hi guys thanks for tuning into another
video on Forgotten weapons comm I'm Ian
I'm here today at the Rock Island
auction house I'm taking a look at some
of the pistols that they are going to be
selling in their upcoming December of
2016 premiere auction the one that we
have here today is really cool if
underappreciated by most people this is
what is colloquially known as a grandpa
Nambu although the technical Japanese
definition or designation for this
pistol is a type A and them work
probably the best most descriptive name
for it would be a type 1902 Nambu as the
name implies this was first adopted into
army service in Japan in 1902 although
its development actually dates back to
1897 that is when a young k0 Nambu
captain at the time in the Japanese army
arrived for duty at the Tokyo army
Arsenal in ku Ishikawa and he was
promptly put in charge of this program
to develop a semi-automatic handgun for
the Japanese military up to this point
they had been using Japanese type 26
revolvers and prior to that Smith &
Wesson number 3 revolvers in 44 Smith &
Wesson and it was time to modernize so
Nambu spent five years working on this
project and this pistol is what he came
up with now this definitely there's
historically there's been some talk of
you know how does this compare to say
that 1910 glass empty that the Italians
had well it definitely predates the
Gliss NT this is 1897 to 1902 this is
really a pistol that is should be
considered in the same frame of
reference as the broom-handle Mauser the
Luger some of the very early browning
automatic pistols it is really one of
the very first successful automatic
pistols out there not the first but in
that first group it looks kind of like a
Luger it actually doesn't really have
anything in common with the Luger this
actually has several developmental or
several mechanical elements kind of in
common with the broom-handle Mauser it
has a tilting locking block similar sort
of to the Mauser and we'll take a look
at that when we take this apart it also
has a cartridge that's somewhat similar
to the Mauser Nambu and his team
designed the 8 millimeter Nambu
cartridge which was first developed for
this pistol it's a little bottle necked
round it obviously an eight millimeter
projectile the original load was 102
grain bullet traveling at about 950 to a
thousand feet per second that's kind of
a weak cartridge by today's standards it
was also kind of a weak cartridge at
that time for a service pistol but in no
way out of the realm of reason ability
you could compare this reasonably well
to say a 380 automatic that's really not
that bad okay
fine that'll work now the grandpa nambus
it's interesting they're called that
largely because the Papa Nambu came
first the Papa Nambu was introduced
about 1906 and it's basically just an
updated modernized version of this gun
there's also in Japanese handgun
collecting terminology there's also the
baby Nambu the baby Nambu is a
miniaturized version of this firing the
seven millimeter namu cartridge which is
basically a scaled-down eight Nambu it's
a little tiny pocket pistol you think
this thing has a weak cartridge that
seven millimeter Nambu is really kind of
anemic at any rate the name came about
basically to differentiate it from what
had already at that point been called
the Papa Nambu that's how it got the
name and all of these were actually
manufactured with shoulder stocks which
is kind of cool a lot of early automatic
pistols were made with stocks and this
is a really good example what's kind of
cool about this one is it actually has a
retractable metal extension here so the
pistols not all that long and you don't
that the pistol is not long enough for
like the proper length of pull on the
stock so in order to get the length of
pull correct they needed an extension
but they made it retractable so that
when you're just carrying the thing in
the stock because it does double as a
holster you've got the minimum necessary
length so it's not awkwardly banging
against your leg and getting in the way
in total only about 2,400 or actually
just under 24 hundred of these pistols
were manufactured and they were made
from 1902 only until 1906
at that point a number of revisions were
added we'll talk about those again in a
moment and what's interesting is this
was never adopted by the Japanese
military formally in
in 1904 it was formally accepted as a
gun that could be carried by officers if
they provided one for themselves
Japanese officers like those of many
other countries had to provide their own
handguns and this was recognized as an
acceptable handgun later versions of the
name would be formally adopted of course
but this isn't one of them so the
manufacturer of this was limited there
was never a big army contract for it
they were all commercially sold pistols
and what's interesting is a lot of them
went to Thailand in fact here in the US
collector community this gun was
virtually unknown until a batch of
imported guns came from Thailand those
are recognizable because they actually
have a Thai chakra on either the front
or the back strap this one doesn't show
you that up close and there are a couple
different notions of when these guns
went to Thailand what seems most likely
to me is they were probably purchased
commercially around that time period
when they were being manufactured
however it's also a distinct possibility
that they were acquired in the 1930s at
that point Japan sold a bunch of
military surplus basically to the Thai
government and it would make sense that
at that point these guns would have been
very much obsolete and so they would
have been something likely to be sold to
another country if you could get the
money for him fantastic ship them off
let the Thais deal with them there's no
documentation available so we don't know
which of those two answers is the case
that's one of many mysteries with
Japanese firearms a lot of the records
didn't survive World War two so there
are a lot of things that we just are
left to speculate anyway let's take a
closer look at this take it apart
because it's actually a really simple
gun to take apart especially compared to
a lot of other pistols of this period so
here we have the complete pistol on its
shoulder stock this does give you a nice
length of pull and of course stock
pistols are easier and more accurate to
shoot than simply hand held pistols it's
a cool idea that kind of fell out of
favor in the 1930s anyway the stock
latch is here on the bottom in order to
detach the gun from the stock we're
going to push that button in
we can slide the stock off once we have
done that we have a button here on the
top you can push that button and then
that extension retracts into the stock
we can then push that button to open the
stock up and the pistol slides right in
normally you would have a spare magazine
in this slot and there's a little hole
right there
for a cleaning rod now this one is
really tight it doesn't really want to
close and I'm not entirely sure why but
I'm not going to force it so we'll leave
that alone before I leave the stock
entirely this set of luckily things is
there to connect to a leather rig that
would allow you to carry this on the
belt so that's what that's all there for
now the only markings we have on these
pistols are here on the rear right side
of the top of the frame this says Nambu
type and the serial number so 1595 is
pretty much middle of the production
range getting a little towards the end
but that's that you'll find all the
parts inside are also numbered with the
full serial number of the pistol I
mentioned the tide chakra that's right
here on the back strap in this case so
the thai government added that stamp as
a mark of their ownership the Papa Nambu
has a couple of relatively modern
controls on it it does have a grip
safety here on the front strap that's a
very simple mechanical grip safety in
that what it does is simply have a bar
right here which physically just
prevents the trigger from coming back
and kind of see it yeah so if you don't
have that grip safety depressed
you just can't physically pull the
trigger back and that pretty effectively
renders the gun safe now it's not as
good as if it actually locked the sear
or the striker but this is 1902 that
we're talking about the magazine release
is located right here just behind the
trigger very modern position that's
exactly what you want it push the button
in magazine comes out
this people often think as a safety it
is not it does actually have a little
guide arrow on it this is actually the
seer pin this holds the seer in place
that arrow is there so you know which
way to orient the the top of the pin so
that doesn't move forward or backward at
all we have a tangent rear sight here
goes out to 500 meters in 50 meter
increments so you've got one there and
then half step for 150 and so on sight
picture is not bad pretty typical of
this era there's your front sight big
triangular front sight just like you'd
have on some later pistols now the type
14 had sort of a triangular rear sight
as well which this does not this just
has a normal not rear sight now for
disassembly we're going to start by
rotating this rear piece 90 degrees see
it has a little alignment line there we
want that over there and as soon as I've
rotated that it's going to come out
along with the striker spring so I have
the magazine out we're now going to do
the one slightly complicated step it's
not difficult you just have to know how
to do it what we need to do is depress
the slide this is a short recoil pistol
so every time you fire the slide moves
in like this we're going to push that in
and then push the magazine release
button and the trigger guard is going to
slide down the frame allowing us to
remove all the guts out the front so the
easiest way to do that is to put the
muzzle on a table like this something
that's not going to Mar it push down
push the mag button and then I can do
this on camera there we go
then the trigger guard slides down like
that now I can just pull all of the
innards get back in there there's one
more step here on the frame of the gun
now I could take the grip panels off but
we don't really need to you can take the
trigger guard out but I don't really
need to what I will do is remove the
recoil spring and in order to do that we
actually are going to take this rear cap
and we're going to unthread it off the
gun this is the recoil spring guide
so I kind of have to push that in in
order to clear the lanyard loop here at
the back and that comes off now this is
under spring pressure so hold that while
you're doing this or else it will go
Caprona out the front of the gun now we
can take that out we have a recoil
spring and guide rod those are housed in
this second cylindrical tube on the left
side of the frame now it's kind of cool
to look at this and realize that this
entire frame was a single forging in the
manufacturing process this came out as a
single block of material and then they
went through and drilled and milled out
all of the stuff on the inside in order
to turn it into a pistol frame I'll
point out this slot this is actually a
recess that the locking block goes into
when it's out of battery that's often
thought to be like an observation slot
to make sure it's set up correctly it
simply I guess it does do that but the
actual purpose of this is drilling in
through the bottom here is far simpler
than trying to get a mil head or a tool
head in to this area from somewhere else
so they just cut it here save a lot of
time and effort the very first handful
of guns they actually made kind of a
decorative plug to fill that hole and
then realized it doesn't really matter
anyway that is our disassembled frame
now to take a look at the barrel
assembly we have our locking block here
we have a bolt we have a striker so this
is our barrel and barrel extension we
have a lug here that the locking block
is going to rotate on this is our
ejector let's see it from the top there
as well and that's pretty much it for
that piece what this does is we have our
locking block here notice it's stamped
with the serial number and it is going
to pivot up and down just slightly like
this very similar really - what a
broom-handle Mauser does when it's up
it's actually locking the bolt into this
barrel extension so it's going to sit
like this you can see the top lug here
is interfacing with this locking
shoulder on the bolt that locking
shoulder is a separate piece so you can
manufacture the bolt easily and then get
the locking shoulder just exactly right
when you assemble the guns so that they
headspace properly anyway the locking
block holds that there and because it's
got this lug going through it when it's
in the upper position it locks the bolt
to the bolt the barrel extension there
and then as this goes back slightly this
tab is going to push this down once it's
unlocked then the bolt can travel
backwards beyond the end of the barrel
assembly now the firing mechanism for
the the Nambu is really pretty cool it's
not the strongest it's definitely in
fact it's probably one of the weakest
parts of the design but it's different
and really interesting so we have a
striker here and it travels in the bolt
you can see when it's all the way
forward the firing pin tip protrudes
through there and then it can go all the
way back to here alright I have put the
trigger guard back in position we have a
tab on the trigger right here and when
you pull the trigger that tab goes up
you can see that's going up into the
receiver and it is pushing up on a very
long lever that goes all the way back
here to this silver piece so when I pull
the trigger that silver piece goes down
it's getting pushed up at the front its
pivoting around this pin and it's going
down at the back now when the gun is in
battery this little tab on the striker
see that tab right there is actually
held behind this plate and it can't go
forward however we do have a lot of
spring pressure on it from our striker
spring here which is sitting right there
so when you pull the trigger that plate
drops that allows the striker to go
forward past it drop and hit the primer
and fire the the cartridge what makes
this week is that
this little tab on the side of the
striker is very prone to just shearing
off the striker and this is the K this
was a design feature that's kind of it's
slightly redesigned but it's still in
place on the Papa Nambu and the type 14
Nambu and that's why it is strongly
recommended that you not dry fire these
pistols even especially the type for
teens even live firing them they brake
firing pins a lot so much so that type
14 holsters were actually issued with
spare firing pins in them so it's a
really slick and interesting way to do a
firing mechanism but it really was one
of the weak points of the gun so
magazine here is unique to the the
Grandpa Nambu it's also going to be
serial numbered down at the bottom you
can distinguish these because they
actually have wooden base plates the
Papa Nambu that came later 1906 and
onward would have aluminum base plates
and the magazine the the angle and the
the exact design have actually been
changed on the Papa so this is holds
eight rounds of eight millimeter Nambu
it does not have a hold open sort of the
follower will stop the bolt so on your
last shot the bolt does lock open but it
then slams shut as soon as you pull the
magazine out that's also a
characteristic that would go on to be
present in Nambu pistols while all Nambu
pistols all the way through the end of
world war two and it's not a good
feature so 1906 the Tokyo Army Arsenal
would Institute a number of upgrades to
this pistol it didn't change designation
in Japan it was still the type a
designee designation wouldn't appear
until the type 14 Nambu which was
substantially different
although used a lot of the same
fundamentals but these changes were a
number of things that really ought to be
done some of them were just aesthetic
but some of the more significant ones
included increasing the size of the
trigger and the trigger guard you can
see that this trigger guard is really
pretty tiny if you were issued this
thing and you were in northern China and
it's snowing and you've got gloves on
this is going to be a problem they
slightly redesigned the grip safety the
lanyard loop which on the grandpa's is
milled in place and it's
next they replace that with a swiveling
lanyard loop there they redesigned the
back strap of the grip actually made it
a little bit larger that necessitated a
change in the magazine they also got rid
of the stock slots there are a very
small number of papanam boos with stock
slots but those are kind of a distinct
special group of their own and not
standard those are those are the major
variations right there so basically the
grip frame the magazine the trigger
guard and the lanyard loop are the
substantial things that changed a few
other things like the styling of this
striker spring guide rod changed and
some other stuff but nothing else
particularly mechanically substantial
thank you for watching guys I hope you
have a little more understanding of the
the Grandpa Nambu the very early
Japanese automatic pistols now they're
really an underappreciated area of
pistol design you know the Japanese did
a lot of largely indigenous development
and they came up with things that are
well here in the US they've typically
been really looked down upon largely
because of world war ii prejudice but
there's a lot of good stuff going on in
a pistol like this a lot of clever
innovation and in skilled design so
anyway if you'd like to own this one
yourself
the stocked Grandpa Nambu is really kind
of the epitome of Japanese automatic
pistol collecting well this one is of
course for sale take a look at the
description text below you'll find there
the link to rock Islands catalog page on
this piece you can see their pictures
read their description and participate
in the auction live over the phone or on
the website thanks for watching