Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at
the Royal Army Museum in Brussels, part of the
War Heritage Institute of Belgium.
And we are taking a look at a couple of really
rare firearms from their reference collection.
Today we have a Romanian Orița Model 41/48.
Now original 1941 Orița submachine guns are extremely rare today.
This is the first time I've actually been able to put hands on a 1948 update to the guns,
I've yet to actually see an original 1941.
But what I can tell you about it is that it was designed by a Romanian army Captain
by the name of Marin Orița, design was 1941, it didn't actually see service until 1943.
And then saw ... more significant service in 1944 and 1945
on the Eastern Front in World War Two.
In particular these saw combat in places like
Hungary and Czechoslovakia with Romanian forces.
Now what we have here is the 1948 update to the gun.
So there were a couple of problems with the early guns, the 1941s, they were not drop safe.
So if you dropped the gun on the buttstock the bolt could bounce open,
not catch the sear, and then come forward, pick up a cartridge and automatically fire it.
That's a fairly common shortcoming of open-bolt submachine guns like this,
and it's one that applied to the Orița.
And that ... and some simplification are what they were largely trying to address in 1948.
Basic overview on the stats of this thing, this is
open bolt, simple blowback, 9mm Parabellum.
We have approximately an 11 inch barrel.
Full wood stock, originally ... the 1941s had a single wood one-piece stock.
And they replaced that with a split stock,
well actually it's a buttstock and then just wooden side panels
on the metal front end of essentially the lower receiver.
So let's take a closer look at exactly how this works,
because there is a cool safety mechanism on the inside, in the bolt.
The Orița design really just had ... problems with its safety through its entire design life.
The original guns were built with a push button safety up on the front of the trigger guard.
That was deemed not desirable, and so they replaced it
with a vertical lever safety up here next to the rear sight.
Now on this 1948 update they got rid of that safety entirely,
and they replaced it with just this ... riveted on plate which is helpfully marked "Modificat 1948".
The original 1941s also had a selector lever right about here,
which was removed on the 1948 pattern.
In place of that safety the 1948 guns got a grip safety right behind the trigger guard.
So this prevents the bolt from moving forward or back unless it's depressed,
and that actually works pretty well.
The original 1941 guns had a rear sight that was adjustable out to 500 metres.
That was replaced with a pair of V notches, a 100 metre and a 200 metre.
Those go along with the front sight that is a nice big, really big,
barleycorn-style post with a couple of protector wings.
As I mentioned a moment ago, the '48 pattern got rid of
the semi-auto selector lever and so it is full-auto only.
It used primarily this proprietary magazine, it holds 32 rounds.
It is a double-stack single-feed design.
The magazine release is here at the back of this exposed magazine well.
And the charging handle is kind of a neat folding design.
So when it's folded down you can just flip it up.
That then of course allows you to charge the gun,
but only if you have the grip safety depressed.
It is open bolt, so the bolt's going to lock there, and you then push the charging handle forward.
It does have a little spring detent to hold it in place. It's non-reciprocating while shooting.
And then in order to fold the charging handle down again you push it forward,
and then it pivots down like that. Really, it's kind of a clever thing.
You don't see that kind of feature very often on submachine guns.
Our receiver here is marked with the manufacturer, CMC Cugir.
This is the Orița, Model 1941, calibre 9mm, serial number on this one is nearly 21,000.
... I don't have actual numbers on total production, but it was a substantial number.
On the original '41 Orițas, they used just a single one piece wood stock.
It had a tendency to break at the pistol grip, and so this was replaced with
a metal wrist here and just wood panels on top of the gun instead of the front stock.
For disassembly we have another, kind of unique, element here.
This is a spring latch, ... the force on it is from the mainspring.
So I have to push this forward, and then I can rotate the end cap
and it goes about 90 degrees, there we go, and comes off.
You can see we have some locking lugs there.
And this lever right here is just being pushed on by this flat plate,
which is pushed on by the recoil spring.
That recoil spring by the way, is a nice large diameter one,
so it can't kink in the receiver when you put it back together.
Then we can pull the bolt out.
So first thing on the bolt is you actually have a spring buffer at the back end of the bolt,
which is kind of a cool addition.
A little bit of almost a hydraulic sort of,
not really hydraulic, but there's a very tight fit between this part and the bolt body.
And then at the very end of travel you've got a little bit of spring tension there
to absorb that last impact.
Then as a safety feature, we have a floating firing pin.
And this right here is actually the hammer.
So this hits this lever,
that lever is going to pivot, and it pushes the firing pin forward.
So what happens here is, until the bolt is at the very front end of the receiver,
the firing pin is held back - retracted. This prevents out of battery firing.
When you have the firing pin permanently fixed in place and protruding out of the breech face,
it's not common, but it is a known accepted occurrence that occasionally you will get
out of battery discharges when that protruding firing pin detonates a primer.
With a system like this one that simply can't happen, so that's a nice benefit.
And then this is the sear surface.
Why they went with a spring-loaded sear, I'm not entirely sure.
There are a number of elements to the Orița that are ... like they're fairly expensive.
This hammer system is fairly expensive to make.
This is an added cost that you wouldn't necessarily have to have.
You could design a bolt that just has a simple exposed sear surface.
And then, while the condition of this one may not really highlight it,
the ... main body of the gun was also quite expensive to make.
The receiver is not a tube, it is actually an in-depth forging.
A lot of high quality machined parts in these guns.
By the way while we're looking here, I'll point out that is the ejector.
It's a solid block right behind the magazine.
In fact, it's even worth pointing out on the magazine, a milled steel follower.
Again you could have done some really cheap, simple stamping,
but the Orița went with a high quality expensive part there.
So what we have here is not all that uncommon, especially for early World War Two.
This is a high quality, expensive to manufacture submachine gun,
with initially a number of ... kind of fancy-ish features.
Like the bolt buffer spring, and the floating firing pin and hammer system built into the bolt.
Rate of fire on this was about 600 rounds a minute. It was reportedly quite reliable.
The problems with it were the drop safety, which the grip safety in 1948 properly fixed,
and really just expense to manufacture.
Virtually every single one of the original 1941 Orițas was updated to '48 configuration.
They served in the army until the late 1950s when they were replaced with AKs.
And they continued to serve in the Romanian Civil Guard into the 1980s.
Today they are really quite scarce, we don't know exactly what production numbers were.
I haven't been able to find any records on that, but reasonably substantial.
You saw this is over 20,000 serial number.
So a big thanks to the Belgian Army Museum for giving me the opportunity to show this guy to you.
If you're ever in Brussels I would highly recommend checking out the museum.
It has a fantastic assortment of uniforms,
small arms, artillery, and even some vehicles on display.
So a great way to spend a day in Brussels. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.