The Baby Nambu and its importance to Ruger
The company that we know and love today as Sturm, Ruger got its start in a way from a certain Kijiro Nambu, who, in a twist of fate, was a Lieutenant General in the Imperial Japanese Army. Would you like to know more?
Who was Nambu?
He seems really fun at parties
Kijiro Nambu, born September 22, 1869 in Saga prefecture to a former samurai retainer of the Nabeshima clan, went off to the Imperial Army Academy at a young age. By 1897 Nambu was an Artillery Lieutenant assigned to the Tokyo Arsenal where he worked under a cat by the name of Nariakira Arisaka on a rifle that later became the standard for the Imperial Army.
In 1902 the 33-year old Nambu’s first solo project, his Type 4 (aka Type A) pistol, was finished and in the prototype stage. This recoil-spring single-action pistol with a thin fixed, low bore axis 4.61-inch barrel was very simple. It did however incorporate an automated grip safety under the very snug trigger guard and a range adjustable rear sight to maximize its accuracy.
In grip angle, it mimicked the Swiss-German Luger pistol although its caliber, the downright anemic 8x22mm Nambu round (yes, he invented that, too) with its 102-grain lead bullet, was underpowered. Still, the cartridge and the Type A pistol was adopted by 1903 and remained in service with the Japanese military through World War II.
Type 14
By 1906 the design had been changed to use a newer, more modern magazine (the original 8-shot magazine incorporated a wooded floor plate!), a widened trigger guard and other minor differences to include deleting the Also adjustable sights and grip safety. A final version in 1925, the Type 14 went into mass production and more than 400,000 were made, becoming the most common Japanese semi-auto pistol of all time.
This led to American collectors in later years to dub the original Type 4/Type A as the “Grandpa Nambu” while the modified improved Type 14 version was the “Papa Nambu.” This of course leads one to wonder, what about the Baby?
Enter the cute little Type B:
