Just picked this M1895 up on my C&R, the ammo came in on Friday, and got it out to the range Saturday. According to the markings, this pistol was manufactured in 1940 at the Tula plant and was refurbished after WWII. It's got wood grips, not the bakelite ones as pictured on aimsurplus.com where I ordered it, but no complaints. It took me a good 2 to 3 hours to get the cosmoline off, luckily Google turned up some good instructions on disassembly complete with pictures.
I'm happy to say that this 71 year old $120 thing does indeed shoot. The sights may be just a hair off; after the initial 7 rounds I realized that if I aim at the left edge of the bullseye I'd hit the center. Then again that could just be my crappy trigger pull. (Target was at about 10 yards, I'm not that good of a pistol shot yet.)
The revolver is surprisingly fun to shoot. If anything I'd say that it's got less recoil than my wife's P22. Reloading is slow of course, but it's fun and different compared to my other pistols, which are semi-auto. Besides with 5 boxes of ammo costing as much as the pistol, it's probably a good thing reloading is slow.
I'm happy to say that this 71 year old $120 thing does indeed shoot. The sights may be just a hair off; after the initial 7 rounds I realized that if I aim at the left edge of the bullseye I'd hit the center. Then again that could just be my crappy trigger pull. (Target was at about 10 yards, I'm not that good of a pistol shot yet.)
The revolver is surprisingly fun to shoot. If anything I'd say that it's got less recoil than my wife's P22. Reloading is slow of course, but it's fun and different compared to my other pistols, which are semi-auto. Besides with 5 boxes of ammo costing as much as the pistol, it's probably a good thing reloading is slow.
