mydeacs - San Cristobal 30 Carbine

Cost:

£275. +£20 p&p

Source:

Battleflag Militaria.

Deac Type:

Old Spec

Details:

San Cristobal .30 Carbine ( Early Spec ) The San Cristobal .30 carbine, was the first weapon produced by the Dominican Republic's Armeria San Cristobal Weapons Factory. The design was developed by Pal Kiraly, a hungarian engineer and was originally a copy of the hungarian 43M. Itself a copy of the Italian Beretta model 38/42 submachine gun. Over 200,000 examples was produced between 1950 to 1966.

This gun has the wrong magazine. I would have brought one from UKM with the correct magazine and without the name engraved into it for £298 + packaging.... ggrrrr but never mind. The magazine doesnt actually fit. The fact that it came with two of them doesnt make them fit any better, and the otherone didnt have a spring thing inside.

However, im still really happy with this gun. Its nice that it cocks and clicks and that its a sub machine gun, kind of one ot the first and looks like an evolution from the general rifle.

Apparently Fidel Castro used one to invade Cuba, but I guess he used quite a few guns along the way.

Its got two triggers, so I guess one was for full auto and the other was for targetted shots?

You can find out all sorts of stuff about the gun at the Wikipedia entry in the interwebs.

Theres also some more stuff on it here at some Hungarian site, you'll need to scroll down a bit.

What ive read about some of its origins the San Cristobal .30 Carbine was a gun made when mass production was still frought with errors and that hand craftsmanship was still important. At least thats what i read about the Italian version. I can just imagine that and if you look at the metal bits inside, especially the small fiddly bit you'll notice that its almost organic, like its been filed to tolerance. Basically i think they would make a gun and then test it and invariably make some modifications by hand to ensure it worked. However, as machining became more accuarate and mass production took over small factories like that San Cristobal one, im guessing, became unviable because the people of the Dominican Republic, in the 50's were still pretty agricultural. This is one of the reasons i got the gun, because you just dont hear of small countries making their own guns. These days most guns are from the big arms manufacturers, its just cheaper to buy stuff in rather than invest in domestic capability. Whilst there are loads of 'exotic' guns of this nature I just find it kind of refreshing to have something thats not an American M1 carbine, yawn yawn.

Picking this gun up is like taking a romp through a sugar plantation in the caribean looking for small countries to start revolutions in, you know, as you do.

Pictures:

Some pictures (click to enlarge):



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