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Old 07-13-2011, 02:51 AM
GatorFarmer GatorFarmer is offline
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My guess would be that it was made in one of the areas of China that had a heavy "White" Russian presence after the Russian Civil War. Well "nominally" China - most of these areas had various oddball warlords for a great many years. Manchuria - which was fairly industrialized - even maintained a large White Russian presence during its days as a Japanese puppet state.

The stamping to me looks like someone didn't read Russian or English, but thought to make something that looked like it would combine the two. Some of the warlords were actually Russians.

For quite some time, the Khyber guns that were copies seem to have evidenced curious attempts at markings that more closely matched English. For examble you might see an AK copy stamped "Rolex" or "Glock". If it was a khyber gun, a lot of the locals knew at least some English as a trade language. Thus they'd have tried to call it a Webley or Colt or even a Mauser.

I'd be tempted to try shooting it with .38 cowboy loads and seeing what happened.

Anyway, Japanese officers had to obtain their own handguns, and the PLA also pressed everything laying around into service for Korea. Either could have then led to it being a GI bring back. Still later the PLA gave odds and ends of aid to the Viet Minh/Viet Cong and the Russians dumped a lot of old captured weapons on them - hence another potential entry source into the country.
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