Belgian Folding Trigger

M

marklbl

Inactive
Hello. This is my first post, glad to be here. My son in law bought a Belgian folding trigger pocket revolver. It is a 5 shot with a 1.5 inch barrel. It has a solid top strap with an inscription on it. It has smooth ebony grips. There is a Crown over "R" over a five point star over "C" stamped on the side and what looks like a "70" on the trigger in 2 places. It has reeding on the front of the cylinder. I believe the caliber is .320 revolver. I am trying to find out who made it and when. Any information would be appreciated.
 
Or you can post a picture here and maybe someone can determine the type if not the actual maker.

Jim
 
The guy at littlegun said all my pictures were too blury. I am going to have to borrow a good camera and take them. When they are good enough, I will post them.
 
The proof marks might tie it down to a decade, but there are no secret codes for the manufacturers of cheap revolvers of the late 19th century.
The Zhuk book shows 16 pages of folding trigger revolvers, only some of which are identified by maker or distributor.
 
Some of those guns simply cannot be identified and never will be. In an era with lax gun laws, there was no requirement for makers to mark their guns ith either a name or a serial number. Some of the Belgian makers used abbreviations of their names, but others put on no markings at all. Most of those were the European equivalent of the American "suicide special".

In general, it can be said that folding-trigger European revolvers, whether pinfire or center fire, are usually not of high quality and have a low value except as novelties. In recent years we have seen a sort of industry, in which folks buy up such revolvers cheaply, have them engraved in countries where such work is cheap (though sometimes quite well done), and then unload them in the U.S. or Europe, often with neat stories about the gun having belonged to nobility or royalty.

Jim
 
I bought some antique .320 revolver rounds and they are Black Powder. The guy I bought them from said not to try to shoot them. Does anybody know of a place that would load some obsolete .320 cartridges? I tried a search, but could not find anything.
 
There were variations, but the .320 rounds I have seen were the same diameter and interchangeable with the .32 Short Colt, though some guns will take the .32 Long Colt. Those have a smaller diameter case than the more common .32 S&W and .32 S&W Long. The Colt cartridges are very scarce also, but can probably be found a bit easier than the European .320 rounds.

Edited to add

Maybe not that scarce. See the following:

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/29...-short-colt-80-grain-lead-round-nose#delivery

Jim
 
Belgian folders

Several of the folding trigger revolvers I've owned were in 8mm Lebel cal. Some
were Belgian,some French. 8mm Lebel has bullet loaded flush with case mouth
and has 3 point crimp in case to hold bullet. A lot of guys think these are 32s
or 32/20s.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top