Hamada Type pistol

The Hamada Type Automatic pistols were semi-automatic handguns developed from 1941 for the Empire of Japan during World War II. Bunji Hamada, owner of the Japanese Gun Manufacturing Company, a maker of civilian sporting guns, built them after the government ordered him to produce firearms for military use, which made his firm one of the few private suppliers of small arms to the Japanese military rather than a state arsenal. The design took its basic mechanism from the Browning Model 1910, replacing the barrel interrupter lugs with a dovetail joint. Two variants followed: the Type I in .32 ACP, with roughly 4,500 to 5,000 made until February 1944, and the larger Type II in the standard 8x22mm Nambu cartridge, with about 1,500 made from 1944 until the end of the war. Most were sent to Imperial Japanese Army units in China, production records were destroyed in air raids, and only a few dozen examples survive.