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| As the navy’s archives were burned during WW2, there are no records of how many sets were made of these pistols. There is also no information in regards to where and when they were converted to percussion. The M1828 is very difficult to find in Norway, though not all that difficult in the US. With the exception of two or three, all that are known today have been imported from the US. The flintlock version is rather scarce, less than ten pistols are known in total here in Norway. It is also difficult getting hold of the percussion version, but these tend to pop up at US gun-shows every now and again. |
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| The Norwegian Kongsberg pistols 1814-48 |
| 1814 was an important year for Norway. Not only did we get our constitutional law, we were forced into a union of "two independent countries sharing the same king" with Sweden. It was the end of the time were Denmark could please future generations of gun collectors by sending all their old-fashioned "junk" up north. But, most important, Kongsberg Våben Fabrik was established! Kongsberg started off refurbishing old Danish weapons, sanding away the Danish kings monograms and other important things, but already in 1818 the first “Norwegian” pistol was produced. Well, it was really a 99 % true copy of the Swedish M1807. As a matter of fact, during the 91 years Norway was unionised to Sweden, the Norwegian army never adopted a true Norwegian design. A couple of Norwegian designs were looked at, but every model though out all those years was really only copying the Swedes. The strange ting is that the Norwegian copy in general is worth several times the Swedish original. |
| M1818 Flankør & studser pistol The Kongsberg M1818 is almost identical to the Swedish M1807. The front end of the trigger guard on the Norwegian pistol is curved, on the Swedish it is pointed. There is a screw in the brass behind the trigger guards on the Swedish pistol. The Norwegian pistol may have KONGSBERG V.F. stamped in very small letters on the left side of the barrel. Except for this, they are identical! Kongsberg probably only produced 50 sets of the pistol, each with a smooth bored pistol (flankør), a rifled pistol (studser) and a shoulder stock. The Norwegian M1818 is extremely scarce today. |
| The picture is actually of a Swedish M1807, but from this angle you can't see any difference between the M1807 and the Norwegian M1818. This is not my M1807 - I don't have the stock and my rear band is missing on mine. Sorry about the quality of the picture. |
| M1828 Naval pistol The Norwegian navy usually had their own designs and the M1828 pistol may possibly be the first Norwegian designed military fire-arm. The M1828 is also fairly unique as each set consisted of two mirror image pistols – a left-hand and a right-hand pistol. The pistol on the picture is the left-hand versions. Firing a right-hand pistol with your left hand at night might blind you as the flame from the touch-hole would pass before your eyes. On the M1828 this flame will always be turned turn away from you. |
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| M1831/46 & M1834/46 Flankør & Studser + M1835/46 Artillery The M1831 is again just about a 99 % true copy of the Swedish M1820. The only main difference on the flintlock version being the crowned “K” on the Norwegian ones, while the Swedish ones in general were unmarked. The Swedish percussion conversion is rather different from the Norwegian. Here again it is this thing of the copy being worth several times the original. The M1831 came in sets of a rifled pistol (studser), a smooth bored (flankør) and shoulder stock for the two. The M1831 has a pointed rear on the lock plate and is numbered 1-1289 (remember two pistols and a shoulder stock for each number), on the M1834 the lock plate is rounded and they are numbered 1290-1682. There also was a M1835 artillery pistol. This is virtually identical to the M1834 flankør, with the exception of it not being fitted for a shoulder stock. There were only produced about 500 of these pistols, starting from number 1 and the M1835 can be pretty hard to find. The M1834 and the M1835 were to be the last flintlock pistols made by Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk and also the last pistols Kongsberg made for the Norwegian Army for almost 80 years - the next model was to be the Norwegian M1914 semi automatic Colt .45. |
| This is the M1831/46 flankør (smooth bored), strangely enough the studser pistol is only known in the original flintlock versio. |
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| The picture to the right shows the rounded lock plate of the M1834 at the top and the pointed one for the M1831 on the bottom. With the pointed plate, the stock often cracked begind the lock plate. |
| M1843 & M1848 Naval percussion pistol I find most Kongsberg firearms to be beautifull esthetical designs. The “large” M1843 percussion pistol, however, is from my point of view an exception from this. The M1843 pistol has a lot in common with the perhaps nicest designed Norwegian long-gun - the naval M1843 musket, but it just does not look good. Like the M1843, the lock plate goes backwards from the hammer. The stock is bent down in almost a full 90 degree, as a result many of these cracked during use. As the naval archives burned, there is no information in regards to how many M1843 were produced. The pistol is fairly difficult to get hold of. |
I am not sure if the M1848 was made as a result of problems with the M1843 or if there was another reason for having this small, continental style. The pistol is said to have been made in two versions – one for the navy with a brass front sight and one for the Norwegian postal services without any front sight. I doubt there really were two models, as I’ve only seen the one without the front sight. One of the pistols I have is a relic from the fire at the naval base Carl Johans Vern that was bombed during WW2. What would a postal services pistol be doing there? Norwegian naval arms are a bit of a problem as all documentation vanished up into thick smoke. |