Today’s review is the Nagant M1895 revolver. The revolver is available for purchase to Curio & Relics FFL holders, for good reason… this gun really is both a curio and a relic. There’s been nothing else like this gun in mass production, it’s an odd duck in almost every way. Is this a survival firearm? Well…
Nagant M1895 Revolver Philosophy Of Use:
Three years ago, the Nagant M1895 revolver was available EVERYWHERE for $99 (I saw them as low as $69 in 2012), they were ubiquitous and they were a great buy for a “stash gun”. The supply suddenly “ran dry” and the price of the Nagant M1895 revolver has generally doubled, if you can find them at all.
Surplus ammunition was available reasonably priced. IF you can find these guns reasonably priced, they are one of the few center fire guns that you can stash with 1000+ rounds of ammo for under $500 if you look around for a case of surplus. From a prepper/survivalist point of view, that’s the POU. Emphasis on the word “IF”.
But wait, there’s more!
Additionally, they are a really fun gun for a collector, because there really is absolutely nothing like the Nagant M1895 revolver on the mass market. It’s such an odd design that it’s really shocking that this gun ever went into production, let alone remain in production for over 50 years to the tune of 2-million plus copies from all major Soviet manufacturers.
There is one other rather bizarre POU that virtually nobody would ever do, but due to the really wonky design of the Nagant M1895 revolver, it is possible. This is the only revolver that I know of, certainly the only mass produced revolver that can be readily and inexpensively upgraded to mount a suppressor/silencer.
Why you would want to do this, I have no idea. There are 10,000 better options for silencing, but if you were bound and determined to have a silenced wheel gun, this revolver is pretty much your only easily converted choice. When there is no other options, however, the gun works well for the job.
There were many Nagant revolvers converted by the Viet Cong to shoot with silencers/suppressors, and examples of these still exist in museums.
(Front of .32 ACP cylinder)
Nagant M1895 Revolver Design
The M1895 Nagant revolver is a 7 shot wheel gun. On the surface, it looks fairly typical for a turn of the 20th Century revolver… but once you REALLY start looking at it, something unique is revealed.
The Nagant M1895 revolver uses brass-encased 7.62mm ammunition, with the bullet completely engulfed by the brass casing. To put it in human terms, it’s like the round is “uncircumcised”.
The breech of the barrel has a ring that extends into the cylinder area, and when the revolver is cocked, the cylinder not only rotates to transport the new round into position, it also moves the entire cylinder forward to engage the ring on the back of the barrel, making a gas seal between the round and the barrel.
The front of the cylinder is recessed to allow a firm seal (this is what makes it possible to silence/suppress this revolver. Other revolvers leave this area “open” which makes them impossible to suppress).
Honestly, this is easier to describe with pictures, so let me show you one of my Nagant revolvers (this particular one is a 1943 Tula).
In the above picture, the barrel is to the left… you can see the ledge that comes out of the back of the barrel (there’s a small snag of a cleaning patch on it, in case you are wondering what the white speck is there). The casing/cylinder rests like it is now until the gun is cocked (for single action) or the trigger is pulled (double action).
The cylinder is pushed forward making a gas seal as the gun is either cocked or the trigger is pulled in double action. It then pops back out after the shot is fired. There is a spring in the cylinder which keeps it back away from the barrel at all times unless the gun is cocked, and that spring is one of the reasons the double-action trigger pull strength makes double-action nearly unusable.
Nagant M1895 Revolver Tale Of The Tape:
Grips: Wood or Bakelite (depending upon the time made)
Capacity: 7 Rounds
Finish: Blued
Barrel Length: 4.5″
Overall Length: 10.5″
Front Sight: Ramp
Rear Sight: Notch (no adjustments available)
Weight: 1.8 pounds
Magazine Type: Cylinder
Suggested Retail: Surplus gun, ranges from $99 to as much as they can sucker you for.
Ammunition:
The 7.62 ammo is a standard size for Soviet arms over the last 100+ years, making the tooling for everything from the Nagant revolver, the Mosin-Nagant rifle, the SKS and AK-47 interchangeable.
Having said that, the actual cartridge is unique to this gun. The 7.62 Nagant design seals the gap, allowing for greater pressure to build behind the bullet. All of the ammo I have seen has been full metal jacket, wither it be the surplus com-bloc ammo from a spam can or modern day production from PPU.
One might think that the gas-trapping would give the Nagant round a lot of stopping power. Unfortunately, by today’s standards, the round is actually quite a poor performer. Military rounds seem to have more “umph” than commercial rounds.
Firing a Soviet surplus (1973 production) round through a speed trap showed me a 100 grain bullet traveling at 1034 FPS giving me a calculated muzzle energy of 237.5 on a full metal jacketed bullet.
Russian surplus rounds. I think the markings read “Party tonight at Comrade Leonid Brezhnev’s dacha, be there or be in Siberia. BYO vodka!”
Here’s a photo of the 7.62x38R Nagant round… the “uncircumcised” round…
The gun can also be fired using other commercially available ammunition not specifically designed for the Nagant, but… with one exception, just don’t do this. You can Google what will fit in there (and NEVER EVER EVER EVER use a magnum round in this gun, it will blow your hand off)
And again, when it come’s to the Nagant M1895 revolver, there’s even more…
The one “Salty Approved” exception is the .32 ACP round in an aftermarket cylinder. I have one of these for one of my Nagant revolvers, and it works great, allowing me to shoot commercially available (and easily reloadable) rounds. The .32 ACP is MUCH shorter than the 7.62 Nagant round, so it doesn’t provide a gas seal. I have not run a speed test on this combination.
.32 ACP (top) and 7.62x38R Nagant (bottom)
There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
One thing to note, although these .32 ACP conversion cylinders are commonly available, they often require a bit of “gunsmithing” to get them to work. I have one that works fine in ONE of my revolvers, but not in the others (indexing issue), so I just shoot it with that one Nagant.
Comblock Nagant surplus ammo is Bredan primed, non-reloadable (unless you are a reloading God) and corrosive. Fortunately, due to the seal of the gas area, the only part area of the gun that gets hit by the corrosive gas is the interior of the barrel. Corrosive ammo is no big deal if you properly clean your guns directly after shooting them.
Nagant M1895 revolver Shooting:
Henry rifles were famously known as “The gun you load on Sunday and shoot all week”. I think the slogan for the Nagant revolver should be similar. “The gun you shoot on Sunday and load all week.”
Because of the nature of the round, the rounds are loaded one at a time, through a loading gate on the right hand side of the gun. Since there’s a LOT of expansion of the cartridges as the bullets push through the front lips, expelling the fired brass can be difficult to the point of requiring a rubber mallet.
We made this video to show how much fun it is to clear spent brass from a Nagant revolver:
Suffice to say that the only way to rapid fire reload a Nagant revolver is to use the “New York Reload” method… have 6 Nagant revolvers in a sack, and when you have fired your seven rounds stick the empty gun in your pocket and grab another loaded revolver. Removing the cylinder is not particularly difficult, but it is both time consuming and one has to remove parts from the gun to do it (not something that can be done quickly).
Early Nagant revolvers were made in single action, and double action. Following WWI, all Nagants were made as double action revolvers and earlier single action revolvers were often converted to double action.
Double action in name only
In reality, the Nagant revolver is double action in name only. Trigger pull on every one of my Nagant revolvers is in excess of 30 pounds (my scale only goes that high). Even in single action mode, trigger pulls are extremely high, generally about 14-16 pounds.
The sights are easy to use, and create a good sight picture.
The grips are rather small, but most hands fit well enough. The trigger guard is large, making the gun easy to fire with gloves on.
Nagant M1895 revolver accuracy
Just no.
At 7 yards, a good shooter can generally put a “hand sized” grouping together. At 25 yards? Hitting “somewhere” on a human sized target is typical. Some are more accurate than others. I am sure there are some Nagant M1895 revolvers that are tack drivers, but I personally have never seen one.
Freehand, Mrs. Salty, 7-yards. She shoots a sub 1-inch group with a S&W Model 10 at 7 yards normally
Here’s a video of Mrs. Salty shooting the Nagant freehand at 7 yards (the above grouping)
Below, This is 25 yards, off a rest… so, umm… yeah, not really very good… the circled holes are this “group”
The others below are from Mrs. Salty’s 7-yard adventure. One round missed the paper. Nope, not really very good at all…
Perceived recoil is quite moderate with the 7.62 Nagant round, and even less so shooting the .32 ACP round. The gun is rather quiet to shoot as well, there’s not much muzzle flash either.
The Bottom Line:
Is the Nagant M1895 revolver a survivalist/prepper needs to have in there arsenal? Absolutely not at current prices. If there’s ever a day that they become available again for $99? Then perhaps.
If you just like wonky guns, just go find one somewhere and buy it. Who knows, the one you buy may have actually killed Nazi’s (a definite plus in my book).
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Back when my 900lb. Safe was empty, I considered the idea of a case of these. However, the NJ permitting process meant it would take a couple years to take possession. (One gun a month.). Then Sandy Hook happened and the supply disappeared. After reading this, I’m kind of glad things worked out as they did.
They are a lot of fun. A case can be made for the Mosin to be a good prepping gun, but the Nagant revolver? Not so much
Literally a two handed trigger pull in double action for me. Neat looking gun, interesting history. I never want to fire another one.