canada airgun+antique firearms freak

Saturday, August 20, 2022

A new addition to my Antique firearms collection...from the "Hood Firearms Co."

A fully functional Hood Firearms Company, "Robin Hood No.4" .38 caliber Rimfire Revolver popped up on Gunpost for $525 CDN, and it will only require some exterior cosmetic Restoration before it will be ready to test fire.

I have ten reloadable brass cases in .38 R.F that work just like the .32 R.F brass that I already have to use with my S&W No.1½, Colt New-Line 32 & Remington "Smoot's-Patent" New Model #2.

The Robin Hood pocket revolver looks very similar to the high quality Colt New-Line Revolvers. It doesn't appear that the inner lock work was copied from the Colt.

Freeman W. Hood designed and held US Patents for the lock work, which may very well be a much better design than William Mason's lock work within the Colt New-Line model revolvers.

The Robin Hood No.4 arrived yesterday!!! Here are the first pics I took of it and alongside a Colt Newline 32 to show the difference in frame size between 32 cal & 38 cal single action revolvers...

"CAL.38" is stamped into the lower frame, under a dusty layer of corrosion, which will hopefully be removed with help of a little "Flitz" gun polish...

...I will attempt to salvage all the nickel plate finish, and remove the surface damage with brass and nylon brushes, Emery cloth of various grit levels, the Flitz micro fibre cloth and then the Flitz gun polish .

Initial disassembly reveals an interesting thing. The beach end of the cylinder chambers have a step, or counter-sunk hole to support the cartridge rim. This is a very early revolver to have stepped chambers, which will make this revolver a little bit safer to shoot than if the cylinder chambers were not bored out with the counter-sunk step for the cartridge rim!

The counter-sunk step is possibly an upgrade that a past owner of this revolver performed or hired a gunsmith to do.

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

S&W model 1½ "tip up" revolver and St.John, New Brunswick City Police

Recently, while browsing through an auction site, and I was pleased to come across a nickel plated S&W #1½ New model that was made between 1868-75, which, at some time in the past, was a service pistol with the St.John NB Canada City Police Dept.

this is my lovely factory blued .32 caliber rim fire S&W #1½ New model revolver!

I think the first S&W rimfire revolvers were quite an elegant mechanical design, and it's too bad they didn't produce a .38RF "tip-up" model, like J.M Marlin did with their "Standard" series of tip-up revolvers.

The cartridges aren't original collectable & really expensive examples, they are like the widely available machined brass cases with off-center primer pockets that use 6mm rimfire starter pistol blanks, and filled with black powder, however, for the photo, the cases are empty and I have seated a .32 caliber or .315" lead round ball.