Why is the Nagant 1895 the only gas-sealing revolver?

They don't really offer any advantage over a semi-auto. Heavy trigger pull, awkward cartridges, limited capacity, and slow to reload. I used to own a Nagant, traded it off for $50 more than I had in it, and would love to get another. Not because they are technologically superior, but because they are unique, and pecuiliar. Also the 7.62x38r is a pretty weak round, and I don't know how heavy a round that mech can handle.

It was a harder than normal gun to build. Extra motions and such made it have a wierd action feel. Top that off with a weak round and a market full of guns with no hole to fill. By the way there were other revolvers that have been given the silent treatment. Such revolvers were recently covered in another thread in which a s&w was converted for clearing tunnels where a regular I suppressed gun would guarantee permanent hearing loss. In today's market if you want to go quiet you buy an auto loader for a fraction of what a suppressable wheel gun would run.

They don't really offer any advantage over a semi-auto.

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I don't get it. Skribs is asking why the design hasn't been done on newer REVOLVERS.

Or do you mean that the semiauto favoritism that began back then pushed out the old design simply by way of many police and military services favoring semiautos in general. So attention was drawn away from the gas sealing system and sort of thrown to the weighside? Looking for clarification on your meaning.....

By the way Skribs, excellent question. I've wondered the same myself. I am only speculating, but I would think that as cartridges moved towards smokeless powders, and pressures increased, especially with magnum loads, that chamber errosion and wear and tear on the frame of the gun would give a sealed gas system gun a very short service life. I also suspect it would cause a lot of primer back flows that would bind the gun on modern day cartridges. Imagine the speed you could achieve on a .460 magnum if there was no barrel cylinder gap!!!! Of course, then rifling would have to be totally rethought as stabilizing bullets at that speed may become challenging.

I suspect it would only work on lower pressure revolver cartridges, perhaps as a way to increase performance on small caliber guns. BUT, as you have pointed out the triggers would be terrible and that would detract from the gun's shootability for SD situations. Not to mention, that modern metalurgy already allows us to hotrod defense cartridges due to increased durability. So what would the manufacturers gain by redesigning, or adapting the old design for modern sales.

I suspect they would make an expensive, hard to work on, hard to shoot bunch of guns, that would be plagued by problems....... And I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

This is all just a bunch of conclussions based on guesses. Hopefully someone else will have better real info, as I have no first hand experience with the Nagat design.

A 150 FPS gain is a totally bogus claim.

It is nothing even close to that.

Gas loss in a revolver has been proved over & over again to be much less then that in low pressure calibers like the Nagant.

In actual fact, they could more easily have made up the difference with another 0.1 or 0.2 grain of powder in a easier to make conventional case.

And made a gun with a much better DA trigger pull.

Go here to see about gas loss.
http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/gaptests.html


And yes, the Nagant it the only gas sealing revolver to make it into full scale mass production in history.
For a very good reason.

It wasn't needed then.
And it was certainly never needed later, to this day.

Otherwise, your new S&W's and Rugers would be made that way now.

rc

If you read some of the reports written by Small Arms Review Boards from around the turn of the 19th century, they put A LOT of emphasis on simplicity and part-counts. Designs that were viewed as simple and the had fewest parts were favored. This would necessarily put a gas-sealing revolver in a bad light.

Also, back then, they didn't consider the possibility, or the necessity, of silencing. The danger of gas from the cylinder gap wasn't considered an issue since handguns were meant to be shot single handed, and it had never been a significant problem in the past.

Just a few weeks ago I read on Google Books and old Army review of a beefed up Smith & Wesson lemon squeezer and some kind of Colt DA hand ejecting revolver. They spent years evaluating them, in the end they didn't like either. Should of bookmarked it.

Performance loss due to gas pressure loss through the barrel/cylinder gap in revolvers is waaay overblown in internet gun forums.

A 6" 45acp revolver will consistently out perform a 5" 1911 in bullet velocity. I've checked it myself.

And you can count the numbers of firearms that used suppressors in combat, well, no you can't, it is hard to do anything with the zero symbol. I know people don't like the facts, but the 1895 Nagant was obsolete the day it rolled off the assembly line, that is why no one copied it.

My point was, they don't offer any advantage over semi-autos, so why make a revolver that is more complicated to solve a near non-existant problem? As stated, the 7.62x38r is a very anemic round, and needed that extra few fps badly! DA trigger pull on the one I owned was something in the neighborhood of 13 pounds, while I believe single action was a super light 7 pounds! Don't get me wrong, I love the 1895, BUT no one in their right mind would decide to issue a revolver such as this after seeing what the nearly non-existant advantages are with it. I honestly figure one of the primary reasons this pistol was chosen for military service was because of who the designer was, Mr. Nagant, the same Nagant who's name is attached to the 1891 three-line rifle. Who know's who all he had in his pocket. Because truthfully there is 0 advantage to the 1895 over the S&W's that Russia was already using, other than I believe the 1895 was a 7 shot.

All that being said, I love the 1895. I find it fascinating and, like most things Russian, rugged.

Gotcha. Now I see what you meant.

Be careful if you take one apart.

I watched a youtube video and thought ....Heck I can do that so I completely disassembled my revolver but that tricky Double Action Fly Spring broke. 12 dollars and a week later I put it in the correct way and returned it to double action. That trigger is the definition of horrible. Still a cool gun from the perspective of engineering. The Tokarev is a far superior pistol and I cant fathom why they replaced it with the Makarov. It is like cutting the number one defensive End and replacing him with a third round draft pick.. Just my humble opinon

The gas sealing function is probably another triumph of superior marketing over engineering common sense. That, or graft over patriotism. Only speculation though on my part. Perhaps someone can post details on the Imperial Russian arms selection process. I enjoy shooting mine because its peculiarities make it interesting.

Summing what everyone else has said, the design is an answer in search of a problem.

My Nagant revolver is DA/SA. I load mine to the same specs as a .32 H&R. The revolver works fine but it is just an old design. As others have said it is easy just to not slide the cylinder forward and add a tiny amount more powder. Could you imagine being in combat against someone with a top break revolver let alone a magazine fed pistol and all you had is a Nagant......

There was a gas sealing revolver during the Civil War. The Savage/North .36 cal revolver.

http://armscollectors.com/mgs/savage_north.htm

There was a gas sealing revolver during the Civil War. The Savage/North .36 cal revolver.

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Yes, but the Savage North was a very different proposition. I handled one the other day, I'm trying to remember how it worked. Pulling the ring trigger at the bottom cocked the hammer, rotated the cylinder, and pushed the cylinder to the forward position. Then pulling the regular trigger tripped the hammer. You pulled the ring trigger with your middle finger and the normal trigger with your index finger. Not really a double action, it required separate motions from two fingers to fire it.

When the cylinder was pushed forward, the counterbores at the front of the chambers sealed against the rear of the barrel. Pushing the cylinder forward also lined up the nipples to be struck by the hammer. It was percussion, so there was no worry about primers flowing.

A very interesting design, but it was heavy, over three pounds for a 36 caliber pistol. The internals are very interesting, but a Colt is simpler.

I believe the NRA did the test that showed a velocity gain for the gas seal Nagant and do not consider it a bogus claim. And a .30 pistol needs all the help it can get.

There were several other Nagants without gas seals, and a number of competing makes in Western Europe. All European revolvers of that era were underpowered, they saw what a small caliber smokeless rifle could do but did not realize that 1/3 or less velocity in a handgun would not behave the same.

Also, you have to remember, that just a few years prior to adopting the Nagant, the Russians built a Round warship, the Novgorod. Two large main guns, when ever one of them fired, the shop would start going around like a merry-go-round, then when the other gun fired it would reverse directions. Knowing that bit of history makes understanding the Nagant revolver easier.

The Mexican made Peiper revolver and revolver carbine were also gas sealing designs and the Nagant is based on that principle.

Somebody had to test the concept to see if it worked. It did work, but the consensus is So what? WHB Smith "Small Arms of the World" 1966 more-or-less agreed. Interesting idea, but unnecessarily complicated.

It does have the advantage of being the only successfully silenced revolver. What gas comes through the cylinder/barrel gap of other revolvers may be a small percentage but it is a loud percentage. There was an odd ball revolver made to tight spex to allow use with a silencer, but it did not take long with one for the cylinder/barrel gap to erode til it was noisy.

That said, I like the 1895 Nagant for the history. It's steampunk special.

Added: I had to look up Novgorod (Post #18).
The Wikipedia article is sourced to Antony Preston, "The World's Worst Warships", Conway Maritime Press, (2002). ISBN 0-85177-754-6. Now I've got a book I have to find!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_monitor_Novgorod

well first and foremost you have to look at teh era it was created in.

For military purposes, most gun designs that were finally accepted all came from that countries people. Sure, some outside guns came in, the krag, the nagant itself was an import to russia, mauser action rifles.

But no one took russian technology, afterall the "barbaric" russians were just entereing the smokeless scene LAST.

the nagant system has more handfitting and parts then any contemporary or modern revolver. even double action. In essence the only more complicated handguns to make are lugers, broomhandle types, and semi automatic revolver of metaba type.

The Nagant revolver is an interesting study of contrasts. Overly complicated yet very rugged. Outdated as it went into production yet produced for over 50 years. Supposedly a weak round but powerful enough to be feared by Russian soldiers who were followed into battle by Stalin's secret police, ready to shoot anyone who had any other idea than going forward. And more of them were made than any other model of revolver.

The sliding cylinder arrangement the Nagant and Pieper pistols used was over 30 years old when the Nagant came out. Besides greatly simplifying the lockwork, piloting the chambers on the end of the barrel positively. No forcing cone, no flash to the sides, no lead shavings.

Also, the predecessors of the Nagant were all designed for black powder cartridges. If you've ever had the joy(?) of cleaning a black powder revolver, the gas seal designs are a marvel; just swab out the barrel and chambers and you're done.

People only think its a weak round because the budget brand commercial ammo is very watered down.

Then they get on the internet and repeat that fallacy endlessly.

surpluss ammo from the 60's STILL chronographs at double the velocity of Hot Shot or Privi Partisan. 1,200fps for the surplus ammo, Vs. 600fps for the neutered budget ammo. This is real chrony data from Nagant shooters, not load book data or official guesstimates. Go read up on it over at x54R.net

The nagant and ammo that struck fear into the russian soldiers was not the weak-sauce combination sold at your local gun show.

People have been shooting 32 H&R and even 327 Federal out of their Nagant revolvers. This is not advisable, but it has been documented numerous times without damage to the gun, or any reported injuries. Again, this is not advisable due to the different dimentions of those cartridges, but it illustrates the strength of the action.

The action is not weak. The ammo is not weak.

This is a very missunderstood revolver.

Knights Armament Company made a gas sealed revolving rifle based on the Ruger GP100.