Hello bajtársak and fellow forumdwellers
The Shanxi Type 17 pistol is a rather unusual design for its time, originating from the Shanxi province, China. Though externally it looks only a little unordinary Mauser clone, which were common in the 1920s and 30s, but the .45 acp cartridge choice was unique to it in all of China.
The story of the Type 17 Shanxi began in 1911 with the collapse of the Manchu government and end of the Qing era in China, what should have been a quick transition to modernisation and the industrialisation of China turned into a four decades long gruelling civil war, known as the Warlord era.
The Warlord era is characterised by constant turmoil, shifting alliances and endless skirmishes and battles. Throughout the conflict more than a 100 different warlords with varying degrees of military past are allying themselves in numerous cliques in a long struggle for power.
Battles could range from only a few hundred men with cold weapons clashing to hundreds of thousands of soldiers with rifles, machine guns and artillery over many kilometers of frontline.
At this time in history was an enlightened warlord, Yan Xishan, a benevolent dictator who had become the warlord controlling the Shanxi province (located in northern China). He had modest resources and weak power, compared to other warlords however he cared more for his people than furthering his own rule.
comically accurate summary of the warlord era
Xishan’s rule focused on modernisation and maintaining neutrality whenever possible and when not, he used political maneuvering to maintain the balance of power in the region.
Under his rule the Taiyuan arsenal greatly expanded in both terms of production power and quality, some even claim that at some point the Taiyuan arsenal may have been the only one in China capable of producing modern machine guns and artillery.
At this time China had many millions of people but little industrial capacity and a poor economy with little purchasing power, something that should have been solved by the end of the first world war which flooded the global market with millions of cheap war material, however in 1919 an embargo was placed on war material and weapon shipments to China, preventing rifles, machine guns and other guns from getting in.
However much to the delight of Mauser, FN, Astra and other arms manufacturers, pistols were exempt from the ban thus pistols and pistol calibre carbines could be freely exported to Chinese warlords.
The most popular of them all was the Mauser C96, the long barrel and the high velocity cartridge made it a well liked rifle substitute.
The Chinese market was hysterically in love with the Mauser design, so much so that far more clones of the C96 were imported or produced in China than what Mauser had actually produced.
The Type 17 Shanxi “Boxcannon”
The Type 17 as the name suggests, was adopted in the 17th year of the Republic (1928 Anno Domini). The cartridge choice is rather unusual, the .45 acp is a mostly American thing and the market of .45 acp guns was limited to the American continent.
The “standard” in China at the time was the 7.63x25 mauser, however the the adoption of the .45 acp was a pragmatic choice in Shanxi since its troops already wielded the locally produced Shanxi Thompsons (1921 model clone) in .45 acp.
It simply made sense to standardise on the .45 acp, however the Chinese were so in love with the Mauser broomhandle that instead of adopting a US pistol in .45, Taiyuan arsenal upscaled the C96 to chamber it into the substantially larger .45, otherwise it is mostly identical to the famous C96 we are familiar with.
The easiest way to tell the difference between a Type 17 and a C96 is by inspecting the magazine. The Type 17 still houses 10 rounds of ammunition inside the internal magazine which is considerably longer and comes well below the line of the trigger.
The Type 17 is also wider, otherwise its length, grip etc. stayed identical.
Mauser C96 on top and Shanxi type 17 on the bottom
The biggest upside of this gun is the high damage of the .45 while still retaining a large magazine, however unlike the C96, it is loaded with two clips instead of only one clip, making reloads significantly longer.
This suggestion is a compromise, Japan during the Sino-Japanese war had captured tens of thousands of C96 guns, originals and clones alike.
Originally it was proposed that Japan should also have the Mauser C96 available in the tech tree (currently available to Germany and Soviets), however to avoid copy pasting and to give Japan a unique handgun, the Type 17 would make far more sense.
- Yes
- No
sources
THE CHINESE SHANXI TYPE 17: A LOCAL WARLORD’S .45 CALIBER VERSION OF THE MAUSER C96 By Marc Gorelick
This ended up being way longer than I expected, thank you for your time and attention!
