Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today, courtesy of Legacy Collectibles,
we have a very cool Russian contract
example of a Browning Model of 1905 pistol, also known as a Vest Pocket Browning.
Also not known as a Baby Browning, FYI.
The Baby Browning was actually a name given by FN to a model that they introduced in the early 1930s
that interestingly didn't have any actual connection to Browning. But that's a subject for a separate video.
What we have here today is one of the nickel-plated 1905 Brownings
that was ordered for officers of the Russian military.
Now this model of pistol was ... patented in 1905, first production actually took place in 1906.
It was this pistol that actually introduced the .25 ACP cartridge to the world.
John Browning designed that cartridge to go in this pistol.
It was the third pistol ... put into production by FN after their Model 1900 and their Model 1903.
So, this thing is so tiny that you can't even see it from back there.
So let's take a closer look and talk about how this thing got to Russia.
These are positively tiny little pistols. This one is nickel plated as you can see.
This nickel plating was done by FN at FN, it was specifically done by their motorcycle division.
We actually looked at a little while back a Russian contract FN Model 1900 that was also nickelled like this.
What this one has that is different is a crossed Mosin-Nagant rifle symbol and an inventory mark there.
So this is the 6,000th pistol that was purchased by the Russian government as part of this program.
Now specifically this was purchased by the Imperial Nicholas Military Academy, one of the largest
officer training academies in Russia at the time. And the time, by the way, would be about 1908.
They purchased a variety of pistols, mostly 1900s and 1905s, but also some 1903s.
And this was done largely to resell to Russian officers who had to provide their own sidearms.
Something like this, fancy nickel plated and really tiny, would probably have gone to a relatively high level officer.
Not all of them were nickel plated, there are some that survived that are simply blued.
These tend to be in better condition, probably because they were used less.
Probably because they went to officers of higher rank who are less likely to actually use a sidearm like this.
At any rate, the crossed Mosin-Nagant symbol here is something that was used on a variety of Russian equipment,
not just pistols. It does not represent specifically like army acceptance,
it's a symbol of Imperial Russian ownership. But it was applied by FN at the factory.
And you'll see it on occasionally things like binoculars among other stuff.
The inventory number associated with it is incremental.
... Like it's a single run of numbers of all the different models of pistol,
so it's not one batch of 1905s and one batch of 1900s.
... This particular example, and in fact most of them, this was shipped before 1909.
In 1909 FN started adding a thumb safety on the back of the frame of their Model 1905 pistols.
This doesn't have it, and neither do most of the documented surviving Russian contract examples.
You will notice there are a couple of parts here, specifically the trigger and the magazine release,
that are not nickel plated. That was done deliberately by FN.
They found that for some of these parts that had pretty strict tolerances
nickel plating the part could lead to a change in surface dimensions and could lead to problems functioning.
So that's one way to identify original FN nickel-plated guns is that.
This is actually like a blackening. It's a surface finish that was done to the whole gun
to prepare it for nickel plating, and then just left intact on a couple of these parts.
Guns that do have manual safeties, the manual safety was typically left in that black configuration as well.
The magazine is nickel plated with a blued follower.
It kind of goes without saying I think, that a pistol like this is pretty rare here in the United States today.
There are I believe 10, maybe 12, of them that are documented to still exist.
My reference for this, including that list of existing known examples which includes this one,
is Anthony Vanderlinden's book on FN Browning pistols.
It's an excellent book, highly recommend it. I believe it is currently sold out,
but the third edition is in the process of being written and expanded.
So definitely a book to get your hands on if you're interested in this sort of thing.
Now there's another little interesting potential detail to this,
and that is how did it get from the Soviet Union, or Russia, it was originally Russia,
but probably by the time it came back here it was the Soviet Union.
How did it get from there back to the United States?
And the cool answer is a number of these were brought back by US World War One veterans.
Not guys who went to France, but guys who were in the like post-war arctic expedition
up to Archangel and Murmansk to help support the White Russians in the Russian Civil War.
Really kind of a little known side note of American World War One history.
And it was there that a number of US servicemen were in contact with a bunch of
former ... Imperial Russian officers, Tsarist officers,
who had been the sort of guys who would have these officer's pistols.
And at least a couple of them are documented as having come back from that American expedition.
So I don't know about this one in particular, but that's probably
the most likely source of these guns coming into the US. And it's a neat detail.
Anyway, a big thanks to Legacy Collectibles for loaning me this pistol to bring to you guys on video.
If you're interested in firearms collecting and unusual historically relevant firearms, especially handguns,
take a look at his YouTube channel. I will link to it in the description text below.
Thanks for watching.
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