I'm curious as to what you all think about safe maximum pressures in the old Russian Nagant revolver. Looking at mine, the frame and cylinder seem sturdy enough, but due to the design with the cylinder moving forward it looks like all the back thrust of the cartridge case head pushes against the moving breechblock and against the wedge that rises up behind it to push it forward. The thrust then is transferred to the frame by the two side flanges riding in grooves in the frame. Has anyone measured these and come up with an estimate of what it'll hold safely? Or know of any pressure testing of the Nagant? I believe I once saw a reference online stating that the European standard for maximum average pressure for factory ammo is 16,000 PSI or thereabouts.

There were cylinders available in 7.62x25mm which averages 42,000 c.u.p. from the commie block.

I have a few of the revolvers, and consider them disgusting.

How could a gun designer look at an 1873 Colt peacemaker and come up the 1895 as the next step?

I don't know that it was the next step from a Peacemaker. The Nagant brothers were competing with a bunch of other European gunmakers for a military contract and had to come up with a gimmick they could sell. The Russians went for the sliding cylinder, gap-sealing design. Boosts power very substantially when it works, like 1100 vs. 800 FPS M.V. But it's needlessly complicated and has a tendency to jam in place after firing. The Swiss and Norwegians bought versions of it without the sliding cylinder and elongated brass. For the Russians, it replaced the S&W top break .44 Russian revolver, which I'd rather have personally. As for the technical gimmick, the English went for the Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver around that time, too.

I think the Nagant is a fun little gun, myself. It's funny looking at first, but it grows on you. The sliding cylinder and breech block make the double action pull hard and rough. The ejection is klutzy, for sure. It's worth having and shooting because of its unique gap sealing action. A piece of firearms history. Served with the Russian military through the same time period as the Mosin rifles.

Thanks for the info about the 7.62x25 cylinders! I feel pretty good about it if it'll hold up to firing those.

I have blown up lots of revolvers.

As an approximation to the first order, consider hoop stress on the thinnest part of the chamber wall.

The lousy 100 year old steel is probably only good to 80ksi, but it always takes allot more than calculated to get a gun to break.

I sure your time or my time are both more valuable than one of those revolvers. Try to blow one up so you know what the other one will do. If you are not used to it, I started out tying them to a stick, and pulling on a triggers string from the other side of a concrete wall.

But after a while, you learn which way the pieces will fly, and what it would take just from looking at the gun. And with real data, you will learn that most of what is in gun books and load books is about as correct as medieval medical books. Armed with that knowledge, you can then be persecuted on gun forums as a heretic.

I think the flanges of that breech block pusher wedge, whatever it's called, are more likely to be the part that lets go than the cylinder walls. I don't think I really want to deliberately blow one up, though.

I see the wedge.

I have notes from 11/6/2004

quote:

1895 7.62 Nagant 7 shot revolver
32-20 brass, 15 gr. LIL'GUN, 85 gr. Speer .312" JHP, roll crimping
canalure, loud, kicks, some particles hitting me in the face.
32-20 brass, 4 gr. Unique, 76 gr. cast Liberty .312", bullet backward
and crimp into lube band, wimpy
Gun was inaccurate

There is a big cylinder gap, if I use 32-20 brass. I wonder if that could get welded up.

quote:

Originally posted by tnekkcc:
There were cylinders available in 7.62x25mm which averages 42,000 c.u.p. from the commie block.

wow, i want one of those cylinders

That LilGun load sounds pretty stout.

Yeah, the cylinder gap's big without the long brass to seal it. I got a reply from Starline yesterday confirming that they won't again manufacture Nagant brass in the near future, possibly never. I'll have to buy some Hotshot ammo and reload it if I want long cases.

Cylinders for .32 ACP are on the market for these revolvers. If someone really wanted to try the 7.62x25, I suppose they could get one of those cylinders and a chambering reamer... I wonder if the chamber walls would be getting a little thin?

I have such a reamer, but not much love for the gun.

I am thinking now that it might be possible to bush the cylinder throats to be longer and act like the missing over long brass.


The link to the 1999 source for Tokarev cylinder service is dead


OK, here he shot it and it didn't blow up

Here is a guy who got one