French Model 1935A Pistol 

I love the way this pistol looks! The shape of the slide and the grip remind me a lot of the Sig P210.

The 7.65 L as issued by France usually had a steel jacketed bullet. It is much hotter than is believed. The parent case was the 1918 Peterson Device cartridge. The 7.65 Browning was issued by the Million in WW1 and was found to easy to teach a large number of recruits to shoot well. In the 1930s new weapons were being adopted by France. The 7.65 L was designed for penetration (like a German Great Coat that was wet). The French usually carried pistols with the chamber empty, so the safety is not depended upon. The 1935 series of pistols were in service into the 1970s. The 1935 A are regarded as the best of the line. In Paris the Motorcycle Police carried the 1935 A by choice. It is an excellent pistol and like most things French it is underrated. In various areas where France had possessions the 1935 pistols are still in use as are the MAS 1936 rifles. You made an excellent presentation.

god bless america, merci d'avoir parlé français, le souvenir de La Fayette soit avec toi.

JUST received (April 2024), "The French 135 Pistol" by Eugene Medlin and Colin Doane. I was very pleased to note that it had been autographed by Eugene Medlin - not even the vendor (Amazon) had noticed.

Thanks for the video, Mike. My brother and I used to droll over these pistols when they were advertised for very little in the National Rifleman back in the sixties.

My dad brought one of these back from Europe after WWII. Thank you for the info.

A correction...I didn't say I'd shot .32 ACP in it. I said fellow gun writer Mike Venturino reported that he had done so.

Just got one of these. Update: ammo now available from Steinel, new Starline brass used. Approximately 40 usd a box. Good stuff. Now to find proper bullets for reloads.

The camera is on a tripod behind the Evil Roy steel target and showing just over Roy's head, so the steel target protects it as long as I don't miss. I have shot up several tripods though... mostly bullet fragments coming off the steel and damaging the legs of the tripods. But in one notable case I put a .62 caliber musket ball right through the center post of a tripod. So it does go really wrong sometimes. If you look at my 10mm Glock 20SF video you'll see a tripod take a nasty hit.

Next week I'll have a video up on the M1951 Beretta

When the gun is fired in a locked breech design the barrel and slide are locked together by the lugs and they recoil rearward as a single unit. That keeps the breech locked closed until the bullet can exit the barrel. Under the barrel there is a link that attached to the barrel and that is attached to the frame by a pin.After a little rearward travel the link under the barrel reaches the end of it's freedom of movement and stops, which pulls the barrel down a little. (cont below)

Mes ancêtres du côté de mon père venaient de la région de Poitiers, alors qu'ils étaient dans le bon endroit pour les guerres de religion. L'émigré à Arcadia dans les années 1640. La famille de ma mère était de la Normandie et a émigré au Québec. Je suis allé à l'école française comme un enfant, mais je n'ai pas utilisé la langue depuis 40 ans, donc je me bats. Je suis membre à vie de deux SASS et de la NRA, et je suis fier de lui!

That downward movement of the barrel releases the locking lugs from their recess in the frame. The unlocked slide continues to the rear, ejecting the fired brass and chambering a new round.

I am glad you have found my lossed pistol! Regardez, Inspector Clouseau

Thanks for the video my dad bought this same gun in 1950 and I still have some of the original ammo for it. He passed away and now I am the new owner. He had purchased allot of the 32 acp ammo and had fired it with that ammo. But he changed the spring action in it so it was weaker and the acp ammo would eject from it. But he always did say it was not very accurate ,compared it to firing a musket. I have never shot it and probably never will just a show piece for the mantel.

Those revolvers are so cool!!!

Fun video and good job! Happy to have this gun!

After WW1 the French instituted a vast rearmament program.A semi auto battle rifle was first on the list, The submachine gun and handgun were low in the list. The 7.65 Long is basically the US Peterson device cartridge.It had a steel bullet for penetration of German greatcoats. It was loaded hotter than SAAMI standards. These pistols were generally carried with the chamber empty. The Paris Motorcycle police carried these until the early 1980s. They point well and are very reliable. Nice Video

Light rounds like .32 ACP and .380 fire from an unlocked breech. The weight of the slide keeps the action closed long enough for the bullet to exit the muzzle. These are called blowback actions. More powerful rounds would need too heavy a slide to be practical. So rounds like 9mm and .45 ACP use a recoil operated locked breech action. There are several methods of doing this. In Browning designs like the 1911, the barrel has locking lugs that mate with recesses in the slide. (cont below)

As always I find your videos entertaining and informative. Keep up the good work.

A fine presentation of a nice pistol. Perhaps someday, you might find an MAB 58 to show us.

It is very similar to the 1911 except the link is split into a right and a left link and the guide rod has a hole for the retaining pin and it fits between the two sides of the link. On top of the barrel are two locking lugs that engage slots in the slide just like a 1911.

Tu parles bien français cousin. Un flingue assez rare, en effet. Nice review!

i find french guns to be interesting. Sometimes convoluted, sometimes with strange and unnecessary features, but over all decent, efficient designs, more often than not made by domestic inventors\designers by domestic manufacturers. The fact that they are not only under-appreciated, but also so obscure as to be nearly unknown, just makes them more fascinating.

I love the P210. Maybe the best single stack 9mm military handgun ever, but the prices! I just can't justify spending thousands of dollars on a surplus gun.

I haven't done anything else with them. I picked up some .309" jacketed bullets to try, but I haven't loaded them up yet.

Interesting pistol, but it could make anyone look bad with sights like those. Keep the rare stuff coming!

Excellent video. The hat was a nice touch! Thanks for sharing!

nice! it served as the basis for the Swiss P210

Most .32 caliber pistol molds will work. It just isn't a pistol I plan on shooting enough to make casting worth while.

Good,shooting

Glad I found your channel!

My grandpa has this pistol its very nice gun

@jamiemcf1 Right you are. the french only came up with smokeless powder, made the first gun to fire with a cartridge, and more.

that is a very nice pistol

I have 1835a mine has rather thick wood handles . It was my dads and now it's mine. He had it since the early 70s

Great video, very informative and Entertaining. Thank You.

Great video with super information. You can have .32 longs made for this pistol by GAD Custom Reloaded Cartridges.

Mike, as you might know, COTW has many errors in it. The .32 long French round is very similar to our WW1 .30 Pederson device cartridge.

Sorta reminds me of a Sig 210? Sweet video Mike. Thanks!

Я рад слышать, что новости. Спасибо.

I guess if it was behind Roy it would have to be an X-Ray camera...LOL Seriously mounting on the steel plate I'm shooting at would just shake the camera severely with every bullet impact

Interesting design.

Hey about you slugging the barrel. I think you should do that again WITH MICROMETERS not calipers. Three thou is within the standard deviation on calipers. I slugged my 1935A and it is indeed .308. Perhaps this is why your report is so loud [excess pressure]. I hope this helps, be safe.

Great videomike, I had every faith in you for the one litre bottle shot!..lol

Hi from France Mike . This is the very first time I see a 1935A pistol shooting and in a such good condition . It's an historical piece and your 2nd amendment protects it against europeans gun banners . As I remember, the cartridge was already obsolete when the gun was created . I think it was a matter of cost and not having the cartridge of the "ennemy" (germans) in 9X19 which is much efficient . About security, it's like the MAC 1950 9X19 : It's a shit ...

we have one of these at the local gun shop i work at. also one of the old 11mm french ordanance revolvers

i looked up Mike Venturino , i actually found the section you were talking about. Mike speaks trading the 1935a to his buddy. He told his buddy that ammo was hard to come by but his buddy got .32 auto factory loads and they worked in single shot action. Can single shot action be also known as one in chamber? if so, does that mean i can stricly fire single action shots but i cant put a bullet in the clip and fire? That is what im trying to figure out. Also I have 1935S not a1935A

This is one pistol I would like to own, along with a few hundred rounds of ammo. Sadly it appears the ammo would cost more then the pistol, ah well I will stick to my little cut down M1911A1 in .45 ACP, I have about a thousand rounds to feed her and her big brother, the Astra A100 in .45ACP that I carried on duty for over 10 years on the PD before an accident put me on the totally disabled list. I may be disabled, but I can still handle my handguns properly and the accuracy I obtained over my 8 years in the US Army and 24 years on the PD has seemed to stuck with me, every time I take my guns to the country for a bit of exercise, they seem to preform nicely and my hands, though a bit shaky now at 69 years of age, seem to settle right in when the comfortable grip of my M1911 is applied.

Thank you

C'est bon! Moi aussi...mes ancêtres

Terril, I saw that you plan on leaving RU-vid. I think that is too bad. I don't know your reasons, but if it is trolls, don't let them get you down. You ought to see some of the awful comments I get, but most folks are great, so I just ignore the jerks. Also, it takes a while to get a channel going, especially if you concentrate on old guns and B-P. Believe me I know. But, eventually it works out. I'd recommend you stick with it.

Dam,cool,gun

Bonjour Mike, merci beaucoup pour la grande qualité de toutes vos vidéos. Vôtre nom, Beliveau, est-il d' origine Française ????

Very informative information, thank you ! I just picked one of these up and the owner didn’t have any information on it. It was rusted pretty bad. I’ve soaked it in oil and got the magazine out. Going to try cleaning it up better. I do reloading so if I get it in decent shape I might try to load some bullets for it. Did you ever figure out a good load for the ammo ?

very cool

Hi, The fact is : French military handguns from the end of the 19th century to the mid 1950's were most of the time very well made, by talented engineers BUT the ammunitions used were not designed by them, but by some comitee (depending on the time) which had no ballistic skills, only thinking about costs, and considering handguns effectiveness on the second plan. The same problem happens with the chamelot delvigne 1873 and the 1892. Today's reloaders have hard time trying to overcome this.

7.65 Browning is the European name for .32 ACP, as in they're the same round. I see that duelist1954 said he's managed to get .32 ACP to work in his 1935S, but admittedly, I'm not going to tempt it. I'd like to use mine but I'm not in any rush.

so wikipedia says this gun is a blowback, but I trust your knowledge can you tell me what kind of breech lock does this use?

I found one of these recently in a cache of old handguns and it has a slight problem. For some reason or another the hammer doesn't lock back when the slide cycles. I've taken it apart and looked it over and can't find any parts that seem to be missing or in the wrong place, so I have no idea what its problem is.

Well six years in a French catholic parochial school kind of drilled it into my head. I'm a little rusty though.

2 french pistols i want. Are a 32 acp ruby And an m92 revolver that i would rechamber in 32-20 since 8mm ordinance can be reloaded with 32-20 brass

Nice to see an A even with that ewww finish. I've got the 35S and it was a delight to shoot but the ammo I manage to get was as old as the gun an not even close to reliable. Wish I had been able to do my own reloads instead. Oh well. Was not to see you using it and helping clear up some of the misinformation regarding this "baby 1911" (my nickname for my 35S)

also a very cool hat,

thanks for the video! i am interested in buying one just to have it. pity the original ammo is rare, i wonder what it would shoot like with proper ammo.

How've you done with your handloads since you posted this? I picked up a 1935 S in the same round so I'm interested in hearing feedback from fellow owners of firearms in this caliber. I need to get some more gear to begin handloading for this pistol but I look forward to the challenges.

D'accord. C'est domage. J'ai la chance d'en posséder l'un d'eux.

Deux PA 35 ??? je n'est jamais vue une paire de ces pistolet en vente ! Ton PA 35 est de qu'elle fabriquant ? SACM ?

Tres bon kepi de Legion Etrangere, J'adore arms de France.

Oui, mais ma famille a quitté la France dans les années 1640 et est allé au Canada. Mon arrière grand-père a déménagé sa famille aux Etats-Unis en 1890. Donc, nous avons à en Noth America depuis assez longtemps.

great interesting gun

Bonjour de France ^^

Ah finaly, a review of a french handgun ! Great job " M'sieur Beliveau ", i hope to see a lebel 1892 revolver in one of your video someday. Greetings from France ! Oh and by the way, not bad your french for a yankee ! ;)

I have a friend with a 1935 A SACM with German proof marks . The gun is interesting because it is chrome or nickel plated. I am assuming it was done after it made its way state side. Is there any evidence that SACM plated any of these ? Is it possible that it is factory original?

Not possible. It would be great if they were compatible, but they aren't (32 ACP has a bigger case head for starters). I bought some brass from Bertram to load up some ammo for mine but haven't gotten around to buying any bullets or primers yet and I don't think I have any dies that would be suitable or useful at the moment. Quite certain, however, that I have some molds to cast some bullets that would fit this round so I'll get around to it.

I'm confused, are you saying it's possible to chamber and fire .32 ACP in an unaltered MAS-193A pistol? I would have thought you'd need to mill out the breech face to accommodate the rim.

I just got some ammo with the head stamp of VE 1945, did some research and found out its a all still ammo, designed for that firearm and the 35-s

@Gunsforfreedom Hi, it was devoloped by a swiss man who was in the french foreign legion. later SIG bought the patent, rights, whatever it was, and uaed it as the basis for the p210

Merci pour cette video Mike,I'm French (partly grew up in the States),u always make it interesting Budd. You should put tags in French too(like pistolet/semi auto français) u ll get some subscribers here,tho u re Known around here, your old west segments are watched.well I do for 5/6 years.. anyway,prends soins A+; peace out

thanks thats good to know. ok so i have two questions 1. if i shoot using strickly one in the chamber ill be good to go? 2. by cycling the action you means it cant shoot one and another, correct?

I do not. It is possible to get .32 ACP to fire, but the accuracy is poor and it isn't powerful enough to cycle the action.

I had one of these maybe 40 years ago but had no ammo for it. Mine was in near new condition, Only dropped on the ground once.

you have a vicky freanch pistol ,when the legion was slip in two 1937-1960

I found one of these in my grandpa's collection years ago and still have it. Question is... where in God's name did you find .32 FL ammo?

Love it! Mike B is the snitz!!! :D

Great video , it kind of looks like a Sig P210 .

My dad gave me one of these. Before the internet, finding any info on it was nearly impossible. Anyone know where I can find a couple extra magazines and ammo? Have never fired it.

that's PA-35 A ( in video ) designed by SACM The PA-35S has désigned by MAS and made by MAC

how hard is it to find ammunition for this handgun?

I have a 1935s Sagem m1 what are my ammo options. This gun is in great shape

what about shooting 7.65mm browning rounds instead of .32 acp or french longs?

Hey Duelist i got a quick question, i got a modele 1935s.Can i use .32 acp bullets for it?

do you use .32 acp for your 1935s? and if you dont is it possible to do so?

That round looks like the new federal .30 super carry, and dimensions look comparable. It may be .015 difference.

was this pistol used in WW2

when i saw that french gun i thought of a sig. i wouldn't mind owning a 9mm version of this

Will one in the chamber work with .32 ACP rounds?

This looks almost like a sig sauer. Is there where they got the design from?

What about a S&W .32 Long?

duelist1954, а у нас в России возможно тоже скоро легализуют нарезное огнестрельное оружие для самообороны. Glock даже местное производство уже организовали, правда купить пистолеты пока нельзя, они в обращении только у криминала и полиции в данный момент (хотя наша полиция и армия тоже криминал, сейчас они защищают исключительно правительство от граждан, была реформа). Ну это я без всякой цели говорю, просто раз уж вы увлекаетесь, то думаю эта новость Вас должна обрадовать.