[ Nanjing Arsenal FN 1900 Copy ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we are taking a look
at a factory production Chinese copy of an FN 1900.
This is not one of the very crude artisanal
home-shop manufactured FN 1900 copies
that were so prevalent during the Warlord Era in China.
This is actually a gun that was produced in series by the Nanjing Arsenal.
There were a couple of different arsenals that did actually make
... Western quality, production copies of the FN 1900.
Not a lot of arsenals, but there were a few.
We previously did a video on the Shanghai Arsenal copy of the 1900.
So if you're interested, I'll link to that video at the end of this one.
Now a little bit of background on the arsenal itself, it was founded in 1864 by Li Hongzhang
(I apologise for my pronunciation, it's horrific, and I simply don't speak any Chinese)
with the assistance of a British doctor by the name of Halliday Macartney.
It was originally situated in Zhoushan,
but pretty quickly up and moved to the city of Nanjing on the Yangtze River.
Being on the river gave it good access to transportation for raw materials coming in
and for finished products going out, and it made a lot of sense.
Now this British doctor, Macartney, actually served as the arsenal's director until 1875,
and during that time it grew to be a pretty prevalent, very productive, arsenal.
When he left in 1875 it kind of went into a long slow decline.
By 1928 it only had about 300 employees,
although it was still making a substantial number of munitions.
They were making Maxim machine gun copies at that point, they could do 4 of them per month.
They could do 120 pistols a month,
and they could do about 1.2 million small arms cartridges per month.
But it was a fully outfitted factory complex.
It had an iron foundry, a copper foundry, a wood shop, a machine shop, a moulding shop.
So they could do things like the plastic grips that we have on these pistols.
Fully outfitted, but just this kind of long slow decline.
Now production of these pistols took place in the 19-teens,
we know they started in 1913, not sure about the end date.
If we look at the further development of the Nanjing Arsenal
after this period it actually came back into prevalence.
So none of the Chinese warlords really controlled ... Nanjing successfully,
like for extended periods of time during the Warlord Era.
And so no one really put in the effort to modernise or rejuvenate the arsenal
until the 1930s when the government became a bit more unified.
By 1937 the arsenal was up to 4,000 employees,
they did a lot of work to re-equip it, refit it, put it back into production.
It would have to evacuate and move as a result of Japanese incursion into China,
but by 1945 it had actually grown into one of the most important arsenals producing in China.
So sort of a roller-coaster ride of an arsenal.
And interestingly these pistols come out of kind of the low point
of the arsenal's productivity and history.
So let's take a closer look at exactly what we have here.
The Nanjing Arsenal 1900 copies differ a bit in their markings
from the actual official standard FN production guns.
But mechanically speaking, they are really excellent copies and they share all the standard features.
The safety is the same, the magazine release is the same.
We have a 7 round capacity here, calibre is .32 ACP (or 7.65 Browning).
The grips on this one are a little warped and wonky there, so please excuse that.
And there's a chip out of the bottom of this one.
But the rear sight here is the same as on the standard FN production guns.
However, the cocking indicator sticks up a little bit higher on this pistol than on a proper FN.
So the way this works is cycling the slide, this lever resets the firing pin.
When you have fired, that indicator lifts up and obscures your sight picture
so you can tell that, for whatever reason, the gun is not actually re-cocked and ready to fire.
It's supposed to drop down out of the sight picture,
but on this one it doesn't quite do that effectively.
Now if we look at the markings here.
On the left side we have "Made for the Republic of China, ninth year".
And the dating system on these, like most of the guns of this period,
is based on the Chinese Revolution of 1911.
So ninth year means that this was a 1920 production, 9+1911.
... I've seen three of these pistols, two of them were ninth year,
one of them was eighth year, for what that's worth.
Data I have from some Chinese references says that production began in 1913.
Also interesting to point out,
the arsenal apparently added a 6 inch barrelled version of the FN 1900 in 1919.
Now it's not clear if that was an enlarged pistol,
or if it was a pistol carbine style of gun like the Shanghai Arsenal made, we just simply don't know.
If we flip the gun over, on the opposite side of the frame
we have essentially: made by the bureau or agency of manufacturing.
The translation is a little a wonky there.
And then the grips are the same on both sides, so there's the one ...
there's the other, and this translates to Nanjing Arsenal.
The literal translation is "Jinling Arsenal",
but the Jinling and Nanjing and Nanking Arsenals are all
different spellings, different words, for the exact same place.
If I compare this to an actual FN production gun, you can see
obviously the scale is the same, the manufacturing is the same.
... This one is far more worn because this original Browning gun has never been abused in its life,
and this Nanjing Arsenal gun went through
four decades of Chinese Civil War essentially, and who knows what after that.
But the mechanical features are the same, ... they are interchangeable parts,
they are made on a production line, they're very high quality guns.
Where the Belgian guns have a bunch of manufacturer markings
here on the slide and the frame of course,
we have those separately done in a bit of a different style, like we just went over.
Then the Belgian production guns are serialised on the rear sight, the slide and the frame right here.
Now, many of the artisanal production Chinese copies copy that style of serialisation.
The Shanghai Arsenal does not, however it is a serialised gun.
We have a 3 digit serial number on the back of the frame.
A 3 digit serial number on the top of the slide in front of the rear sight block.
And interestingly, a 3 digit serial number on the safety lever.
Now I said that I've seen three of these guns, they all had 3 digit serial numbers.
Which leads to some question about what exactly the serial number is.
It's possible that they are simply assembly numbers.
... I mentioned that two of them were ninth year, one was an eighth year.
Well, the eighth year serial number was in the middle between the ninth year guns.
So these aren't a single sequential run of 3 digit serial numbers.
They may reset each year, or they may be assembly numbers that are unrelated to total production.
We just simply don't know, because there are basically no surviving records
on the arsenal production of these pistols.
However, we do have really good markings on them that tell us
exactly where these guns came from and when.
And so that is a really cool piece of provenance that at least survives on the gun,
even if all of the documentation from the arsenal itself was destroyed during
the Warlord Era, and World War Two, and the Chinese Communist rule of China.
Like the Shanghai Arsenal 1900 copies these are really scarce in the US,
really scarce on the collector market in general.
We don't know exactly how many were made, there's a lot of stuff that
we just don't know about a lot of these pistols because of the almost complete
lack of records and tracing and information about their manufacture.
With the really good production ones, these also tend to blend in with real FN 1900s.
For those who aren't really dedicated collectors,
the difference in markings doesn't necessarily make them stand out.
Now the nice thing about these is all of the information about them,
the dates and the manufacturing legend,
are actually engraved on the guns, not just on the grips.
On the ... Shanghai 1900 copies, the date of production is on the grip itself.
And so if the grip is worn or broken or missing, the date information goes away.
These fortunately have the dates inscribed into the frame, so that helps.
That may be part of why we were actually able to inspect 3 of them
for my book,
So if you're interested in learning more about guns like these,
well maybe I'm biased, but I would suggest you check out the book.
It is available and shipping from HeadstampPublishing.com, check it out.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video regardless.
Thanks for watching.