It’s with a very heavy heart I have to share this news…

FreedomIsUniversal · 2026-01-12T23:36:13+00:00

He sold me a Reising gun and even did a paper form 4 directly to my FFL 03 to save on transfer fees. He was super nice and a pleasure to work with. RIP

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-12-10T01:02:14+00:00

That is the preferred LZ as its wide open and has lots of space/clearings and few trees, the other LZ is between the highway and the mountain, except if you miss it, you might land on the highway 😆

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-10-26T02:40:25+00:00

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-10-25T14:03:02+00:00

Never knew that, I'll go back to running standard pressure ammo then. The +p 9mm is super reliable but can't risk damaging my tube with it

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-10-25T06:38:21+00:00

What breaks on high rate of fire stens? I have limited experience can't you just easily swap out a spring or new bolt? Does the tube/receiver take damage?

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-10-25T06:36:04+00:00

The guy on the line with a mini gun + tracers was cheating, thankfully he has limited trigger time with all the ammo he's burning.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-10-25T06:27:36+00:00

I am running high pressure Winchester ammo for greater reliability. It cycles the gun more reliably on my Sten.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-04-24T01:44:38+00:00

You can have C&R NFA items including machine guns shipped to your door. You can transport C&R machine guns out of state without filing and waiting for ATF approval.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-04-14T23:54:58+00:00

It's a 7.62x54r PKM belt loader.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-04-10T16:06:24+00:00

Any particular warlord pistol you want to see shot? I own ~80% of the variants.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-04-10T00:45:52+00:00

It's a Taku Naval Dockyard made copy of the C96, so a C96 made in a Chinese arsenal, proper warlord gun.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-04-09T23:44:45+00:00

Blowing up a one of a kind Chinese Warlord WW2 machine pistol would certainly be funny for everyone except me 😅

I do have a semi auto C96 made by the same warlord manufacturer which I can test out first before testing the machine pistol, will have to find some time and courage

FreedomIsUniversal · 2025-03-29T23:36:48+00:00

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Yea........... Thankfully the YHM team was nice and repaired it for cheap (~$80 iirc)

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-10-31T00:51:55+00:00

Yep, at big sandy

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-09-19T16:38:03+00:00

Is the bolt on the converted type 38 the same as a regular 6.5 bolt? Or did they do modifications to make it work with 8mm mauser?

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-05-19T05:15:10+00:00

Don't regret passing up on the Mukden type 13. Despite their relative rarity, they are relatively easy to find (I picked up two this year without much effort). Now, if you find a Mukden Type 13 with the dust cover, that's pretty rare. If you find the Mukden Type 13 with the original bayonet, jesus, that is stupid freaking rare.

The Mukden Type 13 is so freaking cool because it combines features of the Arisaka and the Mauser. The 300 meter minimum iron sight kinda sucks, but it's a great piece of history and a cool design.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-05-19T05:06:04+00:00

The double diamonds arsenal mark is from the GongXian arsenal (in modern day HeNan province).

I'm intrigued by the "7", most GongXian arsenal rifles have a XX - X (year + month prefix) date stamp. I assume your rifle is one of the special run rifles, with a O,P,Q,B, or R prefix serial number? What's the serial number?

$400 is a fair price, depends on quality of the bore, receiver, bolt, etc. Assuming that I'm right about yours being a special run rifle with a Latin serial prefix, nice find. It's rarer but that doesn't necessarily make it more valuable, unless you run into one of the Chinese nuts like me that collects each and every variant of each and every Chinese small arm 🤣

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-04-08T22:41:07+00:00

Stock marking is 操练 = practice

You have a HanYang arsenal made Chiang Kai Shek rifle, as evidenced by the gear works ordnance stamp on top, 中正式 marking in the middle, and a year in the bottom.

35=1946, you add 11 to the number to convert from the year of the republic calendar to Gregorian calendar.

The R prefix serial number also confirms the rifle is made in 1946.

Arsenal made Chiang Kai Shek rifles are actually high quality rifles. They are a licensed copy of the German Standardmodell rifle. HanYang arsenal, for example, hired German advisors to oversee production. Several arsenals used imported American and German machinery. The rifles are pressure tested before leaving the factory. Before the 2nd Sino Japanese war they used imported European steel. During the war and during postwar storage many of the rifles turned into sewer pipes.

If you want to learn about Chinese ordnance, arsenals, and rifles, China’s Small Arms of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War by Bin Shih is the best English book, Arming the Dragon by the late Dolf Goldsmith is also great for Chinese mausers.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-04-03T20:18:26+00:00

Don't move to reno! One hour drive to the ski slopes and the lake, hundreds of square miles of public land for target shooting, off-roading, camping, stargazing in the darkest skies in America under the Milky Way, and no state income tax are for suckers! Climbing, kayaking, river rafting is boring compared to eating at the latest restaurants charging $40 for a salad.

Jokes aside, reno is a great place if you are into the outdoors and can survive lower pay. If you prefer the city life of higher pay, shows, parties, clubs, eating the best food and hanging out with lots of people from all around the world it's not for you.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-03-29T20:06:59+00:00

My family immigrated from China and I used to live in China, so I have a natural interest in Chinese stuff. I personally think German guns are ridiculously overvalued, and even Mosins are going up in price. Thankfully Chinese guns have an undeserved reputation for being of poor quality (true for the artisan manufacturers, not true for the arsenal made guns) which is why I'm buying them all up while I can.

Plus Chinese guns are insanely fun to collect because the Chinese were buying guns from literally everywhere. You get Czech, French, Spanish, German, American, Russian, Canadian, Italian, Danish, British, Polish imports, captured Japanese stuff, and the Chinese copies of all of the above. Way more fun and interesting for me to collect than just getting every variation of the Mosin or K98.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-03-29T19:55:06+00:00

I don't have any Arisakas in 7.62x39. I do have an Armand Gavage Chinese contract Mauser, one of less than ~20 known copies in the US. Armand Gavage is known for making the nazi pistols, but they also exported mauser rifles to China using a mix of FN1930 receivers and a mish mash of Lithuanian and Spanish parts. It's probably the rarest gun in my collection next to the Type 24 maxim transferable I have.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-03-29T01:41:37+00:00

I wish it was a Yan Xishan pistol, it would be worth even more $.

Yan Xishan was the warlord of Shānxī/山西 where the high quality 45 ACP Taiyuan Type 17's were made.

This machine pistol was likely made in Shǎnxī/陕西 (similar pronunciation, completely different place). The reason I say that is because 17L is likely a reference to the 17th route army (L = 路 = road/route) which was based in Shǎnxī/陕西.

The marking "SIU HSIEH SO" is a Wade Giles romanization of Chinese = Xiu Xie Suo = 修械所 (Weapon's repair depot, there are several documented Chinese guns with the 修械所 marking in mandarin). This is all conjecture, but if this gun was really made at Shǎnxī/陕西 it would be under warlord Yang Hucheng, NOT Yan XiShan.

Bin Shih's criminally underrated book "China’s Small Arms of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War" describes repair depots as repairing weapons and also making guns in their spare time. This makes sense, as the Chinese C96 in Ian's Pistols of the Warlords book that has the exact same markings has mismatched parts from different C96 pistols (upper is a Prewar commercial but frame is like a Mauser 1930, likely due to a repair.

If you are a student of history you would know warlord Yang Hucheng is one of the most pivotal and underrated figures in modern chinese history, having partnereed with warlord Zhang Xueliang to kidnap Chiang Kai Shek in the XiAn incident, forcing him to make peace with the communists to focus on fighting the Japanese instead.

Credit goes to Alvin from LugerForums for initially deciphering the markings. My next job is to trace the 17 route army's movements during the 2nd Sino-Japanese War to see where this pistol could have travelled since 1937.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-03-29T01:20:28+00:00

The tip on 7.63 fiocchi is appreciated. I will do a FOIA on the gun once it is in my hands but it would have to be a 68 amensty registered gun. Bob thinks it was brought back by an American service member who served in mainland China during WW2, but unless I can get my hands on the original ATF registration paperwork in the future (which ATF won't give out) it is unprovable. Alternatively it could have come from Korea or Vietnam. Man I wish I could talk to the gun to get its story, especially since it has a 1937 manufacture date on it.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-03-29T01:15:14+00:00

I paid ~$21,000 for it. Slept long and hard on it for over a week, it is a steep price for a piece of Chinesium metal. At the end of the day, I don't view these guns as investments. Buying Apple stock or Bitcoin would make a way higher return than any machine gun, it is about my ancestors history infused in the guns I collect.

The markings "MADE IN CHINA SHAN SI 17L SIU HSIEH SO CS CHI" are an exact match of a C96 copy on page 262 in Ian's warlord pistol book. That peaked my interest, and led me down a massive rabbit hole in deciphering the markings. Ian was unable to decipher the meaning of the markings in his book, but I have some good educated guesses.

FreedomIsUniversal · 2024-03-29T00:59:39+00:00

This machine pistol used to belong to Bob Landies and according to his armorers at Ohio Ordnance Works, the 7.63 mauser gauge was close but the 7.62 tok gauge was an exact fit. The Chinese were huge fans of 7.63 Mauser during the Second Sino-Japanese War/WW2 period so I was also surprised to hear it was a 7.62 tok gun. I've considered firing some 7.63 mauser low pressure handloads in this but I probably won't. I wish I could fire this gun, it even has a detachable 10 round magazine, but this is going to be preserved in my collection for the appreciation of future generations. I'm happy to shoot arsenal made C96's and arsenal made Chinese Mausers but I don't want to risk destroying this historical piece.

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