[ Shanxi Type 17 .45 ACP C96 Mauser Copy ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we're going to
take a look at the Shanxi Type 17.
This is the biggest, and the coolest, Chinese copy
of the Mauser C96 Broomhandle pistol.
Now, this is but one of the guns that will be in
my upcoming book, currently on Kickstarter, called
"Pistols of the Warlords, Chinese Domestic Handguns, 1911 to 1949"
covering all manner of really funky cool so-called Chinese "mystery pistols",
as well as copies of the C96.
So if you're interested in more about Chinese pistols from this era
... definitely check out that Kickstarter. I have a link in the description text below.
Anyway, the Type 17 is obviously a mechanical copy
of the Broomhandle Mauser simply scaled up to .45 ACP.
Now the Broomhandle was a very popular pistol in China during the Warlord Era.
And by the way, we're defining the Warlord Era as basically starting in 1911.
That is when the last Chinese Imperial dynasty ended,
when the Chinese Revolution happened.
And so the dates that you'll see on a lot of these guns, including these, are based on 1911.
So when I say "Type 17" that indicates that it was manufactured or introduced in 1928.
1911 plus 17 equals 1928.
So there would be a Chinese Republic established,
but the country basically fell into civil war
under conflicting rule by various warlords and various provinces.
And Shanxi was a little bit of an unusual example in that it had
a little bit more sort of independence than many of the other provinces.
And this was illustrated in a number of ways.
For example, it had its own railway gauge that it used that none of the other provinces did.
It also had some of its own weapons.
It was pretty much the only province whose army was using .45 ACP as a calibre.
They manufactured copies of the American Thompson gun, and
Thompsons and 1911s would become more prolific in China after World War Two
when the US started supplying more material aid to the Nationalist Chinese.
But in the Warlord period, when we're talking here 1928, the US wasn't supplying Thompsons.
These were guns that were either being purchased in small numbers
by warlords, or manufactured in China.
And so anyway if they're ... using Thompsons and they're using .45 ACP, it makes sense
to have a handgun in the same calibre just to simplify ammunition production logistics.
The Broomhandle Mauser was a very popular gun throughout China
because it was intimidating, it was a large pistol, and it was an effective pistol.
... Basically the C96 was one of the few guns that had been able to get
the so-called "boots on the ground" in China prior to the Revolution
and the disintegration of the Chinese formal National Army.
And so when people, from peasant soldiers up to Warlords themselves,
went looking for small arms to buy, they couldn't go on the internet and read reviews,
they were stuck with kind of the communal knowledge that already existed in China.
And that included the understanding that the Mauser C96 was a darn good pistol.
And that led to a lot of its popularity in the country.
So let's take a closer look, we have two different versions of these that I can show you,
they differ primarily just in the markings, but hey, it's a fascinating huge pistol.
For size comparison we have our .45 calibre example here,
and we also have a .30 cal example.
That's .30 Mauser, the standard cartridge for the C96 Mauser.
And the reason that I have this one here as well is that the Taiyuan Arsenal,
which is the arsenal in Shanxi,
actually started making .30 calibre copies before it made the .45s.
So these were produced from 1926 until 1928, when they transitioned to the .45s.
A small batch of these were also made in the '30s, but that's a bit beyond the scope of today's video.
This whole arsenal actually got its start after the Chinese Revolution.
It was set up in the late 1910s by the provincial governor, Yan Xishan,
(whose name I'm probably mispronouncing, I apologise).
But he got a bunch of machinery from the Shanghai and the Hanyang Arsenals,
hired a bunch of their experienced workers away, and set up his own arsenal to start producing guns.
So you can see that despite the larger bulk of the .45
the overall length is actually exactly the same.
The grip frame is also the same size,
just the .45 calibre magazine has to come down a bit further in order to fit a full 10 cartridges.
And the .45 is substantially wider.
Which also allows you to fit 10 of the larger cartridges in a magazine that's
not all that much longer than the standard .30 cal magazine.
So this particular example is serial number 13, which is extremely early, obviously.
And it has markings that are a bit different from the standard markings
that you'll find on most of these guns.
So on this side we actually have a marking that translates into "Type 17 Handgun",
and that's where we get the designation. Once again, 17 means 1928.
On the opposite side we have a two-line marking that actually gives us a bit more information.
The top line here is the date of production, we have 10-7 there,
so this is a Type 17 that was manufactured in year 17 (1928).
And then the bottom line describes this as being made at the Taiyuan Arsenal in Shanxi .
These guns were designed to be reloaded with stripper clips, like a standard Broomhandle Mauser.
And they do lock open like so.
Note that there are serial numbers all over these guns, including the follower itself.
I've never actually seen an original Chinese stripper clip for one of these pistols,
but frankly rifle stripper clips would have worked.
The case head of .45 ACP is basically identical to .30-06, and very similar to
several of the other common rifle calibres that would have been in use in China at the time.
So you would use two 5 round stripper clips to load the 10 round magazine.
It is worth pointing out that the bolt is actually locked open by the hammer here,
not strictly by the follower.
So typically with a Broomhandle Mauser you would expect that as soon as you
push the follower down the bolt is going to come through and clobber your finger.
And that's not the case here, and that's relevant because after you load the first 5 round clip
you have to take that clip out and put in a second one to top up the magazine.
And on most clip-loading designs, on a Mauser, that would release the bolt
and it'd be very difficult to get the second 5 rounds in.
On this, once you've got it loaded, you then pull the hammer down and that releases the bolt.
Which is now held open by the actual stop on the follower.
So had I loaded the gun, the bolt would have simply
dropped all the way home when I pulled the hammer down.
We don't know exactly when, but very shortly after production started
a couple of subtle changes were made to the mechanics of the gun,
and the markings were substantially changed.
You can see it's in a totally different style, or font, of marking.
So on these more standardised guns
(the serial numbers, by the way, go up to almost 9,000, the highest recorded number is in the 8,600s,
which suggests that something around 9,000 pistols were made in total, which is a fair number),
instead of that early triangular marking these now have like a 12 pointed star.
Which is a symbol commonly associated with the Chinese Republic of the 1920s.
You'll also find the serial number on ... one of the chamber flats.
And then you'll also find the serial number kind of on all the standard C96 Mauser places.
So the frame there, the back of the subframe,
the hammer, and a whole bunch of internal parts.
The new markings here give this a date. This is year 19, so this is a 1931 production gun.
And then identified as being made in Shanxi.
Later in production, not much after this, but the last group of these guns
they would actually get rid of these markings entirely.
So the very late ones are not dated and are blank on this side.
The common production examples have also changed [on the left].
So instead of this two line marking we have this single line marking,
which still says "1 7 type", or Type 17, but now in a different style of script.
And this marking would remain in place through the very end of production, which was most likely 1932.
The mechanical changes between the early and late pistols are fairly minor.
On the early gun the front sight is a bit shorter than on the late one.
The profile of a few of the cuts changed.
So on the early gun behind the stripper clip guide we have a rounded profile,
where we have a square cut on the standard production.
These all had rear sights calibrated out to 1,000 metres.
The design of the rear sight slider changed just slightly,
so it was a little bit wider on the early guns, a little bit narrower on the late guns.
That 1,000 metres is pretty ludicrous,
even when you consider that these are cut for shoulder stocks.
Which, by the way, are extremely rare,
I have not run across an original Chinese shoulder stock for a .45 Shanxi.
There are reproductions out there, but be aware that
if you find one it is very, very likely a reproduction shoulder stock.
Of all of the domestically produced Chinese pistols that are out there,
the Shanxi Type 17s are probably the most valuable on the US collector market.
There's something about taking a big handgun and making it even bigger,
and chambering it for .45 Auto that really makes it appeal to American collectors.
And on top of that, these are very high quality pistols.
Where a lot of Chinese domestic production was artisanal,
done in small underdeveloped facilities,
or done one gun at a time by individual gunsmiths,
these were one of the relatively small number of models that were actually made
on a formal western-style manufacturing production line.
So the parts are all the same, the markings are all the same (given some variations).
But they are reliable, quality weapons.
Unlike, by the way, the reproductions that came into the US in the 1980s.
Which we'll talk about in a separate video, because I want to focus here on the real deal.
So if you're interested in these, they are out there, they are very highly collectible.
And ... they have a price tag to match, so.
Once again, if you are interested in this subject,
in this period of Chinese history and pistol production,
definitely check out the Kickstarter for my upcoming book.
I've got the link to that in the video description below.
Thanks for watching.