Clerke 1st 22 Revolver : World's Worst Revolver
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- The Clerke 1st is a 6 shot 22 LR Revolver that began life as a starter pistol and was also made in 32 S&W Short. The Frame is a Zinc Alloy and it cost $20 retail in 1971. #Clerke1st #22Revolver #Cheapgun
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As the proud owner of a Taurus 85 Polymer in eggshell white, I can say with some confidence that this is not the worst revolver ever made. 😂 Thanks for the video!!
You own a white polymer Taurus, you are a God sir
I have the 605 poly in baby poop brown, it is my goto pocket gun when not wearing a belt holster, or as backup when carrying something higher cap.
Sweet. Does it have green grips?
@@johngraesser4911 Glad it's been working for you! The baby poop color helps with accuracy, I hear! 😂
@Terras I think the worst thing about Taurus handguns is the finish. I like to give them a hard time online sometimes, but I've actually never had a malfunction with any of mine. Can't say the same about my Canik.
It shot with no malfunctions. I’d say it’s pretty good
How does a revolver malfunction? I mean maybe a light primer strike(but that could've very well been the ammo itself), but other than that, there isn't exactly a whole lot of moving parts for a revolver to "malfunction".. Unless you're meaning like, the fact it didn't break or explode lol
i don't have much experience with guns (living in a nanny state country), but i shot a .50ae desert eagle once, and it jammed multiple times in one magazine... i would have been much safer with this..
@@sealteamsix1784Desert Eagle gets a bad name mostly because the people who are shooting it are using the wrong type of ammunition or not holding it properly.
@@marcusmartinez5454 misaligned cylinder or wiggle in the cylinder, crane stress or breakage, hammer jumping the sear, improper cylinder spacing, spring breakage, trigger doesn’t properly reset. These are only a couple examples of potential revolver malfunctions
@@marcusmartinez5454 There are many ways revolver can malfunction, and the bad thing is with revolver if something goes wrong its usually more difficult to fix than with semi autos
Really a fun video Sootch. When me and my wife were first married 54 years ago, we didn't have much money. Bought an RG blued 22LR/22 Mag revolver for $49 brand new at the Minneapolis Sports Exchange. It looked good from a distance. Fired it once or twice. It made us feel better in our basement apartment. Bought a S&W Model 28 years later and the guy gave me $25 on trade in. Thanks
Thanks Bill!
@@sootch00 : Not long ago in the german arms magazine,Visier' this revolvers Clerk, Röhm and a third one had been noted and compared in an article about very cheap revolvers. Yes i am german, and my Revolver is for law reason bending pointing finger and shouting ,Bäng'.
I have a r.g and it works great 👍👍👍👍
Stuff like this is unreal. My first pistol was a Taurus. For nearly $500 because Obama was president. They say “kids these days have it easy.” 😂 nah lol
I would have given you at least $40 for that Rohm revolver. That gun store ripped you off lol but then again this was probably a long time ago. Those RG 22LR Revolvers go for around $100+ on gunbroker.
It might be the worst to the rest of us, but if it all you have or can afford, it's the best gun in the world.
If it goes bang when you pull the trigger, you have an option. Thanks Kurt!
@@Gabthar I hope you are never in a position to be proven how wrong you are.
I have one. Trust me, it's a piece of crap. I'd rather have brass knuckles or a good knife.
Nobody is that broke. 1 shift at a waffle shop could get you a 9mm.
It’s a piece of junk , the larger calibers will shave lead and throw it in your face .
Sootch doesn’t discriminate cheap pistols ! Love to see cheap pocket pistols reviews
Fills a niche indeed. Reminds me of my mother-in-law's H&R model 923 ("Camper" with 4" barrel), given to her by her late husband in the 1950s for protection. Served as her nightstand gun. At age 89 she decided to fire it for the first time. I took her to the range. That little gun worked just fine, and she could consistently hit minute-of-pie plate at 7 yards from her walker!
Lol...great comment. Thanks for making me smile! 😊
It's good that she never needed to use the gun seriously.
My Mom, almost 80, has a H&R 9 shot revolver she keeps handy. I gave it to her 30 years ago to replace the RG 10 22 short revolver she had. Mom gets it out once in awhile and shoots some cans with it. And she is a pretty decent shot ! Years ago, I was 7, Mom used the Marlin 22 rifle that Dad had just gave to me, to run off a guy trying to break into our house late one night. He tried to get in through my bedroom window, and then our backdoor. She warned him she had a gun and would shoot. When he ignored her and kept pushing on our door, Mom put a 22 round through the door. That changed his attitude ! Lol. When the police got to our house, they listened to Mom's story and looked at the bullet hole In our door. One of them told her "Good job. If he comes back- do it again !".
The cheapest gun in the H&R line is roughly 100 times better than this piece.
H&R made some decent guns. These Clerks things are certifiable junk. I have one, but I'd be scared to fire it.
I bought one visiting my family in rural Georgia..this was in the early 70s. Small country store with the revolvers hanging by nails on shelves behind clerk..I was 12 and paid $30..no questions asked. Still have it in original box..
From your demonstration it shoots every time you pull the trigger.......far better than the brand name 22 pistol I recently bought.
@Terras Glock 44 cough cough.
Can't be the worst, it seems to go bang everytime you pull the trigger. My guess would be the Rohm rg10, .22 short and terrible reliability.
I have a Rohm rg10 in 22 short I got from my grandmother and it is indeed worse, can't hit a piece of paper at point-blank, the trigger reset broke after a few rounds, the front sight is a cover that slides over the barrel I had to glue back on. It's absolutely awful
That's what i was thinking. I bought a new Barrerta 21a. And it goes, boom, click, click, boom, click.
Oh, but it's cute.
@@bradfordpalmer2298 so I have a beretta 950bs minx and I thought the bs stood for bullshit because the magazines always had issues. It was in 22 short. I fixed my feed ramps with a tool specifically for those mags and it fires perfect now everytime
I got me a rohm rg10 22 short for 80 bucks at a local gun store figured if it don’t go bang I can sell it at a buyback for 300.
I got lucky and it’s a pretty decent little quiet trap line gun
I got a Rohm .22 short and ; yea that is the worst !
My grandfather was a cop in the days when the 4" S&W M&P (Model 10) "skinny barrel" was THE duty weapon for city police (1930s-1970s). He drilled in to me that in any defense scenario involving a revolver was to ALWAYS shoot double action and leave the single action shooting to the "fancy bullseye boys". LOL. He got me my first gun, also a .22! But it was a Marlin Model 60 that he bought at KMart! I still have it!
It is hard to beat a Marlin model 60. I have never had a Ruger 10/22 that could match it.
@@fksarver Almost 50 years of use, with normal maintenace (actually, not great maintenance early on, LOL) and still "goes bang". I call it the BEST "Blue Light Special". I just had her out last week for some old school plinking! (I named her "Kay" LOL) 👍😊👍
Having shot both the Clerke and the Rohm, my vote for the worst goes to the Rohm GR10. I felt so much blow back from the Rohm I thought I held it backwards..lol
I use to collect the RG 10 revolvers. Ended up with several of them. I'd pick up one or two of them at every gunshow I went to. Got them for $20-$35 @. I fired most of them, using CCI 22short CB caps. In single action- pretty reliable. Double action- somewhat iffy. My first pistol, when I was 12, was their big brother, the RG 14. A double action 22lr snub nose. I guess that's why I have a soft spot in my heart for these underdogs.
They don't sell em at gun shows for $20 to $35 anymore... How long ago was it since you bought your last one?
@@timd729 Around 10 years ago. I had a nice collection of the RG's. One was a RG 10 new in the box. Had all the paperwork, a full box of 22 shorts and the original receipt. I bought it from the original owner. He was an older neighbor of mine. Oh, the revolver even had fake mother of pearl grips. I ended up selling the entire collection to a friend of mine. I quit going to the gunshows. The prices started getting real stupid. And , the ATF started sending in undercovers. They were entraping sellers. Setting them up on BS charges. But between the prices and the alphabet guys, it took all the fun out of going.
I have an rg10 in 22 short that I got from my grandmother, she left it to me because her mom had it untill she passed and bought it in a detective magazine, she apparently scared a burglar off with it one time but never shot the thing except into the ceiling lol. She kept it in a roll down desk, and it had an old box of Remington 22 short with it.
Actually heard a story from a guy whose dad was killed with an rg10 the burglar loaded it with 22lr cut down. And I tried that and it did fire fine. The double action on mine broke as the trigger will never really reset anymore, and even at point blank you can't even hit a piece of paper, the front sight is just a plastic xover on the barrel I had to glue back on lol
The Clerk was actually assembled in the garage of a man named Henry Taylor in San Antonio, TX. I actually saw him assemble them. He actually made a 1 lb harpoon gun for marlin fishing as well. It also came in. 32 caliber.
Funny you say that..I just found my granfathers clerke helping my grandmother move tonight in SA...
That little gun probably saved the lives of many low income grandmothers. 💥💥💥💥
Yeah, the bottom line is very few folks enjoy having any gun pointed at them, and to most bad guys that quick glance down the barrel, why, it's a S&W .357, or similar...the whole psychology of bad situations would almost insist that every gun pointed, from either direction, is automatically assumed to be a model 29, and dirty what's his name is holding it on me...! that little, shiny .22 is a hand cannon...
My second revolver, back then was an RG. The guts fell out of it and rattled around in the frame. I called to get it fixed, the lady told me to drop it off a bridge into a river or sink it in a lake. Seriously. I gave it to the sheriff. Thank you. God Bless and stay Safe.
What a blast from the past! A friend had one 50 years ago and we literally could not hit a sheet of plywood until we were within 20 feet, and then the bullet hit sideways and stuck in the wood. Usually it was like shooting blanks because we could not tell where the bullets were going. After wasting a few boxes of ammo the top strap snapped and that was it. So we hung it on a stump and shot it with a 30/06 from 75 yards or so. It disappeared in a cloud of powdered metal; we could only find tiny pieces here and there.
They are a great gun for someone who wants to be armed but will never fire the gun. I have an old Iver Johnson in mint condition that a relative bought new in 1915 along with a box of Peters semi-smokeless .38 S&W ammo. When I inherited it in 1973 I got the revolver, which was loaded, and the box of ammo with 5 rounds missing; they were the ones in the gun.
And the Iver Johnson is probably 100 times better than this thing!
I used to have one of these. Got it super cheap because the trigger was not resetting. I was able to fix that with a pen spring. Worked great after that. I gave it away to someone who had nothing. Defiantly better than nothing levels, ha.
I wish someone would produce something similar to this. As long as the quality control can be kept, and some minor modifications, I think it would be good for the super poor to have something that works. Is it good? No, it really sucks, but I rather had a sucky gun than a sharp stick, as long as it is a reliable gun.
I just had a funny flashback... I recognize this revolver because here in Germany the were produced and sold as starter guns that were resricted to fire blanks only (these type of guns have blockages in the barrel and cylinder so no bullet can pass through). The Röhm gun that he is referring to also was available as a blank firing gun. I myself owned a .22 blank revolver very similar to this gun in the video a long time ago - and it worked quite well except for the loading / unloading process. The model I had was black and even had an internal drop safety that prevented accidental firing (not that blanks in .22 cal are very dangerous...). This video brought back some funny memories. ;-) Greetings from Germany!
I walked a foot beat in Santa Monica in the 70's and went into the factory. I spoke to the workers and I was going to buy one but when I saw it close up I changed my mind. Factory was off Main Street near the Santa Monica Tourist area on Main Street.
Good move!
It's simple, cheap, holds up well and it works reliably. In fact, it seems to work better than some of the much more expensive contemporary handguns with issues. What's not to like?
Guessing it's the looks, or the reputation of Saturday Night Specials. I mean, i have a cap gun(which, fun fact, you could probably easily convert one to .22, prolly wouldn't last long, depending on if it'd be .22 Short, Short Rifle, Long, or Long Rifle) that looks really close to this, and it is broken(trigger and indexing both don't work), plus the looseness of the cylinder, quality issues, all of that would probably combine into a bad reputation. Another guy fired a Lorcin .380(one of the worst semi-auto SNSes apparently), and it barely jammed, so, there's that.
I had a charter arms undercoverette in .32 S&W long. It was a cops backup gun. Smoothest action and trigger I’ve ever shot. It was probably 40 yrs old when I got it and was well used. Good gun wish I still had it.
What does that have to do with this gun review-?
🤔
This gun can't even scary a clerk of a gas station, but if the only gun that you can have, it's better than nothing.
You wouldn't be concerned, at all, if a methed-out criminal points this in your face at 2am while you're simply trying to finish your shift?
@@johnqpublic2718 I’d be concerned if someone threatened me no matter what is in their hands. If it’s a deadly weapon of any sort, it just might be the last thing they do. I take my safety seriously, as should everyone.
I'd be scared to fire it with that wiggly chamber
@@johnqpublic2718 he's probably trying to scare the clerk at the gas station and that's the best he has.
Id rather have nothing than to put one oz of trust into it and be sorely disappointed when it fails to stop an attacker. If I whip out a $20 fisher price inspired gun then I deserve to get robbed.
The definitive Saturday night special, speaking of the Rohm-RG, I had someone that wanted me to check theirs out, and it was bad, cylinder was out of time and was unable to use, I advised them not to try and fire it, the Clerk is better than a handful of pea gravel, Thanks for posting Don. 🇺🇸
This is definitely better than the Rohm revolvers.The fact that it's a starter pistol that shoots live rounds is cool and nostalgic since I have not even seen a starter pistol since 1999 in middle school.
It has the same fit and finish as a Christmas gift I received in 1961..... A Mattel "Fanner 50".....
At first, I thought it WAS a starter pistol - it looks just like the one my grandpa had. He was a track coach.
I cleaned a .32 version for a friend. It was his mom's. Definitely a saturday night special.
I have the little mod. 23 RG 22lr. It has shot very well only gave about $150 for it always found it to be a hilarious little gun but it shoots very well!
Growing up, my Father had one of these in .32s&w short. Ours was a later model made in Florida, and the quality didn’t improve over the years. The one time I brought it to the range, I never got more than two rounds from each turn of the cylinder to go off. Never the same two chambers but, no more than two. The best thing about that pistol was the really nice leather holster paired with it!
I knew a pistolsmith from Keithville, LA back in the 70’s thru mid 90’s and he told me that Bo Clerke made his target .45 acp barrels. I said, “the maker of the Clerke 1st???”
Jim Clark was the pistolsmith.
Jim said Bo Clerke was a top notch machinist and target grade barrel manufacturer.
Jim said that he asked Bo how he made any money having to repair so many guns under warranty! He said Bo’s response was that he did’t repair the pistols ... he REPLACED the broken guns with a new gun. He said it was cheaper that way. His cost per unit was $7.95 to manufacture and he sold them to stores for $14.95 (dealer). Stores usually sold them for the suggested retail of $19.95.
As per another statement about the 1968 GCA, it was drafted after Robert Kennedy (US Attorney General at the time) was assasinated in California by a man named Sirhan-Sirhan. He used an RG .22lr to kill Kennedy.
Among one of the “heinous” features of what was called a “Saturday Night Special” back then was any handgun with a melting point of under 1100 degrees Fahrenheit. Since Clerke’s alloy fell under that stipulation the US government closed that part of Bo’s business.
John Hinkley used two RG .22lr pistols to shoot President Regan, Jim Brady (his press secretary) and a NY City policeman. Jim Brady’s wife (Sarah) gave us The Brady Bill to avenge what was done to her husband.
John Hinkley was recently released from the mental institute he’d been kept in since shooting these people. He never served one day in prison and now he walks among us as a FREE MAN!!!
Justice HELL.
Years ago, and perhaps even now, some states had what was nicknamed the frying pan test. Put the gun in a frying pan and heat it up, if it melted, it was banned. The goal behind this was to disarm poor people that couldn't afford a colt saa or 1911. Later on it was used against the early polymer guns since they would melt as well. Then glock became a standard and melting guns was a forgotten test. Everytime a person knocks zamac pistols, it is fun to mention that glocks melt as well.
By the first minute, it seems to shoot flawlessly. I know of expensive guns that would fail at least three times by that shoot count...
I have one in 22 LR. My wife inherited it when her Dad passed away. Still in the box. Apparently he traded a truck starter for it.
Leave it in the box! Best place for it.
Maybe close to “America’s Worst”. It will be remembered that the infamous RG was a piece that initiated the Melt Test associated with the ‘68 gca era definition of “Saturday nite spl”. You could not leave it in a hot car without damage, the metallurgy was so bad.
Never saw one of these until this video and now a few days later, a local dealer has one listed for sale. LOL
i really like the grips. They look nice and respectable
Seems like a good and reliable pocket revolver to me.
The cylinder is also Zamak alloy with steel chamber liners. Note the keyholing on the target towards the end of the video.
A working revolver for $20 doesn't sound like a poor design to me. A great example why gun controls laws don't work.
we called the RG's..."Real Guns" in High School, my buddy carrying one like a bandito in the waistband
I took one on trade back in the late 80's. It was disassembled, in a coffee can, with a box of ammo minus seven rounds. Yep, it broke on the 7th round. GOOOOOD stuff !
Man!
I would have loved this as a kid running a trap line!
I checked my trap line every morning before school. I ran a trap line for many years after going to work. Kids today can't imagine all the stuff they missed out on.
I dunno, it doesn't seem all that bad to me. Yeah I don't like the wobbly cylinder when it's outside the revolver but the most important thing is that it functions properly when it's stored away with ammo. Also I think a clever addition might be to have a stretchy attachment between the cleaning rod and the barrel or down at the front of the trigger guard.
The revolver that comes to my mind as a contender for the worst ever made is the German Reichrevolver which somehow was adopted 6 years after the US adopted the M1873 Colt SAA yet was basically an entirely inferior revolver. From what I can recall, it was single action only, had no extractor so it came with a wooden peg to retain... somewhere... for when in need for reloading, ah yes and also it had a manual safety which of course revolvers really don't tend to have and I did some research on the round it fires. It is less potent than .45 ACP with ACP coming out with at least 20% more energy with the lowest-energy loading on Wiki which appears to be basic 230gr ball ammunition, meanwhile .45 Colt seems to have at least 50% more energy.
Still better than .22lr, for sure, but I think the total lack of a ramrod on the Reichsrevolver, and I just watched a 'Minute of Mae' from C&Rsenal about the 1880s version of the Reichsrevolver, and she says the hammer is 10% lighter but still she tends to want to use her second thumb to pull back that heavy hammer, and she describe the trigger as 'smooth and heavy.' So yeah it sounds like this .22lr revolver has a better trigger than the Reichsrevolver.
Looks like the Germans take the cake here, at least in my opinion, for the worst revolver I am aware of that has ever been made. I'd consider the M1895 Nagant revolver to be a contender too. Damn that double-action trigger is HORRENDOUS, and the mid-'40s (so one of the last ones ever produced) M1895 Nagant that I owned and not long later sold, had a double-action trigger that seriously like 30-60% of the time just... would not engage with the hammer. The trigger would pull, the cylinder would spin, and the hammer would just be like 'nope! Gonna lie down RIGHT here...' meaning its reliability for the double-action revolver was horrendous. I don't recall if it worked more often than it didn't, or if it failed to cock/drop the hammer more often than it succeeded, but it happened A LOT and I'd regard it as an unbelievable, surprising miracle to somehow be able to get through a whole 6 or even a full cylinder of 7 rounds with the double-action trigger/hammer working every time.
You could practically play Russian Roulette with that revolver by just using the trigger. Except as I recall, you pull the trigger a BIT, and you instictively know whether it connected or not. Is the trigger horribly heavy, or actually kinda light? If it's light, the cylinder will turn and nothing else will happen. If it's heavy, enjoy the DAMN heavy trigger squeeze before the handgun goes bang-o.
But for a properly-functioning M1895 Nagant, yeah it'd be better than that bloody Reichsrevolver... wow, this is the most I've talked about revolvers in quite some time lol I'm definitely more of a semi-auto pistol kinda guy, but I do like Military firearms. Oh and the Webley is stunning to use compared to either the Reichs or Nagant revolvers. And the M1873 Colt SAA is probably among the smoothest single-actions ever made if not THE smoothest, but I'd still rather a Webley Mk.VI any day. Better ejection, faster reloading, smooth double-action trigger pull available, it's just stupendous. Sadly never did get any .455 Webley ammo, but I'm certain I'd have enjoyed the heck out of it at the range, absolutely. The only WWI handgun I ever had the privilege to handle, but hopefully that won't be a fact for the entirety of my life :)
I have a mint condition Nagant Revolver. I enjoy shooting it. For me, I get the best target groups with it of any pistol I've got.
When I was a very young man, and wanted a handgun, any handgun. I'd see these, RG's, and Ravens at the local Army and Navy Store. I remember them being about $30.00 or so in the early 70's. Man I wanted one. They had the one, absolutely essential feature I had to have. A low price tag. A new Smith and Wesson sold for about $100.00. That might as well have been a million dollars. I had about as much chance of coming up with one, as I did the other. But $30.00? I could at least imagine scraping that together. I never did though. It would be years before I got my first handgun, a Smith and Wesson Model 19, but those little Ravens, RG's and such, helped keep the dream alive.
By the way. Going through my mothers stuff after she passed, we found a similar revolver in her dresser. But it didn't shoot anything but those red plastic ring caps. How, when and why she came to have it, no one knows.
The cap pistol is a very good comparison.
It goes bang every time. That’s more than the new model Python could claim.You didn’t know if it was going to go off or not. Wouldn’t want to be on the other end of it. SHOOT SAFE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Runs better than a Jennings J22 I used to have, lol. The rounds, when you could get it to shoot, would key hole half the time.
My brother had a J22. We couldn't get it to shoot a Minute of Soda Can from ten feet.
Had one many years ago. Couldn’t get it to fire more than one round. Always jammed!
Oh, this one will keyhole too if you move back a little bit. We could not hit a sheet of plywood at 50 feet with a Clerke. With my Ruger .22 we were putting 10 rounds in 3" at the same distance. Soon the frame snapped, ending the testing of the Clerke forever. (We then shot it with a 30/06)
Those bryco Jennings were pretty bad guns!
Standing on a bridge firing down, my J22’s entire slide flew off. The shame was unbearable.
I bought one of these for 100$ at a gun show years back. Out of all the guns I've bought...this is one of em. Least it shoots, and that's not nothing!
You're a great guy thank you for your time
They did actually produce the clerk 1st in black with black plastic grips, I have one and it's pretty terrible at least yours looks decent. Good fun at the range anyway, I got it for 33$
My dad owned one growing up it was always kept in the bathroom as a just in case gun but when he passed away I had to give it to my brother because that is what he ask me to do brings back some childhood memories of me and him shooting it and his had a nail in it as the cylinder pin because it was lost years ago
Thanks for showing us! Never heard of them
I inherited one from my dad. Thanks for the video! It definitely is a cheap gun, but I still keep it around
Thanks for showing this; we don't get to see a lot of guns of this ilk.
Sootch. . .You are a brave. . .brave man! I would have duct taped that to a tire and rigged a string on the trigger before I would have shot it in my hand! I saw one of these things fired back in the mid 70's and it didn't index properly and it was spitting lead out sideways when the bullet tried to jump from the cylinder to the barrel, sure cleared out the firing line!
Saw some old fat men grow wings and fly away after the first couple of rounds though. . .I will never forget it!😂
😂 That sample performed better than my Charter Arms .38 out of the box. 🤣
They wear quickly, I used to hear it was the, "1000 round wonder". I agree with your assessment Sootch.
For something that essentially looks like a dollar store cap gun, it actually works 👍👍👍👍👍
I bought an RG years ago. It has been fired 100,s of times. Double...single action. Revolver. It's all Pot metal with a steel sleeve barrel. It's never malfunctioned on us. My wife keeps it in her night stand .she also has a Mossberg with pistol grip between the bed and stand. My side has a Scorpion Evo, and an AK on the back of the closet door. I wouldn't want to get shot with ANY of them.
I had to chuckle when I saw this video, I hadn't thought about this three legged dog of a handgun in decades, brings back a memory.
I've been collecting for 50 years, always prided myself on going for the highest quality I could afford. Of course I have my share of 'hand me down' items inherited from dead family members, some of dubious quality others are quite nice.
But the Clerke revolver......this thing has to be the biggest POS I've ever had the dishonor of coming into contact with!
Seems my Father came up with one of these back around the mid '90's or so. Nickle plated as well, chambered in .32 S&W short. I was out at his place and he produced this pot metal whiz bang to see what I thought of it. Now my Dad liked firearms but not like me, he was just an accumulator not a collector.
My first impression was probably the best. It looked like a revolver. My opinion went downhill from there.
Cheap arse construction, seemed to be held together with hopes and prayers and butt ugly to boot!
After firing a handful of rounds I determined that the safest place to stand when shooting this was in front of the barrel about 20' out. As long as you didn't move about, you were good to go. Anything or anyone off to the sides or directly behind this lead spitting thing was fair game!
Due to a manufacturing process known as 'Random Tolerance Technology', Clerke's were made with a hit and miss system of cylinder chamber holes to barrel alignment that was astounding!! Most shots more lead would 'zing' out to the sides of the cylinder gap or bounce back into the shooters face!
After about 5 minutes of this I asked my Dad if wanted to trade me this vile thing for a real gun. He demurred but I insisted. Gave him a nice S&W M10 snubby, took said lead spitting devil (aka Clerke) to the barn and gave it a smart rap on an anvil with a 9 pound sledge.
Thing flew apart into about 8 pieces.
Life is too short to putz about with bad guns.
Love the way it looks, not gonna lie.
We have one and it works great 👍👍👍
Looks like it shoots just fine to me. Heavy trigger is because of it being a rimfire.
This revolver is what "Saturday Night Special" is all about!
I inherited one of those from a friend after his passing and you are correct…it IS THE ABSOLUTE WORSE REVOLVER EVER made 🙀🙀🙀…mine has the “trident” shaped end on the cylinder pin and the cylinder lockup is hit and miss to the point of being unsafe to shoot due to lead shaving if the cylinder doesn’t index properly 🫣🫣🫣 (plus it keyholes at 10 ft on every shot)…it will be sacrificed on the alter of a gun “buyback” event if we ever have one locally 😳😳😳
An owner of this gun might reverse the old expression to: “I might actually be caught dead with this.”
Hey Buddy, 🤠 it sure does look odd ball, it shot fine, it hit the target good.(right in the neck) A couple of yrs ago I found three western revolvers as a novelty collection by Heritage Rough Riders 22lrs or 22mag. They have a lot of up grade parts to fancy them up , they are Colt replica's. First the 1865 Cavalry Model 6.5" I added the etch Scrolling cylinder and Scrolling checkered rosewood cocobolo grips, it came with the fake yellowish case hardened receiver (not good) so I refinish with Birchwood blue for a authentic blue/turquoise fire case hardened look it turned out great , second is the 1865 Artillery Model 4.74" I added etch buffalo/indian head cylinder with buffalo/Indian head coins in checkered rosewood cocobolo grips. The third came out in 1877 Gambler's Birds head Model 3.5" I added the etch dead man's hand etched cylinder ( said to be Buffalo Bill Cody's last hand being that he was killed at the card table in Deadwood South Dakota) and checkered rosewood birds head grips, this gun was warn in a cross draw shoulder holster rig by many gambler's of the day including Doc Holliday. It's nice to have a peice of history in your hand watching the cowboy movies. Now they're just a novelty collection for me , but I did take them to the range one time and they shot Very good, I was impressed with the accuracy. I've heard it said the Colt is the most natural pointing gun ever made, I have to agree ! They're Beautiful Guns !
Yea my grandfather was a railroad man and had one usually to kill snakes. The real problem is that the pin is really hard to take out. I don't recommend keeping this pistol loaded because it can be really dangerous to unload with a live round in it.
The film "Unlawful Entry 1992" brought me here to learn some about this notorious revolver. It was what Ray Liotta's character, Pete a deranged and obsessive police officer used to murder his partner Roy with after ordering the latter to seek psychiatric help or be suspended. Always wondered what type of revolver that was, and I figured it had to be some sort of poor quality "Saturday Night Special". I was sure right about it being notorious and cheap lol, but now I'm much more familiar with the Clerke 1st. Good video as always.
Reminds me of my 1960 model cap gun that used the red rolls of caps. If I had one of these 60 years ago, I would have been happier than a pig in fresh mud!
Needs to be remade but with quality steel. I have a friend with a 32. And ran about 1-k rounds through it with no issues
My state, Maryland, banned these and other Saturday Night Specials back in the 1980’s
I had our Governor tell me they had no plans or desire to ban any expensive well built pistol let alone any rifles
We all know how that worked out
I never even heard of this before. Compared the the Heritage Manufacturing 22 this is a family heirloom.
I used to have a Raven Arms MP-25. Another real piece of work. I see the MP-25 on auction sites selling for close to $200. I don't understand that at all. I haven't seen 25ACP locally in 3 years .
Takes me back to my 1st Fisher-Price: My 1st Cap Gun - .25 conversion! The First was my 1st ever EDC. Kept 1 in each boot for 30yrs. But 1st ud have to get past the ol' .454 Alaskan !
This is what was sometimed called the "dimebag dealer special"
She's prettier than my Rohm and seems more reliable...lol. they are interesting revolvers and I always enjoy seeing them...thank you
I love this gun. Really makes me thankful for what I have, and I'm a better man for that.
It serves a purpose; how does any other gun compare to this? Quite a bit better!
In Germany You can buy a revolver for 6 mm Flobert blank cartridges from Umarex based on Rohm design "RG 46". This gun is also made from zinc alloy, but does not wiggle as this item shown here. But Your weapon does not misfire, my RG 46 misfires 2 of 7 cartridges of a fully loaded cylinder. I think the reason for faily rimfired cartridges is a weak power of the hammer hitting the cartridges' rims. Currently I sent it to the gun smith to repair. I like such small caliber weapons. Hope that I get it back before I need it again for fire work shooting. The Rohm RG 46 is very interesting especially for this purpose: This weapon does not have a fixed barrel, the enhancement for shooting 15 mm pyrotechnical effects will be attached directly on the J-frame to complete the appearance as a snub nose revolver. I love this cute little gun.
I see that as a plinker. I think it belongs on the range until the day you load a little too hot .22 in there and it blows up
Yeah I had one of those Rohm RG10’s I always thought of those as the worst revolvers 😂
I’ve got one of these, it’s black with black grips. My papaw left it to me when he passed last year. His mom bought it for 27 bucks in 1979. I have a couple videos of it on the channel.
I had the .22 cal. starter pistol version many years ago..it fired .22 blanks and I used it to train my bird dog. As I recall it did not appear to be a substantially made piece; looked rather cheap but it worked for my purpose. Didn't know they made an actual regular firearm version of it.
Years ago, when I first started my police career, the Department had a little .22LR revolver that we used for putting dogs and cats down when we were asked to destroy animals by the public, or that had been in the pound for 3 days or longer. The hand broke on it, and the Chief was going to have it cut up and put in the trash, so I asked if I could just have it to play with. He gave it to me. Come to find out, it had belonged to my brother-in-law who worked on the PD back when I was in High School years before. Anyhow I fixed the hand spring and the little gun was my carry while I was in the US Army for 3 years after quitting the PD. I carried it (illegally I guess) throughout my assignment to the Washington DC Area with The Old Guard at Fort Myer as my car gun. It was a Herbert Schmidt and just a bit higher in the quality scale than the Clerk. Blued with white grips, it held 6 22LR rounds. Never had to use it but it was comforting to know that if I needed it, it was there for me. I finally sold it for 35 bucks when I needed a carton of smokes and was short of funds. They didn't pay us cops very well back then.
Nice drop gun.
I’ve had two that I bought for under $100 each. Used one as a tackle box gun and gave the other to a friend to use on his tractor as a snake gun.
I had one, my brother gave it to me back in the 80s. It was in .32 S&W… it broke after I put 3 boxes of ammunition through it! I still have it, I use it as a paper weight.
Now your story is more in line with what I experienced. A friend traded a spare tire for one and within 100 rounds the FRAME broke! We hung it on a stump and shot it with a 30/06. It blew into a zillion pieces.
Hey! That's offensive to the paper community. I think it's better if you toss it in a shoe box. 😂
@@SCH292 that would be offensive to the shoebox community!
I had one in 32S&W that was given to my Grandma in the late 80's. It was the worst. It shaved bullets, keyholed and you couldn't shoot yourself in the ass if you fired it in your back pocket. In 2004 Chicago had a really good buy back that gave $250 cash matched with a $250 Visa gift card so I turned it in and used the money towards a Glock model 22. Wish they still paid so good. I would buy junk guns and made a couple pipe shotguns when they were paying $200 cash but they got hip to it as I wasn't the only one, LOL. A nice part of my collection was financed by Gun buy backs.
Idk about worst, it went pew every time you pulled the trigger!
Ah the shooting sports. Nostalgia at its best......wait. So will this be a series? 🤣
When I was a kid in the early to mid 1960s there was a guy in my middle school who had a .22 LR made in Germany. I paid $ 10.00 to buy this gun because I had the hots for a handgun and it fired cheap ammo. The gun was essentially made out of pot metal and had at least a 12 lb single action trigger pull and probably a 25 lb + double action. I am sure that this would have had an import ban pre 1968. At 7 yards I doubt that it would keep all six shots on a piece of typing paper. I do not recall it having a front sight, although there may have been one. It had plastic grips and my guess is that the barrel was 2 1/2 , possibly 3 inches. I have no idea what I did with that pistol but your video reminded me of the gun that I had. The cylinder came out to reload it by pulling the center pin. I do not recall there being a loading gate. It had a blued finish but I have no idea as to where it was manufactured. It was the worst pistol that I have ever owned.
About 1980 I had one in 32. Less than 50 rounds beat that little revolver into uselessness.
It sure seems to shoot everytime without fail. Cant be that bad
I think I might have you beat with the rg14 and Arms Co model 059 (Tennessee) .22lr I have that my grandfather used while float fishing in rivers and creeks in Arkansas for Cottonmouths. He had much nicer guns but with these he had no worries if they got wet or dropped them.
Ngl now I know what all my toy guns back wen I was a kid were based on. Lowkey want it now
I like SNSs (for some reason) and have a Clerke .22 just like this one. I’ve never shot it, because as you note, the lockup is so loose, but your video has encouraged me to give it a try. Boy - it screams cheap.
It fired every time you pulled the trigger. On double action! I could never get one to do this. Mainspring breakage is common. I did get the first one I ever bought out of a box of toys at a flea market. A friend dropped one and it shattered into little pieces. Lock up was always tight. The big problem comes if you don't remove the mainspring correctly. There was a successor, the Serrafile Terrier. Quality of parts was not as good. I have the only example made in .32 rimfire, which I built myself. Became very familiar with assembling and working on them. There were 5 and 6 shot versions in both .22 and .32. Around 1976 there was a black finish version which came in a Bicentennial themed box. The 32 firing pin had to be carefully fitted or it could puncture a primer. I blew one up that way. The RG is much better made, but a lot more difficult to work on. The Raven has always been reliable in my experience but it breaks firing pins easily. The Jennings J-22 has a poorly fitted extractor. I don't think Jimenez corrected that and that's why they jam all the time. There is or was a video on youtube on how to fix that. The starter Clerke had a shortened cylinder.
makes sense coming from it being essentially a retooled starter pistol
The number one rule of gunfighting. Have one.
Fun video. Reminded me my Raven 25 frame cracked after 1 box on ammo.
As Long As It Goes Bang &
Can Hit It's Target At Room Range,
It's A Good Pistol In My Book...
Awesome review, Don! Love it! I would probably buy one if I had the chance…just to say I owned one LOL
Compared to a RG 32 S&W short that dad had back in the late 80's, that little revolver seems like a Kimber. At least that one actually works. The RG would fire one round, not fire another round until you kept pulling the trigger multiple times, then repeat the process over until all of the rounds were finally fired. Even worse, every time a round did go off you would get powder burnt on your hands and face. I absolutely hated that piece of junk. It was traded off very quickly for something or other, I don't even remember what. The worst semi auto I've ever had the "pleasure" of shooting was a Jennings. I don't care what caliber it was, every Jennings I've tried to shoot jamed nearly every shot. You'd be better off with a slingshot. At least it works until the rubber band breaks and they're easy to change. In my personal opinion, a used Ruger single action or small semi auto is the best low budget option for anyone that can't afford a higher priced handgun. And really a low priced Ruger Single action 22 is better than a high priced 38. If you practice using your left thumb to cock the hammer, you'd be surprised at how fast you can empty a cylinder. I know that it's not ideal, but 6 rounds of good quality HP 22 lr in the chest of a thug will make him usually get outta dodge if not outright kill him. Better yet is 5 rounds to the chest and one in the head. That's probably gonna be fatal. I've even got a Ruger EC9S micro9 budget pistol that is 100% reliable, accurate and easy to carry. I'd put it up against the almighty Glock anyday and be just as reliable, accurate and shootable at a fraction of the cost. Fortunately I have my Springfield 4" 1911 45 that I tell everyone is my wife always with me. I get a lot of weird looks when I introduce Miss Liese as my wife, but I think it's hilarious. From my personal experience over the years, a good gun is better than a woman anyday. Your gun won't cheat on you, betray you or leave you for someone else. I trust my Liese with my life every single day without hesitation because I know that she's 100% reliable, will always be with me no matter what I face and will put bad guys or hostile animals in the ground where they belong. I just can't trust the best 9mm made to save me from all threats in life without using enough rounds to possibly cause legal problems even in a plainly clean shoot. I'm getting on up in years, so my generation didn't have semi autos (except for the 1911 45) . We grew up in the revolver era when the majority of people carried single actions or DA/SA 22s and 357s. So we know where to put the least amount of bullets in the best spots to stop bad things because we only had 6 to 8 rounds to depend on. We didn't have speed loaders back then either, so we had to learn to be good with our guns out of pure nesitity.
Must be a pretty popular gun, because all the toy cap gun companies are always trying to replicate this gun!