[ Taku Naval Dockyard C96 Carbine ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we have a chance
to take a look at an exceptionally rare,
Chinese Warlord Era manufactured,
copy of a C96 Mauser carbine.
This is specifically a carbine that was manufactured
by the Taku Naval Dockyard.
Now in 1875 the Qing Imperial government of China
decided that it needed to strengthen its naval capabilities.
The Chinese at this point had very little in terms of any sort of reasonably modern naval force.
So they went out and they purchased a fleet of 25 ships from the British and the Germans.
And once you've got those ships, well then you're going to need a way
to actually maintain them and take care of the fleet.
And so in 1880 they built a naval facility at ... the site of what is now the city of Tianjin,
about 75 miles south of Beijing in ... northern China.
And this was officially called the Beiyang Fleet Taku Dockyard.
The dockyard was originally set up with six docks, and it had facilities
for casting and ironworking of course so that they could work on ship's boilers.
And over time the dockyard facilities expanded, capabilities were added.
In 1891 they actually added arms manufacture
to the capabilities and the responsibilities of the Taku Dockyard system.
So early on they were making some 37mm cannons.
In 1917 that expanded to making copies of the Maxim gun.
I should say, also in 1913 the dockyards start actually building
their own ships instead of just maintaining existing vessels.
So you can tell the whole facility is expanding in capacity.
By the 1920s they're making a fairly wide variety of small arms there.
They are making ZB-26 light machine guns, they're making C96 Mauser pistols and carbines,
they're also making Bergmann machine gun copies.
But it's the C96s that specifically are relevant to us today.
The first pistol production at the Taku Dockyard appears to have started approximately in 1925.
They made a run of 1,000 C96 pistols, and that took them until about 1928.
Overall, arms production at Taku was pretty low scale,
they didn't make a lot of guns, but the quality of what they did make was really very good.
So among their other specifically military arms, they did make a small run of Mauser carbines.
And these are not intended to be military arms, these are presentation guns, they're prestige guns,
just like the C96 Mauser carbines made in Germany,
which these are very remarkably accurately copied from. So let's take a closer look.
I want to start with the marking on the side of this carbine, there's only one marking and it's this.
This is written in traditional Chinese characters and it reads, "Made at Taku Naval Dockyard."
But what's kind of interesting about it is that traditional script is typically read right to left.
This is actually written left to right.
And the inscriptions on the guns from Taku vary.
Some of them are written in Chinese characters like this,
some of them are actually written in English. You will find guns that are marked
"Taku Naval Dockyard" written out in English.
So a lot of the Chinese arsenals, especially the better arsenals,
did work with Western European and American advisors and engineers.
And I think often it's that influence that led to some of
the English language markings that are found on some of those guns.
What we have here of course is a copy of a pattern of carbine that was made by Mauser.
Mauser didn't make many of these, they were really high-end specialty,
not quite custom, but fancy carbines.
And that's the same role that this one I'm sure played.
It has a 16 inch barrel.
(Happily long enough that we don't have to deal with NFA issues with it.)
The forend here is actually attached to the frame of the gun.
This is important because remember that the C96 Mauser is a short-recoil operated firearm.
So when you fire, ... the barrel and barrel extension here all reciprocate backwards.
Like so.
And you can see that this is moving inside this forearm.
It also means you can hold on to the forearm to get a good grip on the gun,
and ... you won't interfere with the actual cycling of the pistol.
We don't know the total quantity made, but this is serial number 24.
And it's marked in a couple of places, there obviously.
It's also marked on the rear sight slider which is interesting,
that's something that Mauser, the Germans, never did.
And in fact it's not something that's common on other Chinese copies,
but it is something that was done by the Taku Dockyard on its regular C96 pistols.
And we have a serial number 24 on the bolt.
Normally on a German-made carbine or Mauser in general,
we would expect to see some markings on the chamber flats here.
Taku did not do anything there, which is a little bit unusual.
The mechanism is standard C96. It has a 10 round magazine.
It's chambered for the 7.63mm Mauser cartridge.
So it's loaded by stripper clips right there.
This is the standard buttstock configuration that they did.
The grip has been removed from the frame of the pistol.
And instead we actually have a detachable shoulder stock,
so that this can be cased in a nice little presentation transport case.
Makes it a lot more convenient to move around.
And it attaches basically just like a rifle bayonet there.
That looks very much like a rifle bayonet lug
and you have a locking catch right there and a locking button to attach it.
So it's sort of a semi-pistol grip.
Frankly, to me these aren't all that comfortable to actually handle,
but this is how Mauser did it as well as the Chinese copies.
It's worth pointing out that while this is a copy, it's a very accurate copy.
Down to some really minor details, like the groove in the centre of the rear sight leaf.
It goes all the way up the rear sight leaf
and actually continues into the mounting base, exactly as Mauser did.
That's pretty rare on Mauser pistols, but it's standard on their carbines.
Also the sight goes up to 500 metres, which is pretty typical for a Mauser carbine.
To me, I think that actually the coolest part of this whole gun is the butt plate.
This is a carved horn butt plate I believe.
And it gives us I think a pretty good idea of when the gun was made.
So we have an anchor at the top, which of course is for the naval nature of the Taku Dockyard,
but then we have a pair of crossed flags here.
The one on the left is a fairly recognisable Republic of China Nationalist flag
with the 12-pointed star, or a representation of a 12-pointed star
there isn't room to actually do 12 in there.
And that's a flag that was adopted about 1929.
And then on the right we have the flag that actually preceded it
as the Republic of China Nationalist flag.
This one was a ... five striped flag,
five different colours, red, yellow, black, white, and blue,
representing the five major ethnic groups that made up China.
So seeing those two flags both on the butt plate of this carbine
tells me that this was made right around 1929 and definitely ... under Nationalist control,
or more likely for someone associated with the Nationalist government.
Because again, a carbine like this wasn't made just for some random conscript to use in combat.
This was a more prestigious, presentation sort of firearm.
The front sight here is clearly a commercial sporting style of front sight
with a little bead, a serrated front surface there to reduce glare.
And then the front sight can be drift adjusted to correct your windage.
The general characteristics of this in terms of a C96 pattern
would be basically a pre-war commercial gun.
So it has a small ring hammer, it does not have any of the new
updated ... World War One generated safety systems.
It does have a solid side rail ... on both sides.
That would be a bit unusual for pistols, but it's standard for the carbines.
Chinese Warlord Era arms production really did cover the gamut
from stuff that was as good as Western quality arsenals, like this sort of carbine,
all the way down to literal complete garbage.
There are a lot of people who assume that everything was just
literal complete garbage, and that's actually not the case.
Certainly those are some of the examples that really stand out to people.
But there were also really good, high quality prestigious firearms
being manufactured by some of the arsenals, and Taku in particular
is one of the facilities that was able to make really good small arms.
So these are of course exceptionally rare.
If you're interested in seeing more about say, the pistols from the Taku Naval Dockyard,
I would suggest checking out my book "Pistols of the Warlords
Chinese Domestic Firearms, 1911 to 1949", which is now in stock
and shipping from headstamppublishing.com, check that out.
If you aren't interested in it or already have the book, well I hope you at least enjoyed the video.
So thanks for watching.