A Ruger revolver--- sort of

This is a Manurhin model 88 original made for French police. Chambered in 38 special with design very close to Ruger Security Six/Speed Six revolvers. The grips are Trausch and though ugly there are very functional keeping web of the hand from sliding up on the back strap.
The gun is tight and has a nice trigger pull.
The biggest difference I noted is the side plate verses Ruger's dropping the fire control through he bottom of the frame.
Ruger and the French have along history, the French are still using Mini 14 models.

The grips are Trausch. Trausch died around 2012 and his wife decided to shut down the business. Manurhin may have ordered a pile of grips before the death, and/or bought up what ever was available at his death.

I read that I do not know the vintage of the above revolver. The Trausch grips show up for sale sometimes in white .

A Manurhin MR73 is my grail gun.

As a Six series collector this is very cool gun. Thank you for sharing!

Seems like lately i am continuously discovering revolvers that everyone else knew about, but i didn't. Just yesterday on another forum, i learned of the Chezch Alpha Proj revolvers. I knew of the MR73 from Manurhin, but i had no idea of the existence of the Ruger clone. These little surprises help keep us interested in firearms. Thanks for posting that, Toyman!

I saw some of these carried by French CRS anti-terrorist police about ten years ago. These guys were all dressed up and ready to rock and roll (for a violent riot) and I was a tad bit shy of asking them about their iron.... But I finally asked the guy who was the oldest and he told me they were .357s, not .38s. Some of them had scoped Mini-14s or AC556s, too.

I was stuck in a (peaceful) protest in Paris a few weeks ago and the cops I asked for directions (to get the hell out!) weren't carrying revolvers but I was too jammed up against them to ask them much more. They were wearing Star Wars "storm trooper" lobster armor--a little intimidating at such close range.

As you can see in the photos in first post ,the Manurhin model 88 had a Baughman style front sight. I had trouble seeing the sight so a friend of mine with a machine shop in his garage helped me change the front sight to a Patridge style.

Really good job on the front sight.