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My mind kept telling me Smith made a Model 13-like revolver in 9mm. They did, the Model 547.

It had an automatic block driven by the hammer, to limit the amount of rearward travel the aggressively tapered 9mm case could take, apparently preventing the lockup some other 9mm revolvers have experienced. Looked like a round solid flat tipped pin just above the firing pin hole.

It also had a complex extractor, with lugs which entered the extractor groove on the case under spring pressure. This both extracted and headspaced the cartridges w/o the use of clips.

Online source claims around 6000 produced.

I've seen one in my whole life, at the range in early 90s. The user claimed it ran perfectly. I got to look at the marvelously made extractor, which reminds me of nothing so much as a Ruger No 1 extractor for a rimless case, but miniaturized and repeated 6 times. I did not think, best I recall, to look at the limiter block.

I've read 2 stories as to how the revolver came to be. One was a request-for-proposal from the French government, which ultimately fell through. The other is that the Israelis wanted a revolver using the standard Israeli 9mm service round, but for issue to Palestinian police of questionable loyalty-if they boogied, it was with a revolver, rather than a "more lethal" semiauto. Neither story seems altogether likely to me, but I for sure don't know.

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[image]
Firing Pin and Block

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from the shooter's viewpoint

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A fired cartridge showing the unique marks

[image]
Extractor

[image]
Extractor

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Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.

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a map of the human genome, and I expect the genome map would be simpler. For all that, what little feedback I can find on them, says they worked quite well.

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for a few years. It worked as advertised.

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That was one I should have held onto. It's the only one I've ever seen, or owned in my life. I thought I should look for the 3" round butt version since Massad Ayoob wrote an article on that one and declared it a good revolver. I looked at the one we owned and decided it really didn't do anything a 4" Model 10 or a semi auto pistol couldn't do. Another time I've convinced myself to do something with a gun that was really dumb.

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I have a ruger sp-101 9x19mm and seldom use the clips. Rimmed brass is easily made from .38 s&w cases trimmed a mm shorter but they still headspace on the mouth so trim length is critical. It would be interesting to compare the original unique s&w ejecting system to the newer charter arms design as they supposedly make them in 9mm, .40 and .45.

When you mention a 9mm revolver (I even have a .380) to the current tactitard crowd, they look at you funny and ask why, what with a plastic self-loader holding 3+ times the ammo.

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I scrounged up a couple dozen moon clips and have only shot it that way. I may have to try the 38S&W option.

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Came out in the late 80s, I think. Cooperative venture between Charter and Federal. 9mm Federal was pretty much a 9x19 with a .38 Special rim grafted to it.

Best I recall the deal was it would chamber and fire in many .38 S&W chambered revolvers. Lets say you find a Forehand and Wadsworth latchtop .38 S&W in Grandad's attic. And you load it with 35,000psi ammo. Not good, and a fair chance the old relic would let go on the first cylinder full, heck maybe on the first round.

Potential liability was great. I've never seen the Charter chambered for this, and seen little indeed of the ammo. I was in Raton NM in the summer of 1998, and was right surprised to see a box for sale in a local gun shop. Needless to say, 25 years later, it doesn't exist, pretty much.

Anyway, it was dropped like a bad habit.

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I am just about ready to pick up one of the current crop of Single Action Army clones being churned out in 9mm. The marketing rationale behind such an odd chambering in a replica revolver is that 9emem is cheap, comparatively speaking, to just about any other centerfire cartridge.

My thought is to slightly diddle the chambers and create a modem revolver for a fun little round, the .38 S&W. I have tons of brass, and three dedicated molds, plus the ability to “beagle” ten other .38/.357 molds.

Why? In this day and age of expensive reloading components, there is no good reason, so I will run with “because”.

Otony

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Heck, I thought you were going to ream it out for 38 Super and really go nuts!

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You're right about that - I have several .38 S&Ws, one of which is a 60s vintage Terrier rescued from a Nashville hock shop. A very "experienced" little gun. No idea where it's been, but I suspect many miles in the care of someone who knew his guns. If only I could understand the stories I suspect that little S&W could whisper.

It still shoots good.

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I had heard of this revolver before but I had no idea about the extra pin above the firing pin. I guess I also thought it used moon clips. I had heard the French story as far as why it came to be, but who knows if that was true or not.

I remembered another ‘multi caliber’ revolver and had to look it up, it was the Medusa, and apparently it used a similar extractor setup with spring loaded bars. One has to wonder how durable that kind of setup would be over the long term and also how reliable it would be when it started to get dirty. I’d think it would take some soaking and compressed air or better yet, an ultrasonic bath to clear all the gunk from the springs and sliding mechanism. Seems a bad idea for police or military issue!

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that doomed it. The "fingers" on the extractors tended to break, either tying up the gun or keeping it from extracting the fired cartridge.

Since the chambers were set up to work with a bunch of different cartridges it did not work as well as a normal revolver with any particular cartridge.

Phillips & Rodgers Inc. of Huntsville, Texas produced a little over 200 of them. A friend of mine ended up with the tooling and made a few guns but was never able to get them reliable and gave it up.

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Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.

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Interesting how it ended up. Shame your friend could t turn it into something useful and profitable!

Wasn’t P&R the company who was doing ‘cheap’ dove shot conversions on River Blackhawks back in the day? I wanted one so bad but couldn’t really afford it at the time. But then again, my factory Ruger Bisley handled loads that were borderline painful to shoot anyways, so the dove shot would have been wasted on me!

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but like a lot of gunsmiths, they had no experience with cartridges that developed such a high initial energy impulse. They sent me one to try out. In the first few round the torque on the barrel snapped the ejector rod screw and unscrewed the barrel a bit. I had to send it back to them with my assessment. I never heard anything else from them.

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Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.

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Wait!?! You can’t take a stock ‘85 Camaro and throw a supercharger on it and squirt nitrous to it and make a drag racing champ out of that? Huh…. Hoodathunkit!

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.

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Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.

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I seem to recall a fella from the old punkin' board named Jesse--and maybe his gal pal--who were marketing the Medusa or a like product?

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about the length of time between the show where he bought it, to the next show where he sold it. I don't remember either of us ever shooting it.

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