More than an Oddity: The Revol'ver Sistemy Nagana obr. 1895g

Its unusual gas-sealing system was an evolutionary dead end, but the Nagant revolver was part of an amazing amount of history in more than a half-century of service. Read more about it in the 10/20 issue of SGN.

A trio of Red Army officers pose with their Nagant revolvers in 1930. The chance any of

them would survive the purges and warfare of the next 15 years was slim.

The Revol'ver Sistemy Nagana obr. 1895g served Imperial Russia and the USSR for

almost six decades, despite nominally being replaced by the Tokarev autoloader.

The obr. 1895g could be easily dissembled for cleaning, and, once you understand it,

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is not all that difficult to maintain, despite is unusual gas-seal design.

Between 1930 and 1937 the Polish government produced the Rewolwer Ng30 at the

Radom arsenal, using the original Belgian tooling. (Francis Kennedy photo)

A commissar, armed with an obr. 1895g Nagant, questions a Russian army deserter. The

Germans executed commissars whenever they captured them; it was a risky job.

Soviet partisans were armed with four of the mainstay weapons: obr. 1895g revolver,

Maxim machine gun, Mosin-Nagant rifle and PPSh-41 submachine gun.

This team of Soviet partisans is armed with a Nagant revolver, SVT40 Tokarev rifle, a

Tokarev pistol, Mosin-Nagant rifle and hand grenades.

These are two "Sport" Nagant revolvers intended for target shooting: (top) Model 1927

in .22 Long Rifle and (bottom) a Model 1925 in 7.62mm. (Joe Leiper photo)