TFB is firmly committed to our “no politics” rule. That said, there are many innovating developments created that maximize effectiveness under restrictive laws. The “FrankenRuger” is one of those pistols. The result is a magazine-fed revolver that is 100% California-legal without requiring entry onto the state’s approved-handgun list.

**Note added 3/4/14: Jim March has joined into the comments below. He notes that the firearm was not designed to circumvent existing laws. Please note that this is a one-off prototype and not a production-ready design.

Created by Jim March back in 2013, Maurice started as a Steampunk project and “went there on its own.” Jim describes the design of the revolver in detail on his YouTube page:

The manual ejector is gone. The barrel is multi-part: the rifled core is a 3.25″ section of Douglas Premium .355″ barrel threaded into the frame and with another thread at the muzzle. There’s a muzzle-end nut that compresses the stainless steel sleeve, pulling the barrel forward much like a Dan Wesson revolver and like a DW, the barrel/cylinder gap can be finger-adjusted. On top of the barrel nut is a gas trap that can be spun to adjust windage as it doubles as the front sight base. The gas trap bolts to the muzzle nut with a series of set screws. The gas trap dumps ejection gasses to the rear through the original frame mount for the ejector rod. On ejection shells hit a hammer-mounted deflector instead of my right cheek as in early tests :). The magazines use Wolff coil springs meant for a 32-20 levergun. Cylinder blank is by Bowen Arms, David Manson made my finish chamber reamer (wonderful smooth results!), the compression barrel sleeve is a section of handlebar from a 1980 Honda CB900c :). Copper and brass bits from a local Ace Hardware :). The magazine flat springs for retention are modified hacksaw blades with the teeth polished off.

The original thread for the pistol can be found on The Firing Line.

Readers, what do you think? Will magazine-fed revolvers fill a niche role or is this a hair-brained one-off?