In love with a weird French old lady

M

micromontenegro

New member
Recently, I brought a really weird pistol: an Unique DES 69:

UNIQUE111.jpg


Being a nut for old match guns, I've always wanted one, but had never even seen one in the flesh before I got mine. First thing I did was taking the muzzle weight off, as I dislike front-heavy handguns. That, and it looks way cooler without it.

IMG_6392.jpg



I was amazed at how petite the pistol actually is. I had pictured it much bigger! Also, I never expected such a wonderfull finish. Matches the best I have seen:

IMG_6388.jpg


But of course, the proof is in the pudding: how does it shoot? I only had acces to a 10 yard range for testing, but it took less than half an hour to get better groups with the Unique than with my K-22- after over 30 years with the Smith, that's a first for me! And no malfunctions at all, if you except that sometimes the slide did not stay open after the last shot.

So, can you tell I'm in love? :)
 
B

B.N.Real

New member
What you have there is likely an Olympic match practice pistol.

A very serious handgun.

You should try several brands of match 22 lr ammo and you will probably find one that will shoot stupidly accurate.

Don't lose that barrel weight-it's there for a good reason,

To steady the barrel of the gun as these shooters are graded very severely for the slightest of aiming mistakes.

GREAT HANDGUN-congrats on your purchase.
 
7

7.62 Nato

New member
What's weird is I was just looking at one in the LGS about a week ago. I asked if they had anything different and he brought it out from the back. It's chambered in .22 short. The top of the slide and barrel had holes drilled and tapped. Some of the holes had screws in them like you would plug mount holes with. The only thing we came up with is it was to fine tune the velocity since it was mostly at the rear of the barrel. What does something like that go for there?
 
M

micromontenegro

New member
Thanks, folks. I am loving the handling and tight groups!

7.62, what you saw there is the VO (vitesse olympique) version, made for the great, late ISU Rapid Fire competition as shot before 2005. In the fastest strings, you have 4 seconds to try to hit five 4 inch bullseyes at 25 meters! So minimal recoil was paramount. Those ports are used to tune recoil/functioning balance.
 
H

Hal

New member
In the fastest strings, you have 4 seconds to try to hit five 4 inch bullseyes at 25 meters!
Click to expand...
Cool!
Since you sound up on the Olympic games, what can you tell me about slow fire air pistol?
Size of target - distance - and time?
(Not to drag the thread sideways)

Neat gun BTW - different than the target guns I've seen.
Is it a .22 short or .22 lr?
How's the trigger?
 
M

micromontenegro

New member
I misspent quite a bit of my youth trying my hand at Olympic air pistol! It is fired at 10 meters, and the target is a 17cm (about 7 inch) square, with the bullseye being 11mm. Juniors took (or take) 40 shots in 75 minutes, IIRC. Adults, 60 shots in 105 minutes. Insanely difficult, if you ask me!

My Unique is the Standard ISU version, .22LR. The trigger is not as light as the Hammerlis I've tried, but it is the crispest I have ever used. And lock time seems nil :)
 
C

Coyote WT

New member
not gun related comment

As a photographer I LOVE the shot with the pistol schematics in the background. Brilliant shot of a beautiful gun.
 
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