Charles-François Galand

Who was Charles-François Galand?

Charles-François Galand was a French gunsmith who worked in Liege and Paris, France. He manufactured many revolvers for civilian and military use, including the Galand Revolver, the Tue Tue, and the tiny Le Novo. The Velo-dog, developed from the Tue Tue and the Novo, was designed by Charles-François' son René in 1904.

The original Galand revolver was a double-action, open frame revolver patented in 1868. Military versions were produced in 9 mm while civilian versions were made in 12 mm. The gun is easily recognizable due to its long extraction lever, which stretches under the gun to form the trigger guard. Pulling the lever forward separates the barrel and cylinder from the rest of the gun. At the same time the extractor plate is blocked which catches any cartridges in the cylinder, thereby extracting them.

The first model was manufactured both in Liege and in Birmingham, England by the British arms firm Braendlin and Sommerville, and is therefore sometimes referred to as the Galand-Sommerville. Sommerville shared the patent for the case extracting system with Galand. The Galand-Perrin is an identical model which uses the Perrin cartridge.