So, I bought a lamp...

This thread is partially in reference to Aragorn's Bodeo posit. I saw this lamp on ebay last November with a price of $119.99 plus shipping. Either it was a repairable 1889 Bodeo revolver or I paid too much for a very kitschy or as my wife said, very ugly lamp. At nearly sixty-six years I have risked more for less so I pushed the buy it now button and in due time it arrived. The first two pictures are the ebay photos. With a bulb inserted, it even worked!! (9th pic).
It was quickly determined that it was indeed the "Real McCoy", made by Glisenti at Brescia sometime after 1889 (4th pic). The serial number is B2131 with no date stamp and if I've read the internet sources correctly, it was made before 1900, perhaps 1892 to 1894. Hopefully an Italophile on this forum can be more specific. I opted to try and restore this old beast and if unsuccessful, I still would have an unusual lamp for the gun room. I have since read that Interarms did these lamp 'conversions' sometime in the '60s but have been unable to confirm that information.
First the bad news. It was arc welded to a horseshoe at the end of the butt and painted with a thick coat of black paint. The cylinder was welded to the frame in two places on the left side (6th pic). A threaded lamp adapter was welded to the muzzle looking somewhat like a one time use only, silencer adapter(8th pic). The trigger and hammer were tack welded to the inside of the frame, the hammer had been cut just below the pivot pin and the hammer face (firing pin) had been ground flat. The lamp cord required access through the gun so a hole was drilled in the left hand grip and through the rear of the frame at the firing pin hole. Last and probably least the lanyard ring is missing. I will post more as my time allows. Tom

That's neat, sad, but neat. Probably better to leave it a lamp, No?

An opportunity to learn some Italian?

Revolver di ordinanza italiano modello 1889 "Bodeo"

But WarPig is right, you now have an esoteric lamp.

They are nice, well made pistols. I believe the hammer is disengaged when the loading gate is open. It’s a nice feature.

Looks like a very cool gunsmithing project to me. I will be following along with interest to see how the restoration goes.

Warpig, I agree that it is sad that some examples of such a storied firearm were reduced to such a demeaning end. These were used by the Italian military for about sixty years in all military campaigns small and large from the late 1800s to the end of WWII. Swords into plowshares I suppose but in this instance I prefer the sword.
Thank you Patrick for the link, when I get around to it I will order Pettinelli's book on the 1889 Bodeo, also only in Italian. I don't speak the language but with Bing or Google translator I can get close.
Vincent thanks for the encouragement, this is already a fait accompli and I will post the process (good or bad) as my time allows.

After removing the bulk of the lamp parts the horse shoe was removed with a Dremel tool and the paint stripped with Jasco paint remover which wouldn't effect any remaining bluing. The welds on the trigger, hammer and cylinder were also removed with the Dremel and then the revolver was completely disassembled. I chucked the barrel in my lathe and faced off about .010" and chamfered it to remove all the remaining weld spittle. Next in the lathe was the cylinder for the same process to remove the bits of weld left over. Interestingly, the cylinder has the serial number stamped on the front face. The remnants on the inside of the frame were dressed down wit the Dremel, needle files and various grits of silicon carbide paper. Tom

You are making a nice job of it, Tom. Thanks for the pictures and Jasco paint remover tip. I haven’t tried that.

This is my Officer's Model 1889 made in Reggia Brescia with a three digit serial number

Came to the USA from a US Army veteran who was in Italy during WW2, he gave it to my father. Condition is very nicehttps://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...4/4g21wo-1.jpg

RCS, very nice example. Most of the pictures on the net show a date stamp near the manufacturers name, mine doesn't and your officers model doesn't seem to. I cannot seem to find any definitive information why some have a date and some don't.

None of the usual parts houses had anything listed for these guns but I was able to source a mainspring from a member on another forum and a hammer, hand and some extra internal bits for a reasonable price from a gentleman in Florida. Sometimes luck works out. In that same lucky vein, the bore has deep sharp rifling and promised the possibility of decent accuracy if I could repair the bigger problems, most serious of which was the rather large hole drilled in the rear of the frame for lamp cord access. The hole measured about 11/32" (0.3438") and was slightly oblong in shape. A letter drill size T at 0.3580" cleared the hole and made it round. The hole was tapped to 10mmX1.00mm and I turned a plug to an interference fit with the same thread pitch. With the plug in the freezer for a couple hours and the frame warmed up to glove wearing temperatures the plug was screwed in quickly before the temperatures equalized and when cooled the protruding parts were faced down with hand tools. A moment of paranoia caused me to stake punch around the plug on its periphery(pic 5) but in retrospect was probably unnecessary. The picture of the plug repair on the inside of the frame(pic 6) appears to be wavy but is perfectly flat. The tapered firing pin hole was next and certainly the most tedious and time consuming task in this project. I will save that for my next post. Best. Tom

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../25gtie1-1.jpgTom,

You are doing an excellent job of restoration on your Bodeo revolver, part are very difficult to find and often you have to make them.

You can make 10.35mm from 44 maganum brass, cut to .890 inch length and use a 303 sizing die to provide a slight taper. I did make some cartridges from 45 auto rim years ago
too. I used some 44-40 lead bullets worked down to .422 inch. My revolver is very old and was advised to use black powder only, you might be able to use light loads of Unique
powder, Robert

During early 1970 the entrance hall or Foyer at the large imposing 1900's Officers Mess at Burtphore Barracks in Tidworth, the then home of the 10th and 11th Hussars, had two standard lamps, one each side of the main doorway. Made from two beautifully presented, cleaned and polished .50" Brownings mounted on heavy teak plinths. Wish I'd photographed them!

photo shows the mechanismhttps://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../14jtbhj-1.jpg

:) You are doing a very nice job, Tom. Something tells me this is not your first rodeo.

:thup:Very impressive!

Man, you are lucky with that bore! That alone should make your perseverance worth-while.
Keep up the good work - and keep us informed.

Thanks for the kind comments gentlemen. The reminiscence about the .50 cal Brownings as a display reminded me that it seemed every EM Club I entered while in the Army had a montage of captured foreign arms as a display but I never saw anything as impressive as dual 50s.

As I alluded to in my last post, the conical shaped hole for the firing pin presented some tedious problems. My lathe is a little 6" Atlas so it doesn't have enough swing over the bed to turn the revolver frame even if it could be affixed somehow with a lathe dog. So, I clamped a flat machine vice to the drill press and positioned the frame in the vice. The inside of the frame was marked using a punch through the primer hole of a .38WCF case temporarily installed with the cylinder. The firing pin was removed from the hammer and the resulting hole was used to mark the outside of the frame. I then drilled a small hole, mark to mark to serve as a pilot and used a standard lathe center drill to hog out the biggest portion of the coned hole and then the Dremel to finish contour and polish. Often I have read that the firing pin on these is pinned to the hammer. They either don't know, or neglect to say that it is also threaded and screws into the hammer. Frustrating to remove if you don't know that little tidbit. The threads are visible in pic 2. The cylinder hand was too short and required some careful peening to lengthen and stoning back to get the timing spot on and the little hammer block piece that fits in the hand needed some massaging with needle files to fit and operate properly. Then the relatively straight forward lanyard ring and a walnut plug for the grip. Next post the final assembly. Tom

Here it is all assembled, side cover off and on. In the first picture the light colored walnut plug can be seen on the lower part of the left grip. In the picture of the right side of the gun you can see a shiny weld spot on the rear of the cylinder that wouldn't take the spot bluing. I suspect there was something alloyed into the welding rod, maybe nickel. This rivoltella has a few interesting design features including the feature Vincent noted in that when the loading gate is opened the trigger can rotate the cylinder without cocking and dropping the hammer. This greatly facilitates the speed of loading the gun and removing spent cartridges. On the enlisted man model 'A' the trigger folds forward and fits into a retaining slot when the hammer is pulled slightly back. When it is cocked the trigger falls free for use. Robert's post previously, shows the officers model 'B' with the trigger guard and non folding trigger. Disassembly of the complete firing mechanism may be done without any tools. First, on the side plate, the piece that looks like it could be a safety lever is actually the screw that retains the side cover. Once removed there is a tang built into the side cover that when the hammer is cocked allows easy removal of the mainspring. The remaining pieces may then be easily taken out. This firearm is often described as "robust" ;I think that is an apt description. All seemed correct and smooth and I will report on loading and shooting the beast next. Tom

The only adequate technical term to describe this resuscitation is..... WOW :cheers::cheers::cheers:

A most rewarding piece of work. Now let's see how it shoots...

loooks a bit like the russian nagant to me , interesting revolver

The cartridge for the Model 1889 is the same as used in the earlier Model 1874. The original black powder round had a bullet weight of 11.6 grams (179gr.), a case length of 22.6mm and contained 1.6 grams (25gr) of fine grained black powder that produced a velocity of 735 fps. Beginning in 1890 the cartridge was loaded with smokeless powder, the case length reduced to 22mm and a cotton ball placed between the powder and bullet. The bullet weight was reduced to 11.3 grams (174r.) with a velocity of 810fps. The advice given in a Robert's previous post on fabricating suitable ammunition is how it is usually done and likely the prudent way for most. I possess and shoot my Grandfathers Model 73 Winchester in .38WCF (38-40) and also an Uberti Colt revolver copy in the same caliber so I opted to use this brass as a base for the 10.35 Italian since I already have a lot of brass on hand. A bullet mold in the original heeled design and weight was purchased from Buffalo Arms for nearly as much money as I have into the revolver but I like the originality aspect and was curious how well it would shoot with an 1870s design idea. The mold is beautifully machined and turns out perfectly round 177gr bullets that measure exactly 0.425" at the band just forward of the heel. My only complaint with it is that it has far too much metal for a single cavity mold and so it takes an excessive amount of time to heat up to casting temperature. Since these bullets have a heel I couldn't use a Lyman sizer/ luber and instead outside lubed with Lee Alox tumble lube. As luck would have it, a sized .38-40 Win case has the correct inside neck diameter for the heeled part of the bullet but the cases trimmed back to 22mm are too short to be sized in in a normal length die. A used .38 WCF size die was bought on ebay and was cut back enough to properly size my 'new' 10.4 cases. I use mostly Alliant (the old Hercules) pistol powders but with Unique, Bullseye and all the Dot powders I couldn't come up with a load that had consistent velocities although I am sure with more experimentation some or all would be fine. By happenstance I was given bottle of Titegroup and it proved up well for this caliber. With the usual precautions and disclaimers; With this gun, these cases, these bullets, this process and 4.6gr of Titegroup I shot under three inch groups at thirty feet from a rest, single action, at very consistent 800fps velocities. Not bad for an old pot. So, was it worth it? Everyone has their own reasons for collecting and I would never disparage any that are not my own but I have no safe queens. I shoot them all and load for everything except the rim fires. I mostly like Great War weapons and this one fits into my Italian handgun section nicely. This gun is likely less valuable than a matching number un-repaired similar revolver but with just over 200 rounds down range, it has become one of my favorites probably because, as my Grandfather would have said "you have some blood in it". Thanks for all the interest and comments. Tom

an amazing resurrection.

i take my hat off to you sir.

Very nice, kind of makes me regret I didn't pull the trigger on the one I found. It was not tampered with nearly as bad as yours but the bore was shot. Price was a lot higher also.

Great stuff oldpaul magnificent save congrats......