Korth Ratzeburg Sport Stainless .357 Magnum

Look at the cylinder gap and the lockup on this one, and you start to understand why Korth revolvers carry the reputation they do. This is a Ratzeburg-era Sport in .357 Magnum, built in West Germany during the period when every gun left the Waffenfabrik Korth shop hand-fitted by a small crew of gunsmiths. The barrel roll mark reads MADE IN W. GERMANY, WAFFENFABRIK KORTH, RATZEBURG / LBG. That address tells you exactly when and where it came from, and it matters to anyone who follows these guns.

The finish is a satin stainless that plays down the flash and lets the machine work do the talking. Run your eye along the full-underlug barrel and you see the stepped contour, the flat-sided rib, and the fine longitudinal striations on the top flat that cut glare for the shooter. The cylinder flutes are crisp, the chamber mouths clean. Korth machined this revolver from solid stock rather than casting it, and the difference shows up in how tight everything sits.

It wears a set of orthopedic target grips in walnut, hand-contoured with palm swells and finger grooves and a flared heel that fills the hand. The Korth signature script is cut into the right side of the frame. Up top sits a fully adjustable target rear sight paired with a pinned front blade, and the long sight radius off the six inch barrel is what makes the Sport designation honest.

The action is the heart of it. Korth's single-action break is glass-clean, the double-action stroke rolls through without a hitch, and the cylinder locks up with no perceptible play. Chambered in .357 Magnum, it runs full-power loads and .38 Special alike.

For a collector chasing the high end of German revolver craft, a Ratzeburg Sport in this configuration is the gun to hold out for. You are buying one of the finest production revolvers ever assembled.