The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Two brass signal pistols, known to have been used extensively at the Battle of Verdun. Brought them home from my museum to clean them up a bit (photos before cleaning). I'm toying with the idea of finding a flare to put beside them in the display as a reference - people have trouble understanding what they look like. Anyone know what kind these would have fired (are there diff sizes? I'm not a flare guy).

Nice ones, don't know what they used, but if you hunt around online somebody is bound to know. There are some Great War forums out there someplace.

They don't appear to need cleaning. They look nice.

Beautiful

millman wrote: They don't appear to need cleaning. They look nice.

Nothing major, I just shined them up a bit with some Nevrdull.

What would look cool is a set of double western style holsters! Strap them on and no one would dare play with you! ;)

I like those.....don't get me started!

Dolk

I carried them out of the museum with one in each hand, looking like I was about to go postal. ...turned quite a few heads.

be careful with that neverdull. it's a quick way to cut their value. brass needs to show a certain patina.

I thought nevrdull was safe to use?


Either way, I hardly used it... doesn't look like it changed anything aside from adding a slight luster.

Neverdull will make brass look like new, you want to keep that aged patina on the brass, it takes decades to get that look, neverdull is best for rust removal on blued steel parts.

To figure out the original caliber it would probably be a good idea to measure the diameter of the chamber in mm.

Sweet! What caliber/bore are these? Have you fired them???

French flare/signal pistols generally came in either one of two calibers: 25.4 mm or just 25mm and 35mm. There are also some flare pistols from Europe that are 26.5 mm, but I think they were Czech.

A U.S. WW I 25mm flare could be used just for display purpose, if the French flares are not available.

Very cool piece of history.

No I have not fired them, and doubt they ever will be as they are part of our museum collection (although I will admit if our 1914 Hotchkiss was active I'd make sure to find an excuse to shoot it).

Thanks for the heads up Grease!

klibben wrote:No I have not fired them, and doubt they ever will be as they are part of our museum collection (although I will admit if our 1914 Hotchkiss was active I'd make sure to find an excuse to shoot it).

Thanks for the heads up Grease!

Still a great find. Thanks for sharing them with us!