaltern decided to buy such a minor calibre revolver is something we will never know, but in all the reading and studying I've done, I’ve never heard of anyone in the trenches buying a ‘suicide gun’. 

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12 hours ago, Scully said:

I have no idea what year this subaltern enlisted or was conscripted, but Service revolvers were in plentiful supply, and issued to all manner of personnel, both British and Colonial, throughout the war, with only officers expected to buy their own. 
The Webley .455 service revolver was issued to many, including tank Corps, machine gun corp, the RFC ( although some had the Colt New Service or even a Colt 1911, but always in .455 ) and some even had the quite rare ( nowadays ) Webley self-loading pistol. 
Why this subaltern decided to buy such a minor calibre revolver is something we will never know, but in all the reading and studying I've done, I’ve never heard of anyone in the trenches buying a ‘suicide gun’. 

I didn't read it. I was told it by people that were there. And carried them for that purpose. Or for shooting others so wounded. It also was done, shooting of your own so wounded, in WWII although mostly in Burma and Malaya.

To be disemboweled or gut shot in WWI was a very slow and hugely painful way to die and at that time in history with no hope of survival even if medical aid did come.

Similarly early pilots in the RFC also carried suicide revolvers as there were no parachutes and if you 'plane was set ablaze you either jumped to you death or were burned to death. And you will read that in books.

As far as service revolvers went 1915 was a period when this need couldn't be met by what Webley made. Thus the purchase of America (Colt and S & W) .455 revolvers and the Spanish Troacola in .455.

Below my grandfather...on his wedding day to my grandmother...and in the lace up boots his best man who married my grandmother's sister. So he was always "Uncle Billy".

And on Thursday I was able to say with exactitude where my grandfather had been that same day but one hundred and five years ago. First wave, at Authille on the Somme, assaulting the Leipzig Redoubt, 2nd Battalion King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

1918(2).jpg

Edited by enfieldspares
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18 hours ago, enfieldspares said:

I didn't read it. I was told it by people that were there. And carried them for that purpose. Or for shooting others so wounded. It also was done, shooting of your own so wounded, in WWII although mostly in Burma and Malaya.

To be disemboweled or gut shot in WWI was a very slow and hugely painful way to die and at that time in history with no hope of survival even if medical aid did come.

Similarly early pilots in the RFC also carried suicide revolvers as there were no parachutes and if you 'plane was set ablaze you either jumped to you death or were burned to death. And you will read that in books.

As far as service revolvers went 1915 was a period when this need couldn't be met by what Webley made. Thus the purchase of America (Colt and S & W) .455 revolvers and the Spanish Troacola in .455.

Below my grandfather...on his wedding day to my grandmother...and in the lace up boots his best man who married my grandmother's sister. So he was always "Uncle Billy".

And on Thursday I was able to say with exactitude where my grandfather had been that same day but one hundred and five years ago. First wave, at Authille on the Somme, assaulting the Leipzig Redoubt, 2nd Battalion King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

1918(2).jpg

I too had relatives in France and Flanders, whom also carried service revolvers. I’m also aware that the RFC weren’t issued with parachutes, and why, but no one bought a revolver as a ‘suicide gun’. 
The occasion may well have arisen when they were used for this purpose, as no doubt the SMLE was used for a ‘blighty’ wound on occcasion if deliberate ‘trench foot’ wasn’t an option, but neither were bought or issued specifically for this purpose.
They were first and foremost a personal sidearm, carried for the purpose for which they were designed. 

As an aside,  a former officer who served in Burma and who lived in my home town, committed suicide with his service revolver, a .38 Enfield, in the early ‘70’s if I recall. I know his son very well. 

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Burma. 1944. John Masters "The Road Past Mandalay"

Quote

Henning reported 90 Column in position astride the water point. I looked through my binoculars at the westward ridge, which the Japanese had occupied during the first battles. If they held it now we would have a bad time, as it dominated the Namkwin for at least a mile. Mortaring from it we would have to grit our teeth and bear as we trudged past. No, I could cover it with machine guns, for a time at least. I sent a man back with a message to Alec Harper, to be sure to put strong protection on that flank of his layback.

The men passed and passed, walking, limping, hopping, supporting others, carrying them. Tim Brennan reported that he thought he could break contact when I ordered. The Japanese were not pressing their advantage, and at the moment seemed to be under shell fire from their own artillery.

A doctor spoke to me – ‘Will you come with me, sir?’ I followed’ him down the path. It was clear of moving men. The whole block was clear, except for a part of 26 Column.

A little way down the path we came to forty or fifty ragged men, many slightly wounded, who had carried stretchers and improvised blanket litters from the Main Dressing Station as far as this. Here they had set down their burdens, and now waited, huddled in the streaming bamboo, above and below the path. I noticed at once that none of them looked at me as I stopped among them with the doctor.

The stretchers lay in the path itself, and in each stretcher lay a soldier of 111 Brigade.

The first man was quite naked and a shell had removed the entire contents of his stomach. Between his chest and pelvis there was a bloody hollow, behind it his spine. Another had no legs and no hips, his trunk ending just below the waist. A third had no left arm, shoulder, or breast, all torn away in one piece. A fourth had no face and whitish liquid was trickling out of his head into the mud. A fifth seemed to have been torn in pieces by a mad giant, and his lips bubbled gently. Nineteen men lay there. A few conscious. At least, their eyes moved, but without light in them.

The doctor said, ‘l’ve got another thirty on ahead, who can be saved, if we can carry them.’ The rain clattered so loud on the bamboo that I could hardly hear what he said. ‘These men have no chance. They’re full of morphia. Most of them have bullet and splinter wounds beside what you can see. Not one chance at all, sir, I give you my word of honour. Look, this man’s died already, and that one. None can last another two hours, at the outside.’

Very well. I have two thousand lives in my hand, besides these. One small mistake, one little moment of hesitation and I will kill five times these nineteen.

I said aloud, ‘Very well. I don’t want them to see any Japanese.’

I was trying to smile down into the flat white face below me, that had no belly, but there was no sign of recognition, or hearing, or feeling. Shells and bombs burst on the slope above and bullets clattered and whined overhead.

‘Do you think I want to do it?’ the doctor cried in helpless anger. ‘We’ve been fighting to save that man for twenty-four hours and then just now, in the M.D.S. [Main Dressing Station], he was hit in the same place.’

His voice changed. ‘We can’t spare any more morphia.’ ‘Give it to those whose eyes are open,’ I said. ‘Get the stretcher bearers on at once. Five minutes.’

He nodded and I went back up to the ridge, for the last time. One by one, carbine shots exploded curtly behind me. I put my hands to my ears but nothing could shut out the sound.

 

Edited by enfieldspares
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