Chinese Warlord Pistols: the "Horn Grip Type"
Forgotten Weapons
•
10m
In the course of researching Chinese domestic pistols of the Warlord Era, I sorted through several hundred examples, and was able to identify six distinct patterns of uniquely Chinese designs. Once of these I have designated the Horn Grip Type, as almost all the examples identified use horn (sometime light yellowish and sometimes dark brown) for grip panels. These pistols are simple blowback actions with open slides, external hammers, and Eibar-style safety levers above their triggers. They are chambered for the .32 ACP cartridge. They have a characteristic style of rear sight that vaguely mimics the tangent sight and bolt of a C96 Mauser, but without any separate rear sight leaf. The part we would expect to be the rear sight slider is actually an unmoving piece used to hold the extractor in place.
I cover all six different types of domestic Chinese design in "Pistols of the Warlords", but figured we could go through a variety of different examples of this particular type today.
Up Next in Forgotten Weapons
-
Chinese FN 1900s: From Wauser to Brow...
One of the most popular pistols in Warlord Era China was the FN 1900, a compact and reliable officer's pistol in .32 ACP. The Chinese also found great use for the Mauser C96, but this was seen as a sort of combat carbine, where the FN was more a defensive weapon and status symbol.
Several lar...
-
Chinese Warlord Pistols: Massive FN 1...
The armies of Warlord Era China had quite a fondness for the FN 1900 pistol, but they also made extensive use of the 7.63mm Mauser cartridge. So what would be a more natural choice than to make copies of the FN 1900 in 7.63mm Mauser? We can look past the fast that the FN design (and its Chinese c...
-
Semiauto ZK-383 on the Range
The Czech ZK-383 is a magnificent submachine gun, but sadly very scarce in the United States. So when I saw the semiauto example, I wanted to take it out to the range for some plinking. It has some magazine issues (as one might expect form a one-off semiauto made by a hobbyist here in the US), bu...
