# The Naval Scene
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One of the unknown facts
regarding the Centaures relates to the naval scene
on their cylinders. Notes Mitch Shore: “We
did not like the scene the Belgians had on their Civilian …which was kind of Ormsby style alright but lacked the background and depth!
Therefore, these were not satisfactory for the U.S. market.”
“Back
then my dad and Bill Edwards were good friends with premier firearms
restoration expert Tommy Haas. Haas visited regularly, about once per month.
Sadly, he passed away a few years ago.”
Adds Field: “They hired him to produce a roll cylinder die with the Ormsby naval scene used on Colt revolvers…which he did. On
the
first test revolvers the engraving was perfect .The die was then heat treated
for hardness and the die shrank 1/1000in so the engraving would not cut deep
enough. A new die was then made by Tom Haas
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oversized so when it was heat treated it
shrank to proper size.”
“Revolvers
were ordered from FAUL with the cylinders blank (what we call today 1st
variation RNMAs)
so the naval scene could be added here on the Centaure
pistols.”
Mitch Shore confides: “ And guess who did apply the engraving here in the shop? Me and my brother Scott. We were 10 and 12 years back then. Brought
up with guns all our life. And when we had too many cylinders to engrave our
mom would help, too…Sometimes we did not correctly adjust the cylinders so the
scenes were slightly off or not rolled on perfect…but we did not really
care…young boys that we were.”
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“My dad
sold Haas’s apparatus later to Val Forgett of Navy Arms!”
“FAUL shipped
the revolvers wrapped in corrugated cardboard. Therefore, we had nice quality cartons
made for them here in Chicago.”
Regarding extra cylinders Leslie Field commented: “I do not recall that we ever sold extra
cylinders…but I cannot rule it out either. The only scenario I could think of
that a customer would want an extra cylinder is that he uses the engraved one
to display his pistol but the blank one when he wants to shoot it.”
Field also provided important background information
regarding an early arbor issue: “We received reports of stretched arbors from
around mid 1960. They could be traced back to wrong, low grade steel used by
the Belgians, due to some misunderstanding or mistranslation of the specs
provided by Bill Edwards. Of course, this was corrected by early 1961 with arbors of correct grade steel installed.”
“However,
we got the Liège Proof House involved to get a better
understanding of the situation. They were surprised to learn that the Americans
were shooting their Centaures regularly with loads of
ca. 25 gr. or more of BP…The Proof House officials were under the impression
that these Centaures would be fired once or twice and
then used for display purposes only…and consequently had proof tested them only
with light BP loads of ca. 13 gr. of BP if I recall correctly.”
WDN/June 18, 2010
© 2007-10 Wolf D. Niederastroth
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