The Gasser M1870 was a revolver chambered for 11.3Ă36mmR (which had earlier been used in Fruwirth M1872 carbines) and was adopted by the Austro-Hungarian cavalry in 1870. In 1876, Austria-Hungary adopted the Gasser-Kropatschek M1876 as a refinement of the 1870 Gasser design. Instigated by Alfred Kropatschek, the changes being principally a matter of reducing weight by reducing the caliber to 9mm.
The original Austrian Gasser Model 1870 in 11.2mm was standard issue in the Montenegrin military and became known as the Montenegrin Gasser. In 1910 King Nicholas I of Montenegro proclaimed that all male citizens were members of a national militia and had both a right and a duty to own at least one Gasser Pattern revolver under penalty of law. It was widely believed in Montenegro that this decision was actually taken because the King owned shares in Leopold Gasser Waffenfabrik in Vienna - the patent holder and sole manufacturer of the pistol.
In fact, Leopold Gasser was faced with such heavy international demand for the pistol, that the factory could not fulfil all of the orders placed for it. This led the revolver's manufacturer to license out production to other companies and many Gasser Pattern pistols were then manufactured and sold by other European firms, most notably based out of Belgium and Spain. Even these licensed models did not satiate demand for the pistol and this, alongside a lax enforcement of intellectual property rights in Montenegro, led to many unlicensed local models of the pistol also being produced, with quality ranging from very good to outright dangerous to its user.
An ornate Gasser Pattern revolver quickly became a status symbol for Montenegrin men and was commonly worn alongside traditional attire.
Single and double-action locks were used, grips were often in ivory or bone, engraving and gold inlay work was common, and the predominant impression was one of weight and bulk. Later Montenegrin revolvers offered hinged-frame construction, with Galand cylinder locks and a self-extracting mechanism. Most are marked 'Guss Stahl' (crucible cast steel frame), 'Kaiser's Patent' and similar phrases.
Many Montenegrin immigrants that travelled to North America brought their Gasser pattern revolvers with them and at least two batches of several thousand pistols were smuggled into Mexico during the Mexican Revolution of 1910â1920, leading to the Gasser revolver becoming widespread in the Americas.
In Austro-Hungarian service, the 1870 Gasser was ultimately supplemented with the 1898 Rast & Gasser, which introduced several improvements, including a double-action mechanism, which allowed for faster and more efficient use in combat. The Rast and Gasser used an 8-round cylinder, as well, holding two more shots than was typical for a revolver.
Before the outbreak of the First World War, the M1898 was planned to be replaced in the Austro-Hungarian cavalry with the RothâSteyr M1907, and in the infantry with the Steyr M1912 but manufacturing bottlenecks and materials shortages meant that the revolvers were not replaced before 1918 and many of both types were still serving as late as 1945.
annaxmalina
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
dailybridgerton
areudirty
