The End of the Mamba: A Tale of Manufacturing Incompetence
Rhodesia
•
14m
The Mamba was a pistol that had a pretty decent design, but failed because of incompetent manufacturing. Today we are taking a look at a handful of surviving Mambas including the only know Green Mamba, courtesy of Val Forgett at Navy Arms. In addition, we have the minutes of a June 13, 1978 meeting of the whole Mamba team along with the senior Forgett and his factory manager. Those minutes really shed some light on why the project failed so badly. You can download the PDF and read them in full yourself here:
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/the-end-of-the-mamba-a-tale-of-manufacturing-incompetence
Full video on Mamba history and development:
https://youtu.be/Gh3TuCo_AJc
Up Next in Rhodesia
-
Rhodesian Mamba at the Range: Will it...
Today we are taking the Mamba out to the range to see just how badly (or how well) it works. This is one of the Mambas that was assembled in the US by Navy Arms - only a very small number of these went on the market before the whole project was abandoned.
-
Rhodesian-Production G3 Handguard
While the standard Rhodesian Army rifle was the FAL, their next most common rifle was the G3. These were mostly of Portugueses origin, and had the thing and narrow style of G3 handguards. In an effort to counteract the rapid heating of these handguards, a domestically designed and produced clamp-...
-
Rhodesian FAL - with Larry Vickers
The iconic weapon of the Rhodesian Bush War is the FN-FAL, painted in a distinctive "baby poop" yellow and green pattern. Because Rhodesia was under international embargo, its options for obtaining weapons were limited. Some domestic production was undertaken, but one large source was neighboring...