Hi guys, thanks for tuning into another video episode on Forgotten Weapons.
I'm Ian, and I am here today at the Rock Island Auction House
taking a look at some of the guns they have available for sale
in the upcoming December 2014 Premier Auction.
One of the guns I've found in the handgun vault here is this interesting piece.
It's actually a pretty modern handgun, this is a copy of a Beretta 1951.
What makes it interesting is that it is actually a Tariq made in Iraq.
Now these are probably the lowest quality copies
of the Beretta 51 ever made on any mass scale.
But they are particularly interesting, and they have quite a bit of value
because they've never been commercially imported into the US.
And the only ones that are here are vet bringbacks from
Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Desert Storm campaigns.
Now, some of those guns were smuggled into the country illicitly,
some of them were brought in legally.
It can be done legally, ... my understanding is the paperwork is quite a headache
and not all unit commanders are even willing to allow it, but there are some who do.
So it is something to be aware of, a lot of the Tariqs in the country
came in under kind of questionable circumstances, but by no means all of them.
Now the Beretta 1951 is kind of interesting in that it was used
by several different Middle Eastern and North African countries.
The other main user of this, which is much more common here in the US, is Egypt.
Their pistols were called the "Helwan".
And ... those are available both as military surplus Egyptian army guns
and also some versions that were made in commercial runs specifically for export to the US.
Anyway, we're not talking about the Helwans, we're talking about the Tariq today.
I don't know the details on the importation of this one.
But why don't we bring the camera back here and take a look at
what's interesting about it, and what's kind of a little yeugh about it.
Alright, let's start by taking a look at the markings, we have Tariq 9mm, "Made in Iraq".
An interesting question that might come up is: if this was an Iraqi military pistol
why would it have been marked in English?
And there is no particularly good answer to that.
Except to point out that there is a substantial portion really of the entire world
that does speak English, and English is considered a language of trade.
And even, for example, highway signs in Iraq are in both Arabic and English.
So ... this isn't an importer mark, this was done by the factory in Iraq on military-only pistols.
On the other side we have some Arabic markings.
That translates to the name of the factory where these were produced.
I'll give it a try, I'm almost certainly going to butcher the pronunciation here,
but it is the Al-Qadisiyah General Establishment - Iraq. That's outside of Baghdad.
That particular factory actually makes two guns that are called the Tariq.
One is this: a 9mm copy of the Beretta 1951.
The other is actually a .32 ACP (or 7.65mm) copy of the Beretta Model 70.
They make both guns, they call them both the Tariq,
which is a little bit confusing sometimes, but that's what they did.
Then the one other item of interest on the outside of the pistol
is this little medallion in the grips, it's on both sides.
And this is a portrait of an Islamic general
by the name of Tariq ibn Ziyad, that's of course where the name comes from.
He was an Arabic Muslim general back many hundreds of years ago.
He invaded southern Spain and did a pretty good job of conquering it in the early 700s.
My understanding is that the island of Gibraltar is actually named after him.
So Iraq produced these Tariq pistols starting in the late 1970s or early 1980s.
Production continued until 2003 when it stopped, most likely because of US action.
Although production did then resume again in 2009 and continues to the current day.
... The Tariq here is probably the lowest quality example of
Beretta copy manufacturing that I've ever seen.
Let's go through and I can point out a couple of the rather
cringe-worthy elements of quality control on this.
First off, you can see the slide extends slightly further than the [frame].
And we've got a bit of an opening there you can see the recoil spring through. That's not good.
If we take a look directly down the muzzle, we can see several areas of concern.
So for one thing, the frame down here is narrower than the frame over here.
The muzzle is not even close to centred in the slide up there.
Just all of the curves on this are pretty crudely done.
You can see there's a noticeable difference in the thickness
of the [slide] over here ... as opposed to over here.
A lot of that continues elsewhere on the gun.
The web of the trigger guard there, just not very well made.
Disassembly of these pistols is pretty easy, Beretta did a really good job on the design.
What you do is pull the slide back until the disassembly lever is lined up with this cutout.
Then we can tilt that lever forward.
Take out the magazine.
And then the slide assembly slides off.
Inside the slide we have a recoil spring, which comes out.
And then ... the barrel comes out.
... The Beretta 51 design uses this tilting locking block.
This is fairly similar to the Walther P38 Pistol.
It has two locking lugs here on the sides.
Those lock into the frame on both sides down here.
There we go.
Pretty simple design. It works well as long as it's manufactured decently.
Some of the commercial Egyptian copies are known for shearing the locking lugs off.
The military Egyptian guns tend to be much better.
I don't know exactly, I don't have a whole lot of reports of how effective ...
The aesthetic quality of manufacture is one thing.
It's not necessarily indicative of the heat treat
and the specs on the mechanically crucial parts.
I don't have a whole lot of information on malfunctions or critical flaws in Tariq pistols.
I kind of suspect they're not that good.
My understanding is that these are not particularly popular, even in ... Iraq.
They are still the standard military pistol for Iraq,
they are the standard issue pistol for a number of police units there as well.
Civilians, in US employ for example, when they have the option
generally try to get a better foreign-made gun.
... That forward.
There we go.
One last thing to point out, we have a safety up here.
It's actually a cross bolt safety. Pushing to the left is safe,
pushing to the right is fire.
Of course if you're right-handed that works reasonably well,
you can push in with your firing thumb to take the pistol off of safe.
Then we have a magazine release button down here.
So you can see there's a cutout in the bottom of the magazine to accommodate that.
There we go.
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed the video.
The Tariq here would be a cool addition to anyone's collection of captured foreign military handguns.
So despite the rather questionable quality of manufacture
it's got an interest all of its own because of where it was used and when.
So you can click the link below, that will take you to
Rock Island Auction's catalogue page on this specific Tariq.
And if you're interested you can look at their description, and their high-res photos, and
sign up online and place a bid on it if you're interested.
Good luck, and thanks for watching guys.