Ugliest gun on the face of the earth???

PALADIN85020

PALADIN85020

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You haven't seen ugly until you've encountered this one. I picked it up at a gun show today, mostly because I've wanted to write an article about it for some time. Not that I'll ever shoot it; it's probably just as dangerous to the shooter as to anything or anyone in front of it.

It's a Type 94 Nambu, made in September, 1941 by the Nambu Rifle Mfg. Co. in Japan, under Nagoya Arsenal supervision. About 71,000 were made before and during WWII from 1935 to 1945.

Surprisingly, the Japanese were going to supplant and then replace their adequate Type 14 Nambus with this monstrosity. It was designed to be cheaper to manufacture than the Type 14, but wound up costing more. Sounds a lot like our government in recent years, doesn't it?

At any rate, feast your eyes on this baby...uuuggglllyyy! Now go rinse your eyes.

John


JAPTYPE94small.jpg
 
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Remember that pressure on the exposed sear will cause that puppy to fire. You probably know this, but I'd hate to leave it unsaid and something bad happen.
 
It may be time for another "Ugliest gun you own" contest Karma. The last one that I had here turned up some pretty sorry looking specimens! That one would have definately been in contention! :eek:


WG840
 
I see a bit of possibly Beretta or perhaps German influence in the design. Overall, it's an ugly gun, yes, but if it had won the war for the Japs there'd be forums full of fans today discussing the "gracefully" curved dustcover, the "sculpted" grip frame, the "classically comfortable" high bore axis, etc.

Interesting find, thanks for sharing.
 
I know you said you were not going to fire it, but a range report would sure be nice if you change your mind! That Nambu may be a real tack driver.
 
I hear Taurus is bringin' it back in a .50 AE with a bayonet lug and picatinny rail.........
 
n4zov said:
I know you said you were not going to fire it, but a range report would sure be nice if you change your mind! That Nambu may be a real tack driver.
Click to expand...

Not gonna. Here are some references, though:

YouTube - Shooting the Nambu Type 94 8mm

Shooting these guns
(scroll down to the bottom of the page)

Nope, this gun is a collector's item only. It's dangerous as well as ugly. General Nambu should have gone out in back of the building and committed ritual sepeku with a rusty sword after designing it.

John
 
It is so ugly, that it actually has a rare beauty, and looks quite deadly. In a Hollywood thriller, I could see a super spy/hero holding one sideways as he shot multitudes of bad guys.
 
Boy, I hate to be the odd man out here, but I've been collecting Japanese militaria for over thirty years, and the T-94 pistols are much better guns than most people think. I've got a 1937 in the 2000 serial range, and it has a rust blue that would put most Lugers to shame.

The original design requirements did contain all the usual boilerplate about cheaper, easier to manufacture, and other platitudes, but the T-94 did provide a requested feature that was fairly important - it was smaller and more properly sized for the 8mm Nambu round than the T-14. Its main recipients were airborne, tank crews, and especially air crews. That's another good reason to hang on to these guns - most of that 70,000 production is at the bottom of the Pacific now. No one knows how many survived, but it could be as few as 15,000 guns.

These guns have a bad rep because of late war manufacturing shortcuts, and the transfer bar. The early ones were well built and accurate - the later ones look rough on the outside, but many were still well machined internally at the critical spots. The transfer bar is really a non-issue. It's actually hard to press inward, and if the manual safety is on, effectively impossible to activate.

The pistol has a lot of shortcomings - underpowered cartridge, difficult reloading, and a grip more suited to small-handed people (imagine that). But it isn't the abomination that has been dutifully repeated by gun scribes with little critical analysis since the 1950's.


Buck
 
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