The First S&W .38: The "Baby Russian"
Revolvers
•
8m 0s
Taking what they had learned in developing their series of large-frame .44 caliber revolvers, Smith & Wesson introduced the “Baby Russian” in 1876 as their first .38 caliber revolver. They actually developed the cartridge first (146 grains at 740 fps), and then designed the revolver around it. The result was a 5-shot, top-break action initially offered with 3.25 inch and 4 inch barrels. It used the same simultaneous extractor as the No.3 revolvers, though this would change after only about a year with the move to a 2nd variation. The first two variations used a single action spur trigger, but this was replaced by a normal trigger and trigger guard on the 3rd variation. In total, about 161,000 were made by the time production ended in 1911.
Up Next in Revolvers
-
Webley-Kaufman: The Improved Governme...
Michael Kaufman was a talented gunsmith who worked for the Webley company from 1878 until 1881. While there, he patented a substantially improved clockwork for the gun, removing 5 parts from the system and improving the trigger press. He was paid a royalty for this system, which was tracked by th...
-
Hopkins & Allen XL Navy Rimfire .38 S...
At the top end of Hopkins & Allen’s revolver line were the XL Navy, XL Police, and XL-8 Army. We covered the Army in a separate video, and today we are looking at an XL Navy. This was a .38 caliber rimfire revolver with a 6-shot cylinder and a 6 inch barrel. It was single action only, with a pivo...
-
Hopkins & Allen XL-6 Revolver with a ...
"XL" was a brand name used by Hopkins & Allen to cover several different styles of revolver, but the first were a series of rimfire, spur-hammer pocket guns made in the 1870s and 1880. These were mostly very simple, chambered for a range of cartridges from .22 rimfire to .41 rimfire. Some example...
