hi guys thanks for tuning in to another
video on Forgotten weapons calm I mean I
am here today The Rock Island auction
company I'm taking a look at some of the
guns that are going to be for sale in
their upcoming auction and one of the
ones I wanted to check out because I
think stocked pistols are really cool is
this star model a carbine now we
previously took a look at the star model
of 1920 which was the first large
caliber star locked-breech pistol and
what the company did was basically copy
John Browning's tilting barrel action
and they coupled it with a somewhat
simplified a bar style fire control
mechanism this made for a very reliable
very functional but simpler and a little
bit cheaper to make semi-auto handgun
than the 1911 as it's being made in the
United States now that star 1920 was
tested by the Spanish army and rejected
the Spanish army decided to use the
Astra 400 instead however the Spanish
Gardea Seville
did adopt the star 1920 and after just a
fairly small number of deliveries they
requested a number of changes and start
updated the gun to the model of 1921 so
well started making this model 1921
which is basically a slightly simplified
Browning 1911 they released it at the
same time on the commercial market
calling it the model a pistol now
originally this was available in
nine-millimeter bergman or
nine-millimeter largo as it was called
in spain and that was that was the main
market as time went on this dismissal
went on the market first 1921 is the
Model A but at this time keep in mind
that there is a a significant amount of
civil war going on in China now there's
an international arms embargo against
China and it's it's aimed at preventing
military hardware from getting into the
country so it bans rifle importation and
this is enforced by a lot of European
powers what it doesn't ban are handguns
and a handgun with a stock on it and
perhaps an extra-long magazine it's
still considered a handgun by this
international agreement and embargo so
pistols like this
more specifically like the broom-handle
Mauser we're extremely popular in China
at the time the 763 Mauser cartridge was
very flat shooting cartridge that the
Mauser broom-handle pistol with a
shoulder stock on it could reasonably
well do double duty as a light carbine
they're very popular now makers gun
makers in Spain realized that they were
very popular Mauser is literally at this
point selling hundreds of thousands of
c96 pistols into China and the Spanish
arms makers decided that they wanted to
get in on some of this too this was an
excellent opportunity for them to be
able to expand to a large customer base
now the star company was in pretty good
financial condition at this point
because they had this ongoing contract
to supply the gardius to deal with arms
but for a lot of other a bar gun making
companies these were pretty lean times
there wasn't a lot of demand and star
saw this and realized that it would be
in their best interest to expand and do
everything they could to ensure a
continuous large market for their guns
so they started selling pistols into
China they reach a m-- Bird their model
a pistol for the 763 Mauser cartridge
because that's what was very popular in
China and started selling them in 1923
really 1924 they made the first stocked
model a pistols which they called the
model a carbine and this was directly
due to interest from China now the
initial orders went fairly slowly but by
1927 there was a substantial interest
and demand for these star had sent a
marketing rep to China well to Japan
where a lot of the guns were imported
and then sent to China they recognized
that there this was an opportunity this
was a high demand gun in China at the
time and so they moved to fulfill that
that market request well look at some of
the specific changes they also made to
the gun in a moment but suffice to say
1927 1928 they made about 4,000 of these
pistol carbines that were virtually all
sent to China by a couple years later
they were also looking at making
select-fire versions the first
select-fire stock pistols like this came
out in 1928
they were produced by Stieg we hermanos
another Spanish company under the name
Royal and this was a c96 broom-handle
Mauser look-alike that was very quickly
followed by the after company releasing
a similar gun its model 900 with a
select-fire capability and star as well
as Mauser at this point jump to try and
keep up and they offered a selective
fire version of the model a for whatever
reason they weren't able to market it
very successfully they tried hard but
they didn't get very many orders and
only a small number of those carbines
were ever actually made and sold most of
them were what you see here the stock
model light pistol so why don't we go
ahead and take a closer look at some of
the details of this because it's a
little bit different than a standard
star pistol so the most obvious visual
distinctive feature of the carbines is
the fact that they were made with longer
barrels this is a six and a half inch
barrel of 160 millimeter obviously a
normal 1911 barrel is pretty much flush
with the end of the slide there
the other major thing they did was
replace the rear sight with a tangent
rear sight there are four different
varieties of this tangent rear sights
that they went through as they developed
the idea this is the fourth style of
them and we know from the serial number
which is six thousand eighty eight right
here we know this particular gun was
manufactured in 1928 so this was part of
the single big chunk of production of
these pistols it of course does not have
a grip safety the very early model aise
did and then they got rid of that
because people really just didn't want
it beyond that it's basically a standard
browning tilting barrel action thumb
safety on the left side slide release
everything you'd expect on a 1911
so the standard magazine for this pistol
was just basically a normal 1911 type
box magazine held eight cartridges they
are a little bit distinctive for having
this around magazine catch hole however
because this was intended to be a
military used carbine you might want
more capacity so they offered a 16 round
longer magazine these are marked 16 they
have the same round catch hole and be
you have three long slats viewing ports
so you can see how many rounds are in
the magazine they're also made with a
stop right here that limits how far you
can insert the magazine right there now
the 16 round mags were they're not super
common but they were ordered by more
than a few people what's kind of funny
is star even offered a 32 round still
single stack magazine that thing is
literally twice as long as this and it
actually has a bit of a curve to it to
accommodate the slight taper to the 763
cartridge those thirty-two round mags
are really quite scarce today now to go
along with this they also of course have
a typical for the time shoulder stock
this doubles as a holster so I can push
this button here open up the end of the
stock and then my pistol fits nicely
inside and then this has this little
loop on it this would connect to a belt
loop a little quick detach carrier and
so you could carry this hanging from
your belt because there's this open oval
the butt of the pistol sticks out so you
can carry it with a regular or an
extended magazine already fitted then
when you needed to use it you could
either draw the pistol and use just a
pistol or attach it to the stock there
is a slot machine here on the back of
the grip this is just like a c96 broom
handle and we have a matching rail on
the back of the stock and it snaps into
place
this latch holds it there and you're
ready to go now this is actually a
slightly mismatched stock there is a
number on the back of the stock this is
number 89 or I think 68 and then there
should be a matching number on the
inside of the groove in this case it's
marked 97 now that number doesn't relate
to the serial number of the gun it's
just in the SEM
number since I know people are going to
ask this would typically be considered a
short-barreled rifle regulated by the
National Firearms Act in the u.s. today
however the NFA specifically has
exemptions for a great number of
shoulder stock pistols that were
originally made prior to World War two
and have their original proper stocks
not necessarily matching-number but the
correct make and model of stock so this
is one you can't necessarily assume that
every old old stock pistol is exempt
from the NFA but the model a like this
is thank you for watching guys I hope
you enjoyed the video I really enjoy
taking a look at stock pistols I think
they're a really cool little niche area
firearms development in this country
they were pretty well quashed by the
National Firearms Act but really around
the world about the same time this sort
of thing kind of fell out of favor and
there hasn't been a whole lot of
development in this area so if you are
interested in this one yourself for your
own collection make sure to check out
the description text below you'll find a
link there to Rock Island catalog page
on this guy and you can check out their
pictures in their description and if you
think you just really need to have it
yourself can place a bid right through
their website thanks for watching