The Cheka handguns used to kill the IF and why they couldn't shoot straight
JamesAPrattIII:
The following is a list of the handguns used by the Cheka with some info on them. Then I will explain why they had such a hard time hit their targets:
The First 3 Handguns were designed by the fame gunmaker John M Browning:
M1911 this was the U.S. standard pistol for most of the 1900s. Over 2 million were made and many are still in use today all over the world. it was produced under lisence in Argentina and Norway. It is one of the most rugged and reliable pistols ever made. it fires a 230 gn (Grain) bullet at 850 fps (feet per second). It was the best manstopper of all the pistols used by the Cheka kill team. they were from a batch of 51,000 Commercial models bought by the Czarist goverment in the 1916-17 period. Commercial models are still being made by Colt and other companies today.
Yurkovsky used s/n C71905 to kill Nicholas II and later to finish off Alexei
Kurdin used one s/n unknown to kill Nicholas II
one round was found in the floor of the murder room (this might be the one that killed Alexei) and one or more rounds was found at the Pig's Meadow burial site.
This year 2011 was the Cenntenial of the 1911 pistol much has been written an said about this weapon and the heroic deeds done by brave men with it. No mention of killing the IF.
The browning 1900 was the first of a series of pocket pistols designed by John Browning. About 700,000 were made before it was replaced by the model 1910. These pistols along with the Model 1903 appear to have been widely used during this period in Russia and the rest of Europe. it's 32 ACP (automatic colt pistol)/ 7.65mm round fires a 71 gn bullet at 850-900 fps. Not a very powerfull round.
Nikulin used s/n 387765 we don't know who he shot in the first round but he came back and emptied a magazine into Alexei
32 ACP rounds were found at the following one in the back wall and one in the floor of the murder room. one was found at the Pigs's Meadow main burial site and i don't know how many were dug up in the Alexei and Maria grave.
Both the 1911 in 45 ACP and the Browning 1900 take 7 round magazines
Browning 25 ACP model 1906 "vest pocket". John Browning was asked to design a smaller pistol than the Model 1900 and this was to result. It was the smallest and weakest of the pistols used by the Cheka kill team firing a .25 caliber 50 gn bullet at 760fps. The pistol has a six round magazine. Kudrin carried one in addition to his 1911 but it appears it remained in his pocket and was not used. this pistol although small and low powered was very popular with Civilians, police, and military personel as a pocket pistol. It appears that more than a few were used in Russia. A 1970s gun book I own has the Czarist secret police as an early buyer. Grand Duke Dmitri used one to shoot Rasputin and the "small revolver" Olga N carried in her boot was probably also a model 1906. Over 500,000 were made by the start of WW I and over one million were made before it was discountinued. It was replaced by the even smaller model 1931 Baby. This is one of the most copied pistols in history according a 1970s gun book I hav over 350 variations of 25 auto pistols have been made.
JamesAPrattIII:
The Mauser model 1896 pistol AKA the C96 or "Broomhandel Mauser" was the first really successfull semi automatic pistol ever made about 1 million were made in Germany from 1897 to 1939. It was also made in Spain and China. It saw limited service in many of the wars in the first half of the twentieth century. It fires the 7.63 Maus er round with a 93 gn bullet at 1345 fps or a 86 gn bullet at 1390 fps. It is loaded by a 10 shot stripper clip through the top of the pistol. it has the highest muzzel velocity of any of the pistols used by the cheka kill team. However, it is not much of a manstoper. This pistol is also sort of complex and hard to mass produce.
Ermakov used s/n 167,127 to shoot Nicholas, kill Alexandra, and wound Maria in the first round of shooting he later used it to kill Olga, possibly Maria, and Anastasia
Yukovsky used one s/n unknown to finish off Dr Botkin and kill Tatania and possibly Maria
The book "Guns and the Gunfighters" tells you how to load and fire one
The book"System Mauser A pictural History of the model 1896 Self Loading pistol has 4568 sold to Russia from 1897 to 1905 of 40,000 produced. Over 160,000 were produced by 1914. I would estimate 20,000 plus may have been in Russia at the start of WW I using the above data. Note: in the Czars military I believe officers had to purchase their own service pistols. They were also popular with terrorists /criminals like Joesph Stalin's gang "the Outfit" which also used alot of Brownings. Several unknown "3 line' or 30 caliber/7.63mm bullets were dug out of the back wall of the murder room and at least one was found at the main Pig's meadow burial site
The Nagant M-1895 7.62mm revolver was the Russian and later Soviet standard revolver for many decades. Some are still being used today. About 3 million were made from 1895 to 1945. It is a rugged, reliable, "soldier proofed" 7 shot pistol that fires a 103 to 105 gn bullet at 892 fps. Which makes it a poor manstopper. it is also slow to load and unload. The "Komrade Nagants Revolver No Wonder the Soviet Union Fell Apart' artical on the net will tell you what it's like to load, fire and reload. Pre 1918 they were made in the single action only "privates model' and the double action "Officers model" . Four were used by the Cheka kill team
The three "9mm revolvers" metioned could be the 6 shot 9.4mm Nagant revolver model 1878/86 double action or the model 1883 single action. The 9.4mm nagant round had a 186 gn bullet ar 650 fps. i understand nagant revolvers of various calibers were sold in Russia in the late 1800s to civilians .
Robert_Hall:
Were these weapons relatively cheap to come by, like the so-called "Saturday night specials" of today ? I ask as you mentioned they were sold to civilians.
JamesAPrattIII:
No Robert these were all well made handguns and while I don't know that much about price comparisons from then to today I would say that none of them would be considered cheap. It should be pointed out now that i am having to do this artical in several parts because if i write too long my computor sometimes shuts down. Back to my artical:
We know Ermakov had 3 Nagants stuck in his belt but it is not known if he used them. It is known that Medvedev and 3 other Checkists used them. However, we don't know who had what type. It is known that as far as I can tell no 9mm bullets were found at any of the sites. While at least 9 Nagant 7.62mm founds were found in the murder room, 2 at the mine and 9 at Pig's Meadow. LDR states some of the Nagants may well have jammed because they were loaded with the wrong bullets. The 9mm Nagants are black powder handguns. firing a smokeless powdered round in one is dangerous because smokless ammo has a higher chamber pressure than black powder ammo. This could cause the revolver cylinder to split. It should also be pointed out if someone was to fire a 7.62mm nagant round in a 9mm Nagant revolver at a minimum the case would split. Also a 7.62bullet going down a 9.4 mm barrel will not egage the rifling of the barrel and will not give any accuracy at all. It is possible that some of the Nagant revolvers may have broken parts or may have really rusty or dirty.
Medvedev did shoot Nicholas with one most likely Alexandra was shot in the Torso with one and the other victims Trupp, Kharitonov, Dr Botkin, Demidova may have also been shot with them
The oldest design handgun used by the Cheka was the Smith & Wesson Model no3 revolver in 44 Russian caliber. it was adopted by the Russian army in 1871 and known in Russia as the .42 line pistol. it was the standard Russian army pistol in the the Russo-Turkish war and also saw some service in the Russo-Japanese war and WW I. A few were even used in WW II. It is a single action, breaktop, black powder revolver firing a 246 gn bullet at 750 or 770 fps. The .44 Russian round was one of the most accurate pistol cartridges of its day.
PLEASE! ignore the wikipedia section where it says that the Tsarist goverment reverse engineered the No.3 and produced copies of it at Tula and Germany. Which nearly bankrupt S&W. IN REALITY the pistol was produced under lisence by the Russians at Tula where they made between 80,000 or 400,000 between 1886 to 1892 or 1903 accounts differ. Ludwig & Lowe also made 100,000 for the Russians from 1878 to 1894 and 5,000 for Argentina. S&W made 131,138 for the Russians between 1871 and 1878. Also S&W was in NO danger of bakrupcy at this time. Many No.3 were sold to civilians in the US and some were sold to the US military in other calibers. The pistol was also produced in Spain and Beliguim. It saw much service in a number of the wars of of the late 1800s and early 1900s. An excellent book on this pistol is "Smith & Wesson Six Guns of the Old West" by David R Chicone. Also see Smith & Wesson 1857-1945 Roy G. Jinks and A.J. Neal. "Guns and the Gunfighters' tells you how to load and fire one.
One "4 line" bullet was found in the the back wall of the murder room and one was found at thePig's meadow grave. It should also be pointed out with this pistol while it is a six shooter you have to leave an empty chamber under the hammer beacuse if you don't and the pistol is dropped or bumped it will go off. Back then S&W factory employees considered the Russian inspectors, overzelous and were often dismayed at the number of revolvers rejected. No doubt some people at S%W today would be pleased to know that one of their products was still working after all those years especially if gun was made by them! Finally, it must be said this pistol was the second best manstopper right after the 1911 used by the Cheka.
JamesAPrattIII:
Now I will get into why the Chekist belong in "The Gang that couldn't Shoot Straight" First while some of the Chekist brought their own or issued handguns some were issued handguns by Yurovsky. One wonders have any of these men ever handeled or fired a handgun before. as for the ones that brought their own it may be that the only pistol prctice they ever had was shooting people in the back of the head. Secondly, some of the shooters sat around drinking vodka before the killing began. While sometimes a drink will steady a mans nerves. It appears some of these Chekists clearly over did it and were most likely drunk at the time of the killings. not good for accurate shooting. Since the killing took place at 3am some of the Chekists may have been sleepy. Which probably didn't hurt their shooting that much. on the other handsome of them were probably so wired up that it probably did hurt their shooting. then if any on the Chekists had any sort of pistol training they would have been taught to fire one handed. Not the most accurate way to fire a handgun. Most likely most or possibly all the shooters fired one handed. With a few if any using the more accurate two handed hold.
Accounts also mention the murder room being "ill lit" from what I heard some of the light bulbs of the period didn't put out that much light. Also the sights of the M-1895 Nagants, the Mausers, the Browning 1900 and the S&W may have been difficult or impossible to see under such conditions. with the 1911s sights being slightly better the shooters probably still have problems seeing them well enough for accurate shooting. this is based on my handling of all of the above handguns except the nagant which from my readings does not have very good sights.
Then putting the shooters in three ranks of three has got to be grotescly stupid. they were lucky one of the shooters in the rear didn't shoot by accident one of ones up front which is what nearly happened according to Yurovsky. They were shooting in a 21ft by 25 ft room without any hearing protection with the shooters in the rear shooting over the shoulders of the ones in front. This is a good way to get permentent hearing loss and is not conductive to accurate shooting. As for the shooters in the rear two ranks they may not have been able to shoot their designated targets even if they wanted to because they were blocked by the people in front. Besides being deafened the shooters in the front two ranks were also getting singed by the muzzle blasts of pistols and the gas leakage from the fronts of the cylinders of the S&W and possibly the 9mm Nagant revolvers if they were used. They also had to put up with black powder smoke of the S&W along with smoke from the other handguns fired along with all the plaster dust churned up by bullets hitting the walls. so after a few shots i don't think most of shooter could see anything to shoot and why they all had to stagger out of the room to recover. So you can see why 9 shooter only managed to kill 4 and wound 3 of their 11 victims. one other thing that i just remembered some of the shooters may have had less than 20/20 vision do to poor diet which was not unusual back then.
Finally, I have spent some time on pistol ranges over the years and I have witnessed many people who have pistols with good sights,have good eyesight, eye and hearing protection, have not been drinking, broad daylight, two handed hold, and some still have problems hitting a sillouette target at 7 yards and a few have problems hitting one at 3 yards. these are not typos there are people who are that severly firearms challenged so to speak!
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