The Chiappa company’s name is pronounced KEE-opp-a and it is attracting a lot of interest in handgun circles these days with the arrival of a startlingly different new production model revolver. The Rhino, chambered in .357 Magnum, is a radically innovative design by Emilio Ghisoni, previously known as manufacturer and designer of the Mateba Autorevolver (1, 2).
Ghisoni’s Mateba was a kind of modern reinvention with improvements of Lieutenant Colonel George Vincent Fosberry’s Webley-Fosberry automatic revolver, an accurate and intriguing sidearm produced in small quantities a century ago.
The Rhino differs from the Mateba in being an ordinary non-automatic revolver, but retains a number of its innovative design features including firing with the barrel aligned with the bottom of the cylinder.
Chiappa Firearms debuts a new production revolver and concept at the MKS Supply 2010 SHOT Show display (booth 15549).
Called the Rhino (sort of resembles one too) you will first notice that the barrel is actually at the bottom of the cylinder. The gun is designed to fire from the bottom chamber of the cylinder (6:00 position not 12:00 as with other revolvers).
The new design resulted in improvements of the internal mechanisms over conventional revolver designs yielding up incredible reliability, a super-smooth action and improved safety.
The Rhino’s low barrel design ergonomically shifts recoil energy into the center of the palm of the hand and in line with the forearm thus greatly reducing the effects of felt recoil. Traditional revolver design (semi-autos too) place the barrel above the hand.
When the gun is fired the leverage applied by that design forces the recoil into the web area of the hand between the thumb and trigger finger causing significant muzzle snap. Not the Rhino! Due to this new design a shooter can now fire very fast and accurate repeat shots.
The Rhino is designed reduce its carry profile. This design is even carried into the hexagonal shaped cylinder making for a flatter profile when carried (especially handy for legal concealed carry).
Dom
Shifting recoil energy into the center of the palm of the hand, and in line with the forearm, is an improvement that has been previously attempted by the Russian firearmes manufacture Drulov, on a 22LR single shot sport pistol, during the 60’s or 70’s, inasmuch as my recollections are correct.
I have not been able to find a picture nor any information about this gun on the web. However, I had been given the opportunity to shoot with this Drulov, whose exact model name escapes my mind at this time regretfully. Although it was a fine sport gun, this Drulov is no longer in production, seemingly. It was pretty easy to recognize among all other pistols, because of this particular feature, and also because it had a spectacular anatomical hand grip which made it looking like a sci-fi gun.
Also, we can make mention of a special variety of handguns known as “palm pistol” whose best known example is perhaps the Protector Palm pistol, with a rotating chamber-magazine system, firing seven 32 rimfire cartridges. The Palm Protector was patented by the Minneapolis Firearms Co, in 1892.
We may expect further technical improvements on revolvers, I believe – even though this kind of handgun has been definitely superseded by automatic pistols, and that it is unlikely that anything change in the time to come about that.
Maggie's Farm
Sunday links…
I hope our News Junkie will be able to get back from the north country tomorrow, because we are tiring of covering the links for him. Will stagger on just one more day.
Vanderleun: What I learned from Avatar
Getting old and sick? 2010 is the rig…
Patrick Coggin
where do i get one
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