11mm GUNTER & LATOUCHE REVOLVER

  

From information found in the “Gazette des Armes” n°287 April 1998 (9-13). My French is a bit wonky, but this is part of the translation of the article featuring the history of the Günter & Latouche revolver.

Various handgun designers – Lefaucheux, Perrin, Delvigne, Galand, Chamelot-Delvigne, to name but a few, submitted their designs to the French military commission of the Ministry of the Armed Forces at Versailles during 1869 in the hopes of getting the lucrative contract to supply the French Army with their next generation handguns. Among those hopeful contenders were two gunsmiths, Paul Jean de Günther and Jacques Antoine Creuzé de Latouche who submitted patents on the 4th of April 1870 in Paris and on the 8th of April in Brussels relating to “improvements in the construction of revolvers”. Their proposals assumed that … the military revolvers currently in service are no longer adapted – according to them – to the requirements of the Army. The criticisms which they formulate in relation to these are the following: “The construction of the current service revolver is suitable for officers because they can have their guns cleaned and maintained by a gunsmith, but it is not the same for soldiers in the field in the sense that the weapons must be maintained by the soldier himself”, and their designs will make it possible for a soldier, with the help of a simple screwdriver, to dismantle the whole mechanism, clean it and reassemble in the field without much effort.

The revolvers were manufactured for them by Spirlet and they provided their improved design to the Versailles Commission on the 28th of September 1872 and although receiving favourable reports, was rejected by the Commission. De Latouche, who was present at the trials proposed an upgraded version to be resubmitted, but it was not to be as the Chamelot-Delvigne Revolver chambered for the 11mm Mle. 73 was the weapon adopted by the French Army. Both Günther & Latouche revolvers from these trials are currently in the collection of the Musée d’Armes de Liège, Belgium (see attached photo). Rather than fading from the scene, Günther and Latouche ultimately made their fortunes manufacturing gun mountings for the French Naval Guns.