The Nagant Model 1895 revolver has the distinction of being one of the more unusual revolvers to be adopted as a service pistol, largely because of the unusual “gas seal” system it used, the proprietary cartridge it chambered and the fact it held seven rounds instead of the usual six.
It was the official service pistol of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1895 until 1945.
When the M1895 is cocked, the cylinder rotates and moves forward slightly so the front of the chamber covers the barrel’s forcing cone. The proprietary 7.62x38R cartridge has the bullet seated completely inside the case, and the brass helps ensure there is no gap between the cylinder and forcing cone when the gun is fired.
The point of all this is to eliminate gas escape between the front of the cylinder and the forcing cone, with the net result being an extra 150fps (45m/s) or so in velocity from the 108gn FMJ projectile, for a total muzzle velocity of about 1100fps (335m/s) and 290ft-lb (393J) energy with military-issue cartridges.
Commercial ammunition tends to be loaded somewhat cooler, running about 750fps (229m/s).
The revolver itself is a solid frame design, with a seven-shot rotating cylinder that loads from a gate on the right-hand side, much like most single-action revolvers.
Spent cartridges are ejected using a rod, which slides under the barrel when not in use. Unsurprisingly, getting the ejection rod into position and ejecting the cartridges one by one takes considerable time, and would not have been a fun exercise in combat conditions.
The design originated from Belgian gunmakers Emile and Leon Nagant (who were also responsible for part of the Mosin-Nagant service rifle the Russians adopted in 1891), and was a development of a number of earlier Nagant revolver designs without the gas seal. Those early models had been adopted by countries including Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg and Brazil.
The Tsarist Russian military was undergoing a modernisation program and approached the Nagants’ firm to make its new handgun. Initial production from 1895-1898 was at the Nagant factory in Liege, Belgium, but in 1898 the Russians began production at the Tula arsenal, near Moscow.
By 1901, just over 180,000 Nagant M1895 revolvers had been produced and by January 1914, that number was 574,426 guns. By the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, approximately 1.05 million Nagant M1895s had been made.
The revolvers initially cost the Tsarist Government 30 roubles each (about AUD2000 in modern currency), although this also factored in the tooling costs necessary to set up the Tula arsenal to produce the guns. By WWII the cost was down exponentially, but it is difficult to give an exact price due to the complicated way the Soviet economy worked; something in the region of around what would be AUD200 today seems likely.
The Nagant M1895 revolver first saw service during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 in China, followed by the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, and it remained in service throughout World War I and WWII, with many examples carrying on as reserve or security firearms into the 2000s.
Before 1918 the revolver was made in two versions: a single-action version for NCOs and infantry, and a double-action revolver for officers. After the 1917 revolution, however, production appears to have been standardised on the double-action model.
Even in the 1890s a fixed-cylinder design was somewhat outdated, and in 1910 a version of the pistol with a swing-out cylinder (which hinged out to the right like the French Mle 1892 pistol) was developed with a view to replacing the M1895.
Issues with cartridge extraction meant a bit more work was required before the design could be adopted, and then World War I broke out, which focussed everyone’s arms designing attention on more pressing matters and the plans were shelved.
The Nagant M1895 was popular with the troops in the Russian military because it was rugged and reliable — it could function in the harshest of Russian winters. It had proven its mettle in several previous conflicts, and — importantly — could fit through the small arms firing ports of the Soviet Union’s tanks, so it remained in production alongside the Tokarev TT-33 pistol which had been introduced in 1930.
When the Nazis invaded Russia in 1941, any plans of discontinuing the Nagant revolver were discarded and production was evacuated to the Izhevsk arsenal in October of that year, due to the front line being uncomfortably close to Tula.
118,000 M1895s were made in 1941, but problems gearing up the Izhevsk arsenal for M1895 production — and re-establishing the previously evacuated Tula arsenal from early 1943 — meant quality control suffered considerably after this point, and production numbers of serviceable revolvers remained quite low until the end of WWII, when production of the M1895 revolver finally ceased.
The exact number of M1895s made isn’t known as the records were lost, destroyed or neglected during WWII, but conservative estimates put the number at somewhere between 2.6 and 3 million pistols.
Officially they were declared obsolete and replaced by the Makarov PM in 1952, but the Nagant M1895 continued to see use for decades afterwards in remote parts of Russia and the former Soviet Union, particularly with police officers, forest rangers, railway guards, geological survey teams and similar roles. Some are still reported to be in use today, too.
The Nagant also has the claim to fame of being probably the only mass-produced centrefire revolver which can be effectively fitted with a suppressor, thanks to its unusual cylinder gas-seal system. The NKVD and KGB were known to have used suppressed M1895s in small numbers for clandestine work.
The Soviets refurbished their existing stocks of Nagant M1895 revolvers in the 1970s and made a final batch of ammunition for them, before placing them back in storage. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, these guns were eventually sold cheaply on the international military surplus market.
Most of the M1895 revolvers in Australia come from a batch of about 350 imported by Lawrance Ordnance in the early 2000s, although a few others have trickled in from various sources over the years as well.
Ammunition for them is almost non-existent in Australia — no-one imports it regularly, as far as I have been able to ascertain — and so the only realistic way to fire the guns is either by using a different cartridge entirely, or getting creative and reloading your own ammo.
.32 S&W Long ammunition functions surprisingly well (and safely) in Nagant revolvers, and is the most popular off-the-shelf solution, while the other option involves reloading ammunition using .32-20 or .30 M1 Carbine brass. Neither case allows for the proper gas-seal effect.
When fired with .32 S&W Long cartridges, the guns prove accurate enough at ranges of up to 20m, but don’t have the muzzle energy for much more than punching paper.
Historically, the Nagant M1895’s service accuracy for combat use with 7.62x38R cartridges was putting four shots in a 15cm (6in) group at 25m, but the guns generally proved more accurate than that when used off the battlefield.
The Nagant M1895 is well known in vintage firearms circles for having an absolutely horrendous trigger pull – well over 12lb (5.4kg) in single-action mode and a finger-straining 20lb-plus (9kg) in double action mode.
This means it’s not a highly competitive handgun for matches where speed is of the essence, but it’s still a fun piece as a treat for Service Pistol matches sometimes.
For those interested in learning more about the Nagant M1895, C&Rsenal’s deep dive into the pistol is essential viewing, while George Layman’s Communist Bloc Handguns also contains a wealth of information on it.
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