Thougth I might share here a few pictures of the Baikal Izh-54 that was made to be presented at the 1967 World Expo in 1967... but didn't quite make it there.





The gun was engraved by Leonard Vassev, one of Russia's best engravers of all times, but was ruined at the case hardening stage. Due to air exposure, the action was covered with a layer of soot - and to make matters worse, the hardeners tried to hide their screwup and remove the ugly stuff on a sandwheel. Here's how one person's backbreaking labor can be ruined in a split second by someone else's failure.

Photos by Mikhail Krechmar. For more details of the gun and its drama (but not more pics) see my blog

I have no words for the stunning beauty, nor the crying shame.
O.M

Too bad there are few good images available of the second iteration of the Montreal Gun, that by miracle and 168-hour weeks was finished in time for the expo. It is now stored at the Kremlin Gun Chamber in Moscow. This is the best I could find:



from a no longer published magazine

Gorgeous work and an astounding bungle at the same time. The inlays are fantastic.

Beautiful work...and a wonderful work of fiction.

Did Lenin ever once step off the cobblestones or stroll the birches?

Somehow I doubt it.

JP

They sure messed up all that intricate work. I'll bet when Montreal gun #2 went to CCH Vassev said, "No thanks, I'll do it."

You think the first case coloring team is back from Siberia yet? I'd hate to be one of them stem that happened. Just like I'd hate to be in charge of the North Korea rocket program today. Failure could be painful.

Painful??

It is said that "you never hear the shot that kills you" unless of course it is intended to maim first, and kill eventually.

"Maim first, and kill eventually" sounds like a description of a friend's bad marriage.

I wonder how many guns were being case colored in the '60's? It might have been a lost art even in Russia. But if I were doing it I would have done many test runs first. Perhaps they did and this time it just went wrong. It was a interesting gun with beautiful engraving.

You guys are funny :):):)

Still:

1) Lenin was an avid hunter; that's a historical fact. Not that he had many opportunities to go outdoors, with his lifestyle, but during Siberian exile, for example, he did little else.

2) Case color hardening was a routine technological operation on Izh-54 (prod. 1954-1968) and Izh-26 (prod. 1968-1978), and there were nearly a million of these guns made. The Montreal Gun, being an Izh-54, couldn't possibly miss it.

3)... and the case hardening team suffered a terrible fate - they had to come home and tell their wives there wasn't going to be any NY bonus that year. Seriously, that's the worst that could happen to them in the '60s, or at any other time in fact.