Pistolet Automatique de 7 millim.65 genre "Ruby"

[Greasemonkey]

Or simply a Spanish Ruby or Ruby Mle.1915, man this thing has alot of names, alot of makers and a whole lot of variants. It's a Spanish copy more or less of Brownings 1903, in .32 acp. There are 5 main contract manufactures and a whole slew of smaller less known manufactures, this was made by one of the big 5, Hijos de Angel Echeverria y Cia. The others are Armeria Elgoibaressa y Cia, Echealaza y Vincinai y Cia, Iraola Salaverria y Cia, and the largest maker Gabilondo y Urresti Cia who started production in May of 1915, and 45 others in small lots later in time. It's one type of small arm that the mag from one maker wont fit another, but you may get lucky. The big 5 makers seem to have a little better luck in part interchange ability, the rest required hand fitted parts. This was such an issue during war time, the magazines had the maker stamped in them. I've seen production numbers from half to a full million depending on the source.

Most made it to France who at the time had little in the way of modern hand guns, there were no modern no auto loaders, still relying on the Mle 1873 and Mle 1892 revolver. This provided them with a more modern sidearm till the Mle.1935 was brought into being. Even then, they still had many of these in inventory, and they were called into duty once again in WWII. They pretty much were bounced around in many wars, Spanish Civil War they were even found in the Winter War between Finland and Russia. And as time played out, they have proven to be a very robust design and very easy to field strip, requiring no tools to field strip..

And the Gabilondo y Urresti, the main maker of the Ruby is still around today, it later became known as.... Llama.








Stars showing French military acceptance.



Holster that was included, I'd guess it's maybe a Makarov holster. It fits great and even the magazine fits perfect in the holder.

[Phosphorus32]

These Ruby pistols are interesting    They traveled over the Pyrenees and beyond.  A bunch of artisan gunsmiths and some larger shops in the Basque region of northern Spain making these in various quantities. It's small wonder that there were interchangeability issues. I mean if Remington, Eddystone (Remington) and Winchester could have part interchangeability issues in the same era on the P14, M1917 etc., no doubt a loose conglomerate of small gun makers would have troubles.  I didn't know about the Llama connection before.  I've never seen one field stripped before either, very simple design.

The holster does look like a Russian Makarov holster with the shape and OTK mark.

[Greasemonkey]

The field strip is as simple as pop the mag, lock the slide back, grab the barrel, rotate it a 1/4 turn right, pull till it stops, rotate back a 1/4 turn the opposite way and remove. then move the slide forward... done.  Assembly is reversed.

[armedhippie]

I dig it  That barrel looks good and beefy for a 7.65. Cool find man 

[Loose}{Cannon]

Interesting..   can't say I have ever heard of these.  Barrel etc comes apart like a Femaru.