A lot of people get Galand and Perrin cartridges confused, so we will take a look at these French thick rim cartridges over a few upcoming articles. The 9mm French thick rim cartridges are the most straight forward so we will start with them. Above all, the important take-away from this article is that, even though it is repeated in various articles and references, there is no such thing as a “Galand-Perrin” revolver. And these cartridges were never meant to be interchangeable nor were they ever designed to be used in the same guns.

What is a Perrin Cartridge?

A Perrin cartridge is an early centerfire cartridge invented by Louis Perrin in 1859. It was designed as an internally-primed cartridge which had a percussion cap resting in a metal anvil or frame inside the cartridge.

The pinfire system was one of the most important developments in the history of firearms. It mainstreamed the concept of fully-self-contained cartridges and breech-loading firearms.

Pinfire guns were made and used everywhere and were adopted at some point by nearly every major military in the world. Read through the following articles to learn about the relationship between the United States and pinfire.