hi guys thanks for tuning in another
video on forgotten weapons calm I mean
I'm here today the Rock Island auction
company taking a look at some of the
guns they're going to be selling in
their upcoming April of 2016 premiere
auction and the specific one that I'm
looking at today is a really scarce and
really cool Japanese army automatic
pistol this is specifically the
nomenclature is a type a experimental
and for a long time people actually
thought that this came after the the
standard type fourteen Nambu because it
looks like an Ambu but it's actually got
a significantly large magazine this
thing has a double stack 15-round
magazine well it turns out this was
actually developed first there were
between 15 and 20 of these pistols
manufactured at the Tokyo Army Arsenal
the gun was designed by Ichiro Nambu the
same designer of the 1902 and 1904
pattern Nambu pistols which are commonly
known as the grandpa and the Papa Nambu
and he retired in 1924 so we pretty much
know that this came before the type 14
which was formally adopted in 1925 this
was an early experiment at making a
simplified and higher capacity pistol to
replace the Papa Nambu which the Papa
Nambu was a good pistol it was a but it
was primarily an early automatic pistol
so it was adopted in 1902 which puts it
really in that same time frame as the
broom-handle Mauser and the Luger and a
number of the early automatic pistols
that worked but were more complex than
they really needed to be so one of the
early steps in trying to simplify a
Japanese military pistol was this guy
now ultimately of course it wasn't
accepted they only made 15 or 20 but
it's this it's got an interesting mix of
elements mechanical elements between
both the Papa Nambu that came earlier
and the type 14 that would come later so
for example it's got the same basic lock
up as the Papa Nambu but it's got dual
recoil springs like the type 14 so a
number of interesting features to it
this specific example was actually it
was documented as having been liberated
from the Tokyo Army Arsenal in 1946
none of these pistols appeared
ever been issued out to troops they were
all just factory test guns so pretty
cool there's six of them known two of
them are specifically known to have come
from the Tokyo Army Arsenal originally
right despite its size it's actually a
lighter pistol than you might imagine
weight of this thing is 2 pounds 7
ounces unloaded 2 pounds 14 ounces fully
loaded and it's got that really cool
type 14 or Luger ish grip angle that
makes for a pretty comfortable gun to
handle despite its size so let me bring
the camera back here and give you guys a
closer view of this thing so for
comparison we have a Papa Nambu the type
a experimental and the final later
adopted type 14 so the type 14 would
comprise something like 65% of all
Japanese pistol production up until
automatic pistol production until the
end of World War 2 these are by far the
most common of the Japanese handguns and
this while it doesn't necessarily look
like it was an intermediary development
step between the two so there are a
number of features that they share as I
said the the locking mechanism is quite
similar between these two it's actually
fairly similar in the type 14 as well
however we go from one recoil spring 2
of them in both of these although it's
interesting to note that in the type 14
you have two recoil springs in the bolt
and you also have a separate striker
spring in the center on the type a1 your
your left-hand recoil spring also
doubles as the striker spring so it's a
little bit more efficient use of
material there one other common element
worth pointing out is the manual safety
it's in basically the same location on
the 14 and the experimental although the
experimental is a much better executed
safety it is simply that much of a throw
that's safe that's fire whereas on the
14 you actually have to rotate this
thing 180 degrees around which is not
not the best for quick use
also explains why there's an idiot mark
on every type 14mm whoever alright let's
take a closer look at exactly how some
of this works first off our magazine
release is a button right down here on
the bottom of the grip if that's similar
to anything it would be similar to say a
savage that would come about this time
period actually our magazine is a double
stack magazine this holds 15 rounds of
eight millimeter Nambu bigger than we
would think you need for that kind of
capacity today but remember this is a
fairly early design in fact for a double
stack military pistol this is a very
early example there weren't a whole lot
of others the browning hi-power was
developed between 1922 and 28 the Nambu
actually predates that and it's actually
possible that the Nambu was the
inspiration for the high powered double
stack magazine nurse there's no proof of
that and it's a little bit of a dubious
claim but the Nambu here did predate the
high-power as I mentioned our safety is
this lever the so the way the trigger
actually works is when you pull the
trigger it pushes up on this component
in the receiver when the safety is on
like this it simply blocks the trigger
from lifting up and so that's how it
functions these actually have a pretty
good trigger pull frankly the type 14
Nambu does as well these pistols have a
tangent rear sight you'll notice it's
marked five one two three that's 50 100
200 and 300 meters sight picture is a
pretty typical of this sort of thing a
v-notch and a triangular post on the
front there you go so mechanically this
is a short recoil pistol but has a
pivoting locking block in it so when you
fire the whole upper assembly slides
back like this that's very common on
early automatic pistol designs the
broom-handle Mauser is like that as our
guns like the Birdman the Astra a lot of
early pistols used this sort of short
recoil system and what this does is take
a locking block
which locks the bolt here into the upper
slide assembly when the slide is forward
these two are locked together so if I
pull back on the bolt for this first bit
of travel the slide comes with it like
that only when the slide is fully at its
rearward travel you can see for example
right here that's how far it goes so
it's only a couple of millimeters once
the slides all the way back a cam inside
the frame here disengages the locking
block which separates the bolt from the
slide so this keeps the gun locked long
enough for pressure to drop in the
chamber and then once it's safe the bolt
can cycle back so inside this bolt there
holes for two separate recoil springs
and you can see the holes in the back of
the bolt here where those Springs can be
removed the left one is both a recoil
spring and a striker spring the right
one is just a recoil spring the read the
reason for this is you don't necessarily
want the striker spring so heavy that it
will say Pierce primers but you need
more spring tension than that to make
the pistol cycle safely so we have the
properly tension striker spring here and
then a second spring to make up the rest
of the force needed to run the pistol
properly all right
disassembly on this piece is done by
this transverse locking bar this bar
pushes out to the side which then allows
the bolt to come out the back along with
the recoil springs it's kind of sticky
I think it'll it'll work just fine but
it probably takes a pin punch and a
little bit of a tension with a mallet to
open it up and I'm not comfortable doing
that so we're going to leave this alone
for the time being however I loosened up
the grip screw here if we take this
screw out we can pull off the grip and
this will allow us to see some of the
elements inside so right here is our
locking block can't see it move much
from this perspective but what it does
is pivot up and lock the bolt and the
slide together when the slide goes
backwards that piece and you can see it
pivot there that piece pivots just
enough to
connect from the bolt itself and allow
the the full cycling of the pistol to
happen thanks for tuning in guys I hope
you enjoyed the video this is probably
maybe not quite technically the scarcest
but probably one of the most desirable
of Japanese military pistols out there
if you'd like to add it to your own
collection it is coming up for sale here
of course you take a look at the
description text below you'll find a
link to rock island's catalog page where
you can look at their pictures in their
description and place a bit right there
online or come down here and participate
in the auction life thanks for watching