Charles-François Galand (1832–1900) was a French gunsmith who worked in Liège, Belgium, and Paris, France. He manufactured many revolvers for civilian and military use, including the Galand Revolver (also called the Galand-Sommerville or Galand-Perrin),
The first model was manufactured both in Liège and in Birmingham, England by the British arms firm Braendlin and Sommerville, and is therefore sometimes referred to as the Galand-Sommerville. Sommerville shared the patent for the case extracting system with Galand. The Galand-Perrin is an identical model which uses the Perrin cartridge (7 mm, 9 mm, and most famously 12 mm). This revolver was manufactured under contract by Nagant and Goltiakoff in Russia in 1878. The Romanian Army also adopted the Galand.
Tue Tue and Le Novo
In 1872 Galand improved the design with a closed frame, but failed to win a French military contract and began aiming most of his production at the civilian market. In 1893 Galand introduced the 8 mm Tue Tue (kill kill) hammerless pocket revolver, which continued in production until about 1935. Later versions were also sold in .32 S&W and .38 ACP, and some had an external hammer. The tiny Le Novo revolver, with a hinged trigger and no trigger guard, also featured a folding grip.
Velodog revolver
After Charles-François Galand's death in 1900 his son, René, continued the business until 1942. He created the Velo-dog, a truly peculiar conceit in personal defence weapons. The name is a contraction of vélocipède (bicycle) and dog. The weapon was originally marketed as a defence for bicyclists during the bicycle craze which started at the end of the 19th century. Like the Le Novo the Velodog originally used a 5.5 mm centerfire cartridge; it was also available in .22 caliber and 6.35 mm.
References
Literature
See also
- Revolver
- Handgun
- Pistol