silenced Russian .401

[Hardrada55]

I read an article in one of the gun newspapers, by Herbert Houze, the Winchester historian, several years ago. It was about the Winchester Self-Loading rifles and one of the stories repeated was that when the White Russians evacuated from Sevestopol in 1921 that one of the Russian officers turned over to a British officer his Winchester M-1910 and his last four shells.

Here is a Russian ad, probably pre-Great War, for the 1910 equipped with a silencer! Anyone read Russian? I'd love to know what it says.




I also heard that the French aviator Roland Garos, experimented with shooting a .401 from an airplane before he invented a way to shoot a machine gun mounted over the nose of his airplane.

[81police]

bet that thing would be wicked with a suppressor

[2verpsters]

Hardrada55, do you have a copy of that add you can send me, or email me? My Dad use to speak fluent Russian, he was in the Navy during the Vietnam years listening in on Russian communications. If i could get him a readalble copy, I'm sure he could translate most of it.

[skoda]

..they were typically off center from the barrel as shown. Google up Maxim silencers - the first and very advanced for it's time (or should I say that not much has gone into silencer developement since 1910?).

I bet it would take one thin finger to operate that action rod!

[rmh]

I imagine one would pinch the thingying plunger tip and pull back. The tip has a serrated edge and should be easy enough to grab hold of.

Also, anyone else notice the short barrel in the ad? Looks more like a 16" or 18" barrel rather than the standard 20".


For those interested in the Roland Garros rifle, try hunting up a copy of FIRE magazine of March-April 2001 and read the article by Ignace de Witte. He states the rifle is in the Historic Museum of Villèle in Saint-Gilles-les-Bains on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. Not sure if this information is entirely accurate, since it seems implausible his rifle made it that far from the continent.