Two oddities from the Rock Island Arsenal Museum

Inventory today !! Discovered something startling and something I never knew existed.

Let's start with the surprise. The first three pics are of a prototype 9mm pistol, built by High Standard in 1951, and submitted to the army for possible adoption. It uses a high cap double stack mag. It was designated the "T-3" and it is a straight blowback design. It is unknown how many were made or whether it was a successful design. It is known that three were delivered to Springfield Armory on September 6 , 1951. This pistol is one of the three. The right grip is missing its top half.

Now for the startling. Are we all in agreement that the type 94 is probably the worst automatic pistol ever made? Ugly, crude, poorly machined and finished. And just plain dangerous.

Look again. One of these type 94s is as finely polished and fitted as a Baby Nambu. The blueing is a deep, rich rust blue. The polish on the metal rivals a commercial High Power. It is a really impressive piece. I can only assume it is an early gun.., as it does have a low serial #. 3135 I wanted to try the sear bar pinch to see if the story was true, but the gun is absent a spring, somewhere.

Is it junk? Not this one!

NIGHTLORD40K said:

I can only assume that the commercial production guns were finished to a much higher standard and that is one of them.

Click to expand...

I think you just answered my question!!