Nagant m/1887

About the Nagant m/1887

The Nagant m/1887 is the Swedish military service revolver adopted in 1887, a six-shot, solid-frame double-action revolver chambered for the small-bore 7.5mm Swedish Nagant (7.5x23mm) cartridge. Developed from the Belgian Nagant brothers' 1886 pattern, it has a fixed cylinder loaded one round at a time through a hinged gate and cleared with a rod ejector, an octagonal barrel, blued steel frame and walnut grips. The bulk of Swedish m/1887 revolvers were produced under license by Husqvarna Vapenfabrik, with an earlier batch supplied directly by Fabrique Nagant of Liege, and it served as Sweden's standard sidearm until superseded by the m/1907 Browning pistol.

Sweden's m/1887 Nagant was praised at adoption for its light weight and flatter trajectory over the older heavy revolvers it replaced, and although withdrawn as a front-line sidearm around 1907, surviving examples lingered on for home-defence and training duties right through the Second World War.

Nagant m/1887 specifications

Husqvarna manufactured roughly 14,000 examples between about 1897 and 1905, with an additional block delivered by Nagant in Belgium. The chambering is commonly written 7.5mm Nagant; sources give the case length as roughly 7.5x22-23mm. Unlike the later Russian Nagant M1895 it does not use the gas-seal system.