So, a local fella is selling this pistol, presenting it as specimen of one of the pistols that competed (and evidently lost) against the Tokarev TT-30/33 in the 1930 trials to replace the Nagant revolver as the standard issue pistol for the Red Army. He didn't know what the pistol is designated, other than it bears a slight resemblance to another experimental pistol from that era on display at the Tula arms museum. It's clearly not the same gun however. It is apparently chambered in 7.63 Mauser, and said to have been brought back during WWII.
The grip certainly has a broomhandle look to it, and it's of course known the Russians did love the broomhandle Mauser pistol and so it's plausible that they'd borrow that design element in addition to chambering it for the 7.63 round.
But there's also evidence against it being a Russian pistol at all. The markings contain lots of Latin characters not present in the Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet, for example S, R, N, or I ("I" was taken out of Russian usage in 1918, and the others were never used in Russian to begin with). On top of that, none of the letters that the pistol is marked with are exclusively Russian/Cyrillic. So basically, there's letters that are common between the Latin-based alphabet and Russian, and there are characters NOT present in the Russian alphabet, and no characters exclusive to the Russian alphabet. Seems strange, it would be like the Japanese designing a prototype and marking in French. Or was a foreign designer/manufacturer participating in the trials? How likely was that in those days?
Pics:
If anyone has any insights, I'm all ears.
The grip certainly has a broomhandle look to it, and it's of course known the Russians did love the broomhandle Mauser pistol and so it's plausible that they'd borrow that design element in addition to chambering it for the 7.63 round.
But there's also evidence against it being a Russian pistol at all. The markings contain lots of Latin characters not present in the Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet, for example S, R, N, or I ("I" was taken out of Russian usage in 1918, and the others were never used in Russian to begin with). On top of that, none of the letters that the pistol is marked with are exclusively Russian/Cyrillic. So basically, there's letters that are common between the Latin-based alphabet and Russian, and there are characters NOT present in the Russian alphabet, and no characters exclusive to the Russian alphabet. Seems strange, it would be like the Japanese designing a prototype and marking in French. Or was a foreign designer/manufacturer participating in the trials? How likely was that in those days?
Pics:
If anyone has any insights, I'm all ears.