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Russia's first smokeless revolver being the 1895 Nagant (which is the only type of Nagant revolver which has the gas-seal setup), is almost upsetting if one considers that the blackpowder revolvers they used before were .44 caliber Smith & Wesson top-break revolvers and .36 caliber Galand revolvers, two revolvers which actually have a very fast and convenient reload (both in their own ways).
The Smith & Wesson was a Model 3, a top-break revolver, the Galand which I can only describe by pointing at this image and extolling its virtues, using the trigger-guard as a lever to cam the front of the gun forward and really giving you leverage on extraction (which can be sticky with old blackpowder cartridges like these, particularly at sea).
Russia had bought and licensed these, also engaging in their own production. For their era, they were very good, and I think that ether of them could have served as the basis for a much better handgun than the 1895 Nagant, imagine either of these two older revolvers as a double-action kind with a 4" or 5" barrel, and built for a smokeless cartridge comparable to .38 Special or 8mm Gasser. They would have remained competitive into WW2.
I know handguns don't actually matter very much at all for any kind of remotely modern military context, they just have to be a handgun, but by that logic they could have stuck with just doing smokeless loads for the revolvers they had. It's just going from among the best to among the worst.
I guess they had the Tokarev pistols later on.