Reborn in America, I am a legendary short seller on Wall Street.

Chapter 222 The Type 92 Pistol "Vanguard"

Once back at the Astor Hotel and inside Larry's suite, Mr. Dunbar said to Larry mysteriously,

"This is suspicious. I clearly saw the injured person just now. He only hurt his shoulder. How could he have died for no reason?"

Larry paused for a moment before nodding and saying, "If that's the case, then it is indeed very strange. The injured assassin was under police protection the whole time; it's impossible for anyone to have come in and killed him to cover it up."

Mr. Dunbar turned to Larry and said slowly, "If it's someone from within the police force, then it's possible."

Larry's gaze sharpened again, but he couldn't help asking, "How could this happen? This is an innocent disaster for us."

Mr. Dunbar gave a cold smile, looked around, and pointed to the ground beneath his feet.
"The Astor family, aha, who knows what happened to them?"

Larry remained silent, only recalling the situation he had just encountered, his mind replaying the scene in his mind.

Mr. Dunbar sat on the sofa, somewhat restless. After a while, he suddenly stood up.
"No, Larry, I'm still not at ease. I need to find a couple of guns. I feel very unsafe without guns on hand."

Larry thought so too, and he stood up as well. “You’re right, let’s go to the gun shop and buy two guns together.”

In New York City at that time, buying a gun was extremely difficult. New York has always had strict gun control, so it was not as easy to buy a gun as in other cities.

However, Larry thought that the gun shop owners wouldn't turn down money and would definitely help them find a solution.

The two reached an agreement and were just about to tidy their clothes and go out to buy a gun when they heard the phone in the suite start ringing.

Larry frowned, glancing suspiciously at the phone in the room, but still took a few steps forward, grabbed the phone with both hands, and asked, "Hello, who is it?"

"This is the front desk. Are you Mr. Livingston? A man named Matthew... Mr. Matthew Browning is here to see you. Would you like to see him?"

“Oh, that’s my brother, tell him to come up right away!” Larry hung up the phone and said to Mr. Dunbar, “No need to rush to buy the gun, Matthew’s here!”

Upon hearing this news, Mr. Dunbar smiled with relief and muttered, "Oh, now I can see his pistol. I really hope it fires..."

Larry turned to look at Mr. Dunbar, a smile appearing on his face for the first time that day. "It's definitely a unique handgun."

Shortly after, there was a knock on the door, and after Larry called out, the door was opened.

Matthew's slightly melancholy and pale face appeared by the door.

"It's a pleasure to meet you both!" Matthew smiled at the two of them.

“It’s nice to see you too.” Larry sat on the sofa without moving, his hands outstretched, giving him a helpless look.

Matthew sensed something was off. He came in carrying a suitcase and then closed the door.

"What's wrong? You two look so listless." Matthew smiled, but his eyes were fixed on the two of them.

Larry and Mr. Dunbar exchanged a glance and recounted the incident they had just encountered.

As Matthew listened to Larry's account, a look of surprise and lingering fear appeared on his face, and he sighed.
"Thanks to your vigilance, otherwise you would have been affected too."

Mr. Dunbar sat upright on the armchair and beckoned to Matthew. "Where's your pistol? Your pistol that's supposedly capable of changing the course of history? I've been wanting to see it for ages. Now, I'm going to have it whether I want it or not."

A smile appeared on Matthew's face, and he placed the leather case he was carrying on the table and opened it. "M1892 pistol, uh, its full name is the Vanguard Pistol..."

Larry muttered to himself, "Why is it Vanguard again?" He then took two steps forward and looked down at the pistol in the briefcase.

This pistol isn't particularly beautiful, but it's very simple and elegant. At this moment, it lies quietly in the suitcase, possessing a primitive, ancient mechanical beauty.

Mr. Dunbar frowned and stood in front of the suitcase. When he saw the strange-looking pistol, his confusion deepened.

"Is this the pistol you were talking about? It doesn't even have a magazine?"

“No, no! To be honest, this is a hand-polished gun, designed by my brother himself. What do you think? Isn’t it beautiful?” Matthew said with a smile.

Larry had seen many beautiful handguns in his previous life, but with this slightly strange handgun placed in front of him, he couldn't say whether it was good or not, but he still nodded heavily and said...

"It looks really good; it has a simple yet powerful feel to it."

Matthew was waiting for praise, so he turned to Mr. Dunbar, waiting for him to praise him as well.

Mr. Dunbar frowned and said, “If you think this pistol is nice, then I have no other opinion. The problem is that the gun looks too strange.”

Larry wanted to advise him that all pistols should be handled this way from now on, but he held back. Mr. Dunbar took two steps forward, carefully picked up the pistol, and placed it beside him, examining it closely.

Where do you load the bullets for this gun?

Matthew smiled, took the pistol from Dunbar, and pressed a button near the trigger on the grip, revealing the magazine inside the handle.

Mr. Dunbar was seeing an automatic pistol for the first time, and when he saw the magazine that had been ejected from the pistol, a look of astonishment appeared on his face.

"You mean you use this thing to load bullets?"

“Yes, that’s right.” Matthew waited for Mr. Dunbar’s face to return to calm before continuing.

“This method is very ingenious, but it’s not that no one has thought of placing bullets this way. But my brother took Larry’s advice and changed the bullets to be placed in a double-row staggered arrangement, and now this magazine can hold eight bullets.”

This time it was Larry's turn to be surprised. "No, you've all used staggered placement, how can the magazine hold eight bullets? What caliber pistol are you using?"

Matthew laughed and said, "A .32 caliber bullet, if converted to metric units, would be 7.65 millimeters. This is a 7.65×25mm Borchardt bullet."

Mr. Dunbar was unfamiliar with automatic pistols, but after looking at it, he handed it to Larry.

Larry held the dark, heavy thing in his hands, looking at it as Matthew explained.

It has a 7.65 mm caliber and uses a recoil mechanism, making its structure very simple and reliable.

The overall length of the gun is 192 mm, and the barrel length is approximately 185 mm. The unloaded weight is approximately 900 grams.

The sights are simple, fixed mechanical sights.

The M1892 "Pioneer" was the first pistol to employ the "slide" concept. The slide encloses the barrel and moves back and forth using the force of the recoil spring to complete actions such as ejection and reloading. This design made the pistol's structure more compact and its automatic action more reliable, far surpassing the complex and bulky automatic pistols of the same period.

What's especially thoughtful is that the back of the slide has anti-slip texture, making it easy for the shooter to manually pull back the slide to chamber a round or check for malfunctions.

The grip is made of hard rubber, but its angle and shape are carefully designed to fit the palm naturally and provide excellent pointing accuracy. When the shooter raises the pistol, its pointing accuracy is so good that aiming is almost intuitive.

This solved the problem of poor grip and difficulty in quick aiming that plagued many pistols of the time.

Following Matthew's explanation, Larry tried both one-handed and two-handed shooting modes, and indeed, as Matthew said, the ergonomics of firing the gun were excellent, and the aiming of the gun was also very good once he got the hang of it.

"Excellent, simple and easy to hold, truly a masterpiece," Larry exclaimed.

Mr. Dunbar looked at Larry suspiciously, as if he thought Larry's praise was a bit too much.

The safety of the gun is located on the left-hand side, making it very intuitive to operate.

In addition, this pistol uses a single-action firing mode. The first shot requires manually pulling back the slide to chamber a chamber and cock the hammer, after which pulling the trigger will fire. The exposed hammer allows the user to visually understand the pistol's status.

Larry nodded, thinking to himself, "This is the same Type 54 pistol I played with during my military training in my previous life."

Of course, it should be said that most of the mature handguns in later periods were similar in appearance and principle to Browning's handguns.

Browning's design is very classic, but due to the design concepts of the time, the shape of the gun is not very cool, but it is simple and practical, which is very good.

Larry is confident he can sell this gun!
Of course, this is just a prototype gun, and some modifications should be made later.

Larry handed the gun back to Mr. Dunbar and told him,
"Replacing a pre-loaded magazine is much faster than loading a revolver round by round, which is a huge advantage in life-or-death situations."

Mr. Dunbar also figured it out and imitated Larry's grip and preparation for firing. His intuitive feeling, deep down as a soldier, was that this was indeed a firearm that transcended its time.

“I think these things should cost at least $15 each,” Mr. Dunbar said, turning to Larry and Matthew.

Matthew smiled but didn't say anything, instead turning to look at Larry.

Larry frowned and exclaimed, "$15? How is that possible? I'd say $45 a bunch would be more like it."

Mr. Dunbar was also stunned. "$45 a gun? Who are you planning to sell it to? Who would be willing to pay $45 for this gun?"

"There will always be someone willing to pay the price. I personally think the US military is about right; they're willing to pay that money."

Larry smiled.

(End of this chapter)