A Selection of Chinese Mystery Pistols
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- During the 1920s and 1930s, a combination of civil wars and international arms embargoes led to a lot of domestic firearms production in China. The size and quality of manufacturing facilities varied widely - everything from massive factories established with European technical assistance to one-man shops only a step or two above being blacksmiths. The weapons produced varied in quality to match. Among other weapons made during this period were handguns mechanically based on several European designs (the Browning 1900, Mauser C96, and Mauser 1910/14, primarily). These handguns show a huge variety of aesthetic designs, gibberish markings, and fake proof marks. They are virtually all single action, simple blowback designs, chambered for .32ACP or 7.63 Mauser. This auction at RIA includes a whole bunch of these pistols, so I picked out a handful of good examples to show some of the elements often seem among them.
Man, this video went from HAO to 105 really quick.
"hao" can mean "good" in Mandarin Chinese
Username Consider the date when these guns were made, mandarin alphabet didnt exist, so it's still gibberish.
@@karlzhu6112 If you mean some sort of official romanization, sure, that didn't happen until Hanyu Pinyin in the 1950s. But indigenous Chinese romanization systems go back at least to1892 by Lu Zhuangzhang. Foreign romanization goes back even further, as early as 1583, and the first to be widely used, Wade-Giles, was in 1859 (giving us the awful Peking instead of Beijng and kungfu instead of gongfu). And even if this is just a coincidence, what a fun coincidence!
Username that’s fascinating.
Do you happen to know if “Hao” would have been a common romanization during the early 20th Century?
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I'm really tempted to have an 80% AR lower engraved with 'HAO' and '105' as the fire/safe markings.
That would make for an excellent story to tell lol
+noob5000000 just get "zero" "100" real quick
That would be beautiful. If you ever ran into someone who got the joke without being told, it would be a magical day.
HAO means “good” so I guess it means “Alright, you’re good to put this gun away” and “105” means “You can fire 105 rounds before this thing explodes and removes your hand”
You can buy converted norinco QBZ bullpup in 5.56/.223 then do that lol
"This in theory would be our safety"
Always a comforting phrase to hear.
@@falloutghoul1 In theory.
And it's almost certainly chambered for 32 auto!
i like the safety marked "Hao" or "105"
"A gun's a gun, but the Chinese Mystery Pistol could be anything! It could even be a gun!"
You know how much we've always wanted one of those!
105 hao likes
"certainly this never actually used a bayonet", he said confidently
You're right about the tattoos. My girlfriend is Japanese and she often points out that tattoos we see are incorrect or completely nonsensical. We don't tell the blokes, because, well, they're pretty big blokes and I don't want to waste their time...
My sister once saw a person with the Hanzi characters Stupid/crazy cucumber tattooed on them.
+DoctorWeeTodd In fairness, I would totally take Crazy Cucumber as my ninja codename.
Yeah they'll be like it says dragon! But it really says douchebag.
Yeah right "girlfriend" hahah "japanese"
@@stevethediver1142 I know, right? Everyone knows that girlfriends and Japanese people don't exist.
I love it! I would have LOVED to be one of the Chinese salesmen selling these to other Chinese people. "And of course you see, the notched protrusion that you see on all of the authentic German Mauser rifles is included for FREE on your pistol." Ahh, I see sir, and what is the function? "Rifle-like accuracy of course! The Germans didn't put anything on the rifle that didn't contribute to it's accuracy."
I think you dont get one think: they were clearly unable to read word "German" or "Mauser" so is highly unlikely that they knowed anything about German guns quality or accuracy. They trying to mimik look of good guns thats all.
+Biały The craftsman maybe not, but the ones who ordered them would.
"as you can clearly see, these markings prove that this is in fact an authentic BELGIOUE MAUSER handgun": ASKHBNHJDHJKSJS BELGIOUEBELGIOUE
Unfortunately, it is quite close to truth.
"I'll take 40!"
These are some of the most interesting guns you've presented. I love how their characteristics always seem to generate more questions than answers.
“I challenge the average suburban man to build one of these with some files and drills”
P. A. Luty: say no more
The most dangerous combination in the world: a British man and his toolshed.
I'd take a luty over these honestly. A luty is quite functional, especially if you used a real threaded barrel you basically have a true smg.
@@LisaAnn777 it would probably even be safe to fire if appropriate metals were used :D
10:04 Belgioub, yes, it must be somewhere in Eulope, lol.
Girls today:
If you can't handle me at HOA you don't deserve me at 105.
It is really fascinating that the first two pistols are both modeled after the browning 1900, but still they look vastly different.
All these straight blowback pistols, I was waiting for him to say
"Arthritis was very popular in China at the time..."
The guys conscripted into these warlord's armies probably didn't live long enough for that to concern them.
The sun burst marking, I suspect is for the Nationalist Chinese, as the same sort of symbol was their national symbol.
"you'll see the safety is... *how* in one position, and *one hundred and five* ."
Its an interesting picture into the human mind. When we dream about things we dont fully comprehend, we tend to fill in the blanks. Something visible but not understood has been called a "black box", I think for the ones that were producing these weapons, firearms were somewhat of a "black box" . Very interesting stuff. Thanks for the video.
_considers buying mystery pistol_
What's it chambered for?
Almost certainly 32 auto!
_puts pistol down carefully_
Low-key wanna see more of these
Ian’s new book brought me back here for the 1,000th time. #wauser
From our history book I see a picture of the first gun which says it was manufactured by Da Gu Shipyard in Tianjin.
Wait, why would a german colony produce an american arm?
The first gun EVER?
This is my favorite video from Ian McCollum.
Cool pistols! Can't believe I missed this video the first time around. On the second pistol, at about the 6:59 mark or so, if you squint and stretch your imagination, it looks like the bottom line of text on the frame says, "SHOOTEMS" !!! LOL Great video, thanks, Ian!
Some of these pistols were hand cut from sections of railway (railroad) tracks, hence the narrowness, somewhere online is footage of backstreet engineers handmaking making them.
I'd bet a lot of these came from railway repair shops, by the 30's there was a pretty extensive network of rail lines in China. A railroad needs a full machine shop to keep its equipment going (and the further you are from the rest of civilization, the more necessary it becomes) Steam locomotives are simple machines, there's a few "generic" items that would be on hand (air brake compressor, dynamo, headlight etc...) But most shop would simply make a replacement part for whatever broke or wore out. Thus, there would be lots of skilled machinists available. Not to mention the shipyards and all the actual manufacturing facilities.
They look like if someone put together a Luger and a Makarov and it is among the most cursed of pistols I have witnessed.
Love the guns made by "Nonsensacle Fabrique"!!!
Some of these are quite amusing, but all are very interesting.
"Hao and 105" I was crying
BTW, that sun symbol is the national emblem of the Republic of China, which was the Chinese government between the fall of the last Qing emperor in 1912 and the Communist victory in the Civil War in 1949. Modern-day Taiwan continues to use the very same flag, since its government has maintained since 1949 that it still is the Republic of China. And if that sounds like a can of worms, you have no idea. For more information, watch the Olympic opening ceremonies next summer and wait for the commentators to explain what the heck is with the team from "Chinese Taipei" when they march in.
remember to allways carry your weapon on 105.
Does this man never age?
As stupid as these seem, building something like this must be very hard. It really displays the craftsmanship and refinement that make up standard production firearms.
Oh wow, that "Belgique" pistol is exactly the same as the "BROWNINGSBROWNINGSBROWNINGS" pistol from an earlier video, except the markings. It's like the shop was stamping different stuff on each gun they made. Like you said it was probably because their customers couldn't read Latin characters anyway.
I really like the overall look of the shorter version that you showed right after it. They're very neat looking guns for sure.
So if I journey to Rock Island Auction, will there be a big box of these outside the door with a sign that says “5 bucks a pop, 8 bucks if you want a laser-sight-scope-thing with it!”?
Most people might laugh at these, but it's better than most people (on average) could make in their shop/garage. They're rather interesting in my opinion.
Wow the history of China having no regard for copyright goes way back.
Realistically, why WOULD they care about it? It's not like China would benefit from appropriately licensing IP's from foreign countries...
Everyone copies everyone. The Europeans copied Chinese farming machinery and tried to reproduce Chinese porcelain. The roles then reversed. It's how technology spreads. It's also how the war torn Japanese and Koreans became leading modern manufacturers of various goods. It's a economic necessity.
@Fox D Exactly. Technology development usually operates on a cycle of replication and innovation. It wasn't that long ago that the Japanese were considered mediocre copycats in the same tone. Its kind of unfair to judge the technical merits of a 3000 year old culture based on 100 years of recent history, one marred by foreign invasion, wartime destruction, and major social/political upheaval. It be akin to judging the Romans based on the last century of the Western Empire.
Daniel Kolev sliced bread is not copied.
@@jackandersen1262 Sliced bread is just a copy of bread and sliced meat.
Man, these are so interesting. Imagine the stories these guns have.
1932 Mauser replica.
One owner
Fired once
Reassembled
Stored in a box by the widow
9:02 Looks like a mix between a Beretta, a Luger, and a M1911.
11:00 that's a mopgrip mouser chambered in "bullet that the guy handed me" and it's best feature is thingy under the barrel.
In the Philippines there are some gunsmiths in huts that make some fairly high quality pistols, often difficult to tell from factory made pistols. Several people asked my opinion of theirs after they found out I was a small arms repairer in the US Army. One guy had a keltec KG9 that he was afraid was made in a hut. I refused to hold it but I was able to tell him that the massive iron barrel shroud was not made in a hut as it was a casting that would require a foundry. He was wanting to sell it and people had been telling him there was something wrong with the attached silencer. I told him there was nothing wrong, it was simply a new/unused end wipe and firing a few times it would be gone but having a new end wipe is a good thing.
I like the safety on the second gun they put hao as a setting and 105 as another.
HAO or 105? seems reasonable to me
The second last one was a desperate last resort nothing else and the zombies are closing in type of pistol especially in .30 Mauser/Tokarev
I recognize these are basically useless as weapons (possibly blunt instruments?) but I lowkey love the styling. Second to last (17:41) in particular is straight out of Blade Runner. Next time I have a running gun battle with a surprisingly eloquent murder robot, I'm totally using one of those.
No .380 ACP. A true over site because that round would have worked well with a blow black and does a good deal more damage than the others excluding the ones that are very high risk to fire in the guns.
Possibly my favorite video to date! Thanks for doing this.
17:42 I like the look of this gun for some reason. It has kind of a retro future style to it.
A fine collection of high quality firearms
This reminds me of a cyberpunk game that Tencent released a trailer for a few years ago, I know there were a couple things that were weird about it but at the end they said it was a first person game and then it pans out to be s third person.
- boss, which impolted militaly gun should we shamelessly and mindlessly copy?
- yes.
The lightningcuts.. could be for weight-reduction? :)nice video!
Thanks Ian, the rounded magazines are awesomes.
I think those guns are likely to be improvised crude made during the sino-japanese war and WW2 .I lived and study in HK ,I read books and saw documentaries about the sino-japanese war ,which is part of the mandatory lessons during my high school years .Those books and documentaries did mention about during the war ,the joint forces of the Chinese communist rebel and the chinese national army often ill equipped when fighting against the japanese imperial army, the chinese often loot equipment from the japanese or make some makeshift guns like that to keep on fighting .
These could have even been copies of copies.
Knew a tattoo artist with a sample book of designs for people who didn't have something specific in mind. One of them was a set of Kanji characters that translated as "I wasn't smart enough to ask what this meant" He may have been pulling my leg but the guy insisted he had actually inked it on several paying customers.
I am guessing that these are made for blackmarket sales to gangsters back then. They only needed to look authentic in order to intimidate and probably were never fired even once. I think test firing one of these is a good way to loose a hand.
Given that political power in China in that period was held by warlords, that's probably accurate only insofar as ALL trade was 'black market' and ANYONE with a gun was a 'gangster'.
This is a most fascinating and interesting video. Very informative as well. I love videos where you are entertained and learn some history in the bargain as well! Thank you!
Would have loved to see these broken down...:) Amazing Stuff. These homemade gun videos you do are my fav videos on your channel. Keep up the awesome work.
What's weird is all these guns look like a product of a liberals attempt at describing or building a gun.....lol
The big, scary numbers on top tells you how many bullets per second they shoot.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thought that...
Well I'm a gun guy, but I doubt I could make anything close to these.
is that a 30-caliber magazine clip-per-second Assault handgun??
1/2 a second
Looks like any of these would go well with the Brownings Bownings from a few months ago.
its very cool and interesting to see how people who dont know how things work to copy something completely foreign to them
Everybody gangsta until you see the other dude fix a bayonet to his pistol
At the 19:41 mark, "You can see the sunburst mark here..." That is the national symbol of China at the time. The same as you'll see on a Taiwanese flag.
that last one looks like a literal hand cannon when locked
they are gorgeous
When Reagan`s support of contras of Nicaragua was entrusted to Ollie North-the cheapest guns to supply were Chinese AK-s. Ordered from China a shipload came in to the West Coast /maybe S.D.?/ and US Customs inspected the guns. Well-Made in China was stamped but none had any serial No.The whole ship was sent back with a note: "Each import firearm has to have one serial number to enter the US of A"...OK-the ship came back from China a month or so later with the same cargo. Inspectors saw one serial number on the guns. I.e.: many thousand AK-s with ONE (same!) serial number!---Minor language mis-interpretation. So it did NOT get ofloaded in the port-but re-directed direct to Central America.
Three years late, but the third pistol Ian shows looks a lot like the Forgotten Weapons logo.
The random lettering reminds me: Apparently, in the middle ages, a lot of swords with writing on them would just have the alphabet on them or gibberish, because the owners couldn't read but thought it looked cool.
Yep, I wouldn't want to fire any of those unless it was by remote control.
Very interesting, and you're right, there was a level of skill there. If the makers would have understood what they were building, they might have actually produced some decent guns.
Chinese pistol makers be like: What we like better? 1911 or Luger P08?
Chinese pistol makers be like: Hahaha! AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
*Yes*
Those Chinese sure seemed to enjoy our Belgian firearms technology to attempt to copy it and play it off as legitimate. It's quite flattering.
cool there are so many renditions
The only thing I'd be willing to fire with one of those would be a round that is a primer only.
The first one looks like something Kel Tech would make if they ever did an all steel design.
It looks like pistols I drew in class while I was bored
That Chinese tattoo argument is gold
I would still rather have any of these than a zip-22
That one looks more like a beretta 1934 than a Mauser 1914
back in the day when guns were normal and common things to have
It's interesting to see where their priorities were
Always funny to see a college kid with "This man was drunk one night" tattooed on him in Chinese.
Downloading ammo?
I would if I could!
I'm just kidding, I understood that you meant it as removing powder to lower the pressure in the gun when firing it.
Wouldn't an open bolt, straight blowback SMG be about this complicated mechanically speaking? I understand pistols are easier to auction for legal reasons but I would expect more garage made SMGs being made. Perhaps SBR-s stylized after SMGs as an actual SMG would require decent magazine design...
Great videos, the manufactured Chinese pistols are definitely my favorites.
Back when made in China tag was legit good.
Interesting,but very sad workmanship on those weapons. Great video. Thanks!!!
The full size browning clone is the closest thing that exists in real life to rdr2s browning m 1899 extended barrel
Who were the intended users, military, law enforcement or private citizens? I would love to know how well they fired.
That first one looks like a pmr-30 design
The reason for these copies are the result of arms embargoes at the time.
Damn I was hoping for BROWNINGS BROWNINGS BROWNINGS
Still better than a hi-point
They actually look kinda cool.
just imagine a monthly subscription where you get a gift bag full of chinese mystery pistols
would be pretty fun
:}
Sadly life doesn't allow for amazing things
Ey, don't make me drool man, some of us are European : (
Ikr
I've had dreams like that and I can never Identify the Guns. Lol
Yes, I carry a 1944 Mauser BELGIQUE BELGIQUE BELGIQUE BELGIQUE
I like to imagine that coming up as the murder weapon in, like, a Poirot mystery, and just listening to David Suchet saying 'BELGIQUE' over and over again for half a minute while describing it.
I like that ferry mutch
I youse to carry a randum vis 70 years old
Polish gun made for nazi officers
Garrett Bell lol I laughed out loud at this
PENIS MUNCHER Hotel: BELGIQUE
"A Colt's a Colt but the mystery pistol cold be anything. It could even be a Colt"
Petarded
@@JackSmack999 u mean mystarded
It would be a mystery if it was a Winchester...ba-dum-tisssh
It could be you, it could be YOU, it could be ME!
It could be any one of us!
"Where would you like Belgique stamped sir?"
"Yes"
For an extra we also have pistols fresh in from HerstaL look it says so here
“Can you figure out a way to stamp belgique *inside* the barrel?”
HAO.
'Mom, can we get a pistol?'
'We have a pistol at home.'
The pistol at home: BREVET BREVET BREVET BREVET
123456789011
@@kirahviofficial5761 How dare you.
Rdrvyctvybubibubrzwzrvrd
BELGIOU3BELGIOUEBELGIQI3 105 HAO
MAusER
It's good to know that the Brownings Brownings Brownings Firearms Manufacturing Company finally learned to spell a new word at some point.
Have you considered, that the warlord who ordered the third gun may actually have wanted a bayonet mounted on a pistol? Certainly would look badass. I thought it looked a bit used.
I rather doubt it.
Fuck I'm out of ammo to shoot the cowardly time for re...
Ha...
Good thing I have this bayonets postol
Imagine you dual-wielding the gun against bunch of knives-using thugs, and when the ammo runs out, you jam in a bayonet from the waist holster and dual-wield a bayonet gun-kata.
Sounds like something chinese martial arts film will have tbh
A stocked pistol with a bayonet would kinda-sorta almost make sense in the context those were made, so...
Commissar: "Fix Bayonets!"
*happy gas mask noises*
Imagine being at a gun range or something, training to use a gun for the first time, and by some inexplicable twist of fate you've been landed with one of these instead of a Beretta.
Instructor: "Okay, so here's the safety selector. It has two positions marked on the gun, 'fire' and 'safe.' Now-"
Unlucky Guy: "Uh, I don't think my gun has those..."
Instructor: "Sure it does, it should be marked right next to that switch near your thumb."
Guy: "Yeah, but mine doesn't have 'fire' and 'safe' on it."
Instructor: "Well, what's it say on yours?"
Guy: "Uhhh.... right now, mine's on 'Hao.' Should I switch it to 105 instead?"
Instructor: "....What?"
Guy: "That's what it says on mine, see?"
Instructor: "..what the fuck kinda gun is that?"
Guy: "Dunno, instead of a model or company name, it just has BELGIQUE stamped two dozen times instead."
Instructor: "I don't think you should fire that thing."
Guy: "Funny, I was thinking the same thing."
This deserves many more likes but you didn't post it 5 years ago lol
@@erikjimenez5851 this is metacommenting
damn, I would like, but I don't want to upset the 420 likes man.
is it possible its not 105 but 10S instead, as in 10 shots? and "hao"means safe?
*fires it anyway..