Browning Revolver .32 Cal

Browning 32 cal revolver - Collectors item

The design was presented to arms manufacturer FN Herstal in 1898, with production commencing the following year (then under the designation Modele 1899). In 1900, an improved design featuring primarily a shorter barrel and wider grips was introduced as the M1900. These designations were applied retroactively after FN began manufacture of other Browning pistol designs; initially the M1900 was marketed as simply the "Pistolet Browning" (Browning Pistol). Production ceased only 11 years later, with a total of about 700,000+ units having been produced.

United States President Theodore Roosevelt owned a mother of pearl-gripped Modele 1899, which he regularly kept on his person and in his bedside drawer. It now resides in the NRA Firearms Museum.

Eugen Schauman, a Finnish nationalist activist, assassinated the Governor-General Nikolay Bobrikov (the highest Russian authority in the Grand Duchy of Finland) with a Browning pistol in Helsinki on June 16, 1904. The act was followed by spontaneous anti-Russian celebrations in the streets of Helsinki and after the 1917 independence Schauman was considered to be a national hero of Finland.

An Jung-geun, a Korean-independence activist, assassinated the Resident-General of Korea Itō Hirobumi with this type of gun on October 26, 1909 in Harbin railway station.

Socialist revolutionary Fanny Kaplan also used a FN M1900 in her attempted assassination of Lenin on August 30, 1918.

The pistol was popular in China from its introduction through World War II and was often copied and used as the basis for other designs.