@@d3734 remmember, the shell has to be pushed into the tray by the spring, and the action move far enough back to fit the length of each shell aswell. So even with just 4 rounds, you'll have a 6-7" long pistol including the grip
Grasshopper K And compare that to an NAA mini revolver, I have a Black Widow and it is under 6 inches total with 5 shots of 22 _magnum_. And that thing is quite accurate and even has adjustable sights. But I think a recreation of this gun would be a cool range toy for sure.
@@d3734 a modern replica with minimal editing would be fantastic. Especially if Remington try sticking to hand crafting where necessary. As and Engineer, I'm all for using digital and mechanical everything for manufacture. But as a carpenter, and also an engineer. I understand why it's not physically possible to recreate exact replicas of things like the NASA F1 engine. Over 60% of the construction used hand welds. The F1A1 blueprints today, took 2 decades of trial and error to make a modern equivelant, for today's tools and skill sets.
Same, make it cheap, and cheerful, with a few modern touches, and this would make a great pocket carry gun for times you did not want to be loaded down with something heavier, but just enough to make a good "gut buster" defense weapon.
I have one of these. A relative a long ways back was a riverboat gambler. I love the thumb action, have never seen another one out there until now. It is unbelievably slick and second nature. Mad respect to your ability to find rare pieces. My magazine lacks spring and follower. Neat to finally see an intact one.
Man, this is SO CLOSE to an autoloading design -- I can't imagine it would need to change much to have that cocking lever come back on blowback/recoil.
For the time, that has to be one of the best concealed-carry pistols available. Not a huge punch, but it's not outright anemic and you've got more than a couple shots to work with.
+Laird Cummings Or .25 ACP, if you want to market it for self defense rather than a range toy. It isn't much more powerful, but people kind of sneer upon the concept of using rimfire for self defense.
+Laird Cummings Also don't forget a few more inches over, and former President Roland Reagan would have been killed with a Röhm RG-14 .22LR blue steel revolver had it hit him right in the heart. You just need to be a good shot with .22 short and .22LR for it to be effective, but hit someone in the knee caps with .22LR at a short distance with a small hidden .22LR pistol, and you will at least drop them to their knees no doubt.
You know, if you make that longer so it can accept about 4 or 5 rounds of a modern caliber like .32ACP or .32NAA, and I think that would still sell today as a conceal option. I mean, North American Arms still sells the hell out of their little single action revolvers. This could compete well with those revolvers.
Your comment about the lack of engraving reminds me of a conversation with a master engrave here in England. We were talking about modern mass-produced shotguns that are covered in embossed or acid etched “engraving” and I asked why the manufacturers did not leave the guns just plain? He replied that it was more time-consuming to finish a gun perfect “in the white” finish to cover up any minor cosmetic imperfections, and putting on sometimes overdone embellishment actually made the guns cheaper to make.
Everyday after school from about 4th grade till they changed the afternoon line up, then always when I happened to catch it on. That was when you could actually learn things from watching the history channel.
A quick search finds that there are in fact companies still producing brass in .32 cal extra short - if you don't mind paying $3-$4 a round. This looks like it would be very reliable as well. Handsome little gun.
That'd be a real sleeper of a CC pistol. EDIT: SPOILER ALERT: When Ian turned the firearm sideways and revealed the aperture sight, my whimsy could barely be contained.
Rewatching this, I am wondering if a full size version with a King's loading gate could have given the revolver a run for it's money. You can't run a Volcanic with one hand, a major down fall, this you can! Ah, the possibilities?
Agreed, The White pistols, etc, really didn't hit my interest, though the little full auto 22 from mexico was neat. But this is one I wish somebody would make a modern version of, I think in a modern caliber it would make a neat competitor to the bond arms derringers, NAA mini revolvers, etc.
I want to size it up to 9mm, with a of course longer barrel, a detachable tube mag and bigger grip, just for shits and giggles. Gentlemen, we have the technology to rebuild the Remington Rider Pistol. Better than it was before. Better... Stronger... Faster.
@keith_moore: And how do you lock this monstrosity? You whould need a locking mechanism like the Desert Eagle or AR-15 to lock safely, we should stay in realistic, achieveable dimensions. Biggest we could make it safely is .375 Magnum but a soft mix.
Colum Peel this looks close shop.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools-supplies/general-gunsmith-tools/bore-lights/militaria-borelight-sku622000002-54129-105602.aspx?cm_mmc=PPC-_-Itwine-_-Google-_-622-000-002&gclid=COGo_pfIq9MCFQYJaQodtm4D-g
I'm glad he did that, I mentioned it'd be a good idea for him to carry one around a little while ago, many times he'd want to show something on the inside of a gun and say "you can't really see it but it's there".
Would 100% carry this if it was the only other option to revolvers tbh this is slicker than any of the rig triggers imo I don't think it would have enough power to really use the sights in a defensive situation but for parlor tricks it'd be fun.
I would love to see that mechanism on a tube-fed carbine, replacing a lever action. You wouldn't need to take your finger off the trigger, or tilt the gun while laying prone with it.
Very clever design and quite an attractive piece. This period in firearms development saw many creative designs of small pocket pistols. This little beauty would hide quite well in a vest pocket or in a lady's purse.
Neat design. Great use of space. Was the 32 long rimfire ever made with, say, a 3 shot capacity? I suspect years later it could have been made in 32 S&W (short), which has the advantage of being centerfire. a 4 shot one would be a nice little package. Or 5, but the barrel and mag tube would have to be a little longer. The sights are great- the designer was thinking. If caseless ammo ever takes off, one could make a modern version in say 38 cal and u wouldn't have to make provision for ejecting. That would be really interesting
Good review Ian and very interesting gun. I just remembered my dad used to have in the seventies a book of guns of the old west, and it had some cool looking guns, some that I've never seen in a RU-vid review or anywhere else and I was just thinking how much I used to love to look at that every now and then. I would just admire those guns and wonder what it would be like to shoot one or have one or whatever and now to get to see all these guns on RU-vid is just really nice. I've got to shoot a fair amount of unique and interesting guns in my day as well.
All these somewhat simple guns you guys feature,something like that would be such an interesting piece for any collector if someone made some for .22 short or other mouse gun cartridges,arguably it might be a better option than some mouse gun revolvers.
Looking in Barnes’s “cartridges of the world” the 32 extra short has a case length of .398” and a cartridge length of .645”. In metric that’s just over 10mm and 16mm. Very stubby cartridges Bullet weight was 54-60 grains, so just under 4 grams, with a powder charge of 5 to 5.5 grains. Estimated muzzle velocity about 650 ft/sec or compost 200 m/sec. estimated energy is 51 ft/lbs. for comparison a 22 short from a pistol has 68-72 ft/lbs depending on the manufacturer
Notice the band-aid on Ian's left ring finger. Ian frequently seems to have various scrapes and cuts on his hands in these videos. I don't think he gets as much credit as he deserves for putting his skin on the line for our benefit.
Do you think this could have potentially been changed to be semi-auto? it seems like if you didn't lock the breech-bolt thing, and possibly beef it up a bit to increase the weight as well as mabe a stronger spring, it could have functioned as a blowback pistol, seeing as it fires a weak cartridge. Although, it is small and i'm not sure if you could make that bolt heavy enough to be safe or reliable. Still, maybe making the gun a bit bigger may have made that a possibility. > The reason I say it is because it seems like it's almost all there, cycling the breech-bolt cocks the hammer, extracts empty case and chambers a new one, it's just manually operated.
If you kept it low-power (25 or 32 ACP) and adjusted the return spring, I could see it sorta working as a simple blowback (no locking required). Though I have to wonder whether the rotary nature of the action would be a problem, and you'd probably want to modify the ejector or add a deflector or something to keep the casings from flying straight back at you. That's a pretty soft "maybe" though.
The Czech Great Guns double barrel percussion derringer has a similar , though larger, silhouette. You can watch it on our Hungarian friend's Cap & Ball channel.
I'm not a gun owner, but a huge fan of odd designs. I would love to have seen more of its innards, but NEEDED to see at least one .32 EXTRA short bullet!! I wanted to go, "jeez, who'd've thot" . 😁
Well, the construction is fairly simple. Why aren't modern replicas/improvements of this design? This seems like the most efficient pocket pistol ever made.
Because tube mags are bad for maintaining capacity while having the size be small. Even in .22LR you'd need a mag tube of 5inches just for 5 rounds, well, a little more than 5 inches since you'd need room for the spring and follower as well. So you get the idea, put the reciever and grips on, and you have something like a 7inch long pistol just for 5 rounds of .22LR. Scaling it up to something like 9mm you'd only have like 4 shots in the mag for a gun that size. It'd be viable, but it would be outclassed by normal box magazine guns, which also have the benefit of faster reloads with multiple mags. That said, why aren't they made for recreational purposes is the bigger question, I'd totally buy one for the novelty.
Not entirely in 380 or 9mm it could make a nice conceal Carry option it could make a mini revolver sized but more powerful. It could be made into a simple semi auto configuration 2+1 9mm version or 3 +1 380 version
