hi guys thanks for tuning in another
video on forgotten weapons dot-com I'm
in McCallum and today we're taking a
look at a very obscure and pretty cool
target conversion of something that's
not quite in 1911 this is a balusters
melina campeón model the champion model
it is a 22 long rifle conversion and as
you can obviously see it was
manufactured with an extended barrel and
a front sight out on the end of that
barrel so this was the competition model
of the balusters molina pistol now the
balusters molina is not it it's very
similar to a 1911 but it's actually
really a copy of the star simplified
version of the 1911 so these were
manufactured in argentina from before
world war ii until the mid 1950s the
argentine army used them extensively you
can actually find balusters Molina's and
the early version which was basically
the same gun called the balusters regard
you can find those fairly easily in the
US and they're really interesting cool
45 caliber pistols almost like 1911's
but subtly different anyway
Hof dasa the company that manufactured
these guns in argentina which started
out as a basically a licensed franchise
of hispano-suiza
manufacturing automobiles they got into
the arms market as well and they only
manufactured a small number of different
guns they made balusters Molina's and
balusters regards in 45 acp they made
these 22 caliber versions of them and
they also made a 22 caliber open-bolt
little pocket pistol called the zonda
which is very strange i actually have a
video on a Zonda as well which may or
may not have posted when you see this so
if it has posted I'll have a link at the
end of this video to it at any rate I
have huffed osa made this gun in a
couple of different varieties and this
long barrel version is really the most
obscure to find they really didn't make
very many of these and there aren't very
many in the US either so let's go ahead
and take a closer look at this and I'll
also show you the carbine Williams sort
of floating chamber system that they
used to convert a 1911 to 22 rimfire now
my understanding is there were actually
three versions of the
- manufactured there's the standard
service profile like this which is just
marked pistol Delta mascot caliber 22
there's the come peon model with the
extended barrel and then it seems like
there was some third barrel lengths like
a 1/8 inch barrel this is seven and a
half it sounds like there was an 8 inch
barrel but I've been unable to verify
that or find any pictures of it there is
also some discussion they made at least
like one 45 caliber company home with
the extended barrel sounds like that was
a special production for one of the
factory engineers and certainly if they
made more than just one they only made a
very small number even the standard 22
Campione is an extremely rare gun to
find they just you know they were
manufacturing these basically after
world war ii from 45 i don't know
exactly when the 22 production started
but it ended by 1957 and they just
didn't get all that many people who
purchased the the long barrel i suspect
and this is completely a guess I suspect
a couple thousand of the standard 22s
were made and maybe a few hundred of the
company owns and very few of those
survived today in known collections
these disassembled basically just like
in 1911 pull the mag pull the slide back
take the slide stop pin out slide comes
off I've skipped through a couple of
steps for us here and then the
interesting bits the the relevant
mechanical bits are in the slide
assembly so we'll go ahead and pull out
our barrel bushing just like in 1911 and
then the barrel slides out in the front
like so now being 22 rimfire this is a
simple blowback system
well su AIT's a little bit more complex
of a blowback system but it is not a
locked breech
so you'll notice on the inside of the
slide here there are no locking lugs cut
and similarly on the top of the barrel
there are no locking lugs instead this
uses what's called the floating chamber
principle and this was actually
developed by David Marshall Williams the
guy generally associated with the
carbine and it's actually very similar
in concept to how the m1 carbine works
what you have is basically a very short
stroke gas tappet system right here this
is called a floating chamber because
well it is the chamber of the pistol and
it can move and even come out so there's
the rest of the barrel the cartridge
sits in this part and when you fire it
of course set back it blows back just
that far now when this barrel is in the
slide that floating chamber is sitting
flush against the breech face in the
back of the slide so when this floating
chamber is pushed backwards it transmits
all of that energy to the slide the
chamber itself can only go back but like
one or two millimeters there so it it
pushes the slide and then almost
immediately stops the slide then has
enough inertia transferred to it that it
cycles all the way backwards now this is
other than having the locking lugs not
cut this is the same weight as a
standard 1911 slide it hasn't been
modified it also has pretty much a
standard 1911 recoil spring however it
doesn't have to move the mass of the
barrel it also doesn't have to tilt the
barrel and unlock and if we look at the
magazine you can see that the magazine
is that well obviously the 22 is
slightly shorter than a 45 acp so the
slide doesn't quite have to go back as
far as it would with a 45 caliber pistol
all of those things put together allow a
22 rim fire to properly reliably cycle
what is basically a full sized slide on
the gun this is exactly the same
mechanism that was used in the colt
service ace conversions which the army
ultimately adopted the army did start
with its own Springfield started with
its own proprietary 22 conversion for
this sort of gun ended up dropping those
in favor of Colts commercial model of
the service ace now if we look at the
markings here you will note that this is
specifically marked out as a 22 caliber
slide
or 22 caliber firearm made by half dosa
its internationally patented as
balusters Molina made by industry
Argentina etc etc it has to be
specifically marked as a 22 because you
can't just drop 45 caliber components in
despite the fact that the slide is
basically cut the same it doesn't have
locking lugs and it does have a 22
caliber breech face and firing pin so
this will never be adaptable to 45 now
you could take the frame of the gun and
put on a 45 caliber slide and all of its
components and have a 45 that way but
the slide itself here this component is
always and only a 22 as for serial
numbers all of the 22s made by half dasu
are serialized just like balusters
Molina's here on the side of the
backstrap and all of half dasas guns
were serialized in a single sequence so
we do know that this one dates to very
late 1950 at just under 81 thousand and
then the really cool one here the long
barreled Campione dates to mid 1951
so the Campione has its own unique slide
marking where it's really called a
Campione a champion in 22 because it
does have a few other differences it
does use this identical in the same
floating chamber system one of the nice
things there is adding a longer barrel
like this doesn't change anything about
the guns actual functioning because the
barrel remains fixed in place by the
slide stop pin and all that moves is
just that little floating chamber at the
end so short barrel long barrel doesn't
matter the guns will run reliably either
way because they don't have to move the
barrel around now the comfy own has a
different style of rear sight it is
actually adjustable for elevation you
can see they they have this cut so that
the rear sight is actually bent all the
time and has some spring to it and then
a set screw here so if you loosen the
screw the rear sight will rise and if
you tighten the screw the rear sight
will drop the front sight is then this
nice big blade it is dovetailed into the
barrel itself so you can
just windage by moving the blade in its
dovetail there well thanks for watching
guys hopefully you enjoyed the video
learn something about a cool new 22
conversion and if you manage to find one
of these definitely jump at a chance to
get one they're accurate guns they're
very cool guns and they're extremely
rare guns too
so if you enjoy seeing this sort of
thing on the web please do consider
checking out my patreon account it's the
folks there that make make it possible
for me to travel as much as I do find
interesting and rare guns like this and
bring them to you guys thanks for
watching