I thought I'd address today an old topbreak revolver that many have not seen or even heard about. These were manufactured in the Koishikawa Arsenal in Tokyo, Japan from 1893 through the early 1930s. They replaced the previous aging S&W Model 3 revolvers. About 59,300 were produced for the Japanese armed forces. Most were issued to officers and non-commissioned officers, or could be bought privately for service use. These were used in the Russo-Japanese war, the second Sino-Japanese war, World War I and World War II. The revolver is called the type 26, or Pistol, Pattern of the 26th year of the Meiji era.
It is a strange blend of features from other revolvers, and one immediately notes several characteristics that were quite obviously borrowed from Smith and Wesson topbreak revolvers. Here are a couple of pictures:
The gun is double action only, similar in concept to the Webley/Enfield DA designs used by the British during WWII. The cartridge is unique, the Japanese 9mmx22R, which is very similar to our .38 S&W round. In fact, the .38 S&W will chamber and presumably fire in the gun illustrated, although I will not try it. Some have and claim it works, and other guns will not even chamber the American round. The Japanese cartridge is very slightly bottlenecked.
There is a very disturbing characteristic of this revolver. That is that the cylinder spins freely in a clockwise direction (viewed from the rear) until the trigger is pulled and the locking bolt inserts itself into one of six notches in the cylinder. This is no problem with a full cylinder, but in one that is partially depleted, if the the cylinder is turned by brushing against something or as it comes out of the holster, it's possible that when the trigger is pulled, the hammer will fall on an empty case, resulting in a click rather than a bang. Not the best setup for combat.
There is an excellent concept employed, however. The sideplate on the left of the revolver can be hinged up to expose the lockwork for easy cleaning, lubrication or parts replacement. This feature was also used in the Austro-Hungarian Rast/Gasser Model 98 revolver. The lockwork itself is probably borrowed from the French Modéle 1892 revolver.
Here is a picture of the opened-up revolver:
To do this, one first pushes the rear of the trigger guard forward (it's checkered there), and the trigger guard is pulled down. The forward part of the sideplate has an underlying fingernail slot, which aids in pulling the sideplate up and hinging it outwardly to the side. When opened all the way up, the left grip panel can be lifted up, and a screw in the frame is exposed, which will release the grip panel on the other side. The trigger guard lifts right out easily, and that's as far as I've dared to take it apart. Note that the single leaf mainspring powers the hammer, the trigger with its integral locking bolt, and the pawl. It's all very simple.
These six-shot revolvers utilized automatic ejection as the barrel is released and pivoted downward. They were very commonly encountered during WWII. Production records are non-existent now, but through interpolation of the serial number in the series, I've estimated that this specimen was produced in the early 1920s.
A clamshell-type holster was issued with the gun, and it had 18 loops in a packet inside to hold spare cartridges. There are leather and stiff fabric types similar to those used with the Type 14 Nambu pistol.
I thought you might find this relic which borrowed some S&W features interesting.
John
Another topbreak revolver - from across the Pacific
Linear Mode
