When you pack several different rifles in to the same crate, this is what you find when you open it. - This is not in the Inventory - They've been breeding again haven't they

Imagine going to Ethiopia and finding a handmade "Chinese Mystery Bayonet" that fits this perfectly.

Me: Scoffs at the crudity of the rifle. Also me: Can’t even make a P80 correctly using the jig it came with. Gotta give them credit for putting together a weapon that appears to function. It’s clear someone put a lot of time into that.

Whoever cobbled this together has some skill, even if it's a bit unrefined. Not bad for something made in someone's spare time.

This is basically the hunting rifle from any post-apocalyptic game

This rifle was one of several abandoned by the Elbonian Embassy guards stationed in Addis Abbaba. They bugged out when their promised provisions and guard salary was not paid for several months.

Whoever made this actually tried to make the Vetterli betterli

“This is…..this is not even a thing”

This strongly reminds me of the bolt-action AK clone that came from the Khyber Pass which Ian also filmed. Same sort of "we need it to look like the cool good thing" design philosophy.

So Ian, on that note... We have a book on Chinese mystery pistols. When are you going to write a book on Ethiopian mystery rifles? Seems like there's plenty of material for you to cover and I think it'd be really neat to have it all catalogued in one book. If nothing else the information should be preserved for posterity, you never know when some document, worker, relative, or other source of information might pop up that can reference back to the book like "Aha! So THAT's what that was!"

“Who is the manufacturer of this firearm?” “Yes.”

I do love these oddities, so many almost-but-not-quite right features, and they all look like they were made by someone with a box of spare parts and a file.

"Is it a Mauser? Is it a Vetterli?" "Is gun." "Well, yes, I know that, but what sort of gun is it?" "Is gun. Rifle gun." "OK, fine, it's just a gun. What does it fire?" "Bullet." "Black powder? Smokeless powder? What caliber?" "Bullet. It shoots bullet." "Thanks for your help."

Don't let the Chap on the Range see this, it could severely upset him.

Probably a parade rifle... Kinda like "Don't attack us, behold, we have several rifles!" :))

Who knew that Elbonia was in the arms exporting business?

Morning everyone. Hey Ian.

A whimsical part of me imagines this thing turning out to be an absolute tack driver...😎

It's feels like whoever sold these to interarms first cobbled together as many "functional" or functional looking rifles and threw them in crates.

Having never known much about Ethiopian small arms, the Ethiopian Oddities series has become one of my favorites on the channel

It must have worked if it still around. This was carried by someone who REALLY needed a rifle.

Gotta say,I love how creative Ethiopians poachers are getting

New Genre: Ethiopian Mysterty Rifles

I feel like there’s an alternate universe where this guy had access to much greater education and experience, and was able to make his name as a competent weapons designer or gunsmith

I’ll go with probably not Chinese because it’s not a mausermausermausermauser lol

I'm going to need this added to Hunt: Showdown immediately.

It looks like a accident waiting to happen it should come with warning

This is fascinating I love hand made one of a kind stuff like this makes me want to try my hand at it

Looks like someone at some point in time had an access to an armoury , and made this crude copy of Vetterli in order to steal a real one from a stockpile .

3:16 it uses the cartrige that you happen to have 😂

You know what someone was once thrilled to get that rifle and 20 rounds of ammunition because it meant they could now give up their sharpened bamboo Pike.

Gunsmith to his apprentice: "I want you to copy those four rifles for practice." Apprentice to himself: "Hey, maybe I can do it in a single run!"

Looks like a literally home-made replica, the kind that a decent craftsman could have made for their kids or something...

So, this looks like the Ethiopian version of a Khyber Pass gun

Ian: "This is not even a thing." Rifle: T_T

I couldn't really pinpoint an exact reason why, but I feel like if Tommy Wiseau designed a rifle it would be this one

This is one of those times when I wish guns could talk (or we had a magic-user to cast Legend Lore on it!)...I bet this has an amazing story to tell.

Could you imagine if someone ordered a Vetterli from RTI and got this thing.

Future Forgotten Weapons: Ian uses a mass spectrometer and other gear to examine the metallurgy in order to deduce where the parts originated based on trace elements and a tracking database of exemplar barrels, bands, receiver parts, etc. Similarly, he determines that the stock came from country A, but the wood plugs came from country B.... ;-)

I remember reading The Sand Pebbles and there was a part where Jake was handed a rifle to stand guard on a boat going up the Yalu River. He said he wasn't sure how it worked.

Reminds me of the Johnny Cash song "One Piece At A Time" except with gun parts, and some handcrafting to fill in parts the maker couldn't get hold of.

I love these oddities, they are so interesting to look at but sometimes kinda painful to look at from an basic engineering/gunsmithing point of view.

Funny how he dry fires the rifle repeatedly when it's a piece of crap, but not whenever it's a halfway decent rifle. Kia kaha, stay strong.

While watching this I have an interesting "study" concept.....Inspired by the What Would Stoner Do idea, and maybe even What Would Kalishnikov Do.......and It is "What Would Mauser Do. Think a Mauser inspired "Practical Bolt Action Rifle". My thoughts would be an intermediate caliber(probably a relatively large bore 6.5, 7, 7.62 or 8.59mm), short barrel (

I'll bet you there was a bayonet that just got lost at some point in time. I think anyone smart enough to build that rifle by hand could also make a matching bayonet to go on the lug

Dude. That’s nuts!

Most of the comments already here seem to be in agreeance of this: it's starting to look like Ethiopian Mystery Rifles are totally a thing, and "someone" should probably write a book or something...

It might be chambered in 7.65 Mauser, judging by the magazine. A rimmed cartridge would have more of a curve I think.

Guns like these are perfect for alternatehistory shows

To think l was hoping this was going to get better... well that's what made it a good video.

looks like the receiver had a squared off part in the back of the ejection port at some point, maybe an attempt at a stripper clip guide?

I’d love to see the rifling in this junker of a rifle. If it even has any…

An interesting gun to be sure! Oh what stories it could till....

It's entirely possible that someone had a bunch of unrelated parts and resolved to put them together into something that could be used.

Identifying the wood used might give some information on the origin. So would the isotope analysis of the metal parts. (My bet would be that most of them wouldn't match to each others...)

First mention of the rifle. "This is not even a thing."

“Fake it till you make it “

I love how he calls it "this..thing.."

WOW that thing looks like a trip to the hospital in ambulance

I mean if it was originally chambered in 10.4mm I can see why they would want to change it over to something they had. Maybe it's a bunch of parts someone had lying around and just cobbled together?

If I made that in my basement with hand tools I would be pretty proud of myself. Even more so if it actually worked. I was hoping you would disassemble the bolt so we could learn if the safety is actually just broken, or was it truly non-functional? Regarding the caliber, with the understanding it might not actually be in any caliber and just created to make someone think it is a gun, cerrosafe the chamber. Who knows, maybe it is .300 Savage or .30 Remington, won't know till a casting is taken. Does the bolt even have a firing pin?

Almost reminds me of something from the Kyber Pass area.

That definitely qualifies as a “forgotten weapon”

It would be interesting to hear what a wood expert would say about the kind of wood that the stock is made of.

8x52R/x50R maybe? If I choose any superpower, it would be the ability it put my hands on any milsurp and see it's life story

Wauser pistols and Vauser rifles; Exploring what could have been

Great episode...the Ethiopia rifles are so interesting. Can you please do a episode on a Italian Vetterli Model 1870/87/15 from Ethiopia (the Carcano 6.5 caliber)? You've never done a 1870/87/15 episode and I would love to get the history about the rifle and how they ended up getting to Ethiopia.

Maybe some gun enthusiast scientist will offer his services and examine a wood sample and determine the type of tree used for the stock might narrow things down a little.

Did you take the stock off? I know we had those mystery screws, but it might tell a lot more by what's under there.

So this is like a multi-caliber rifle. With a equal opportunity to explode with all of the calibers.

That gun is like my cooking. It's not really anything, yet sorta a bit of everything.

Whats the locking system? The bolt handle & stock?

I wonder what kind of funky proof markings lay under the wood, if any.

When you want to make a fire truck but the front is Legos and the back is Tyco Super Blox.

For some reason, I love these handcrafted "firearms"..😄💥

Front sight protector and front end look to be patterned off the Polish wz 29.

Wauser! What a unique firearm!

This may have been the first gun made by Bear Creek Arsenal .

Keeping in line with Ethiopia's weird and bizarre gun history.

Apparently the world does run on Dunkin...

4:59 I have a feeling "standard" was not in this man's vocabulary

I think the safety thing might work like the nagant and have to be pulled back then turned.

These rifles must be from another dimension.

In terms of odd ways that rifles travel. My mosin nagant was made in Russia in 1943. Finished the war. Re-arsenaled in the mid 60's near as I can figure. Was crated till the USSR fell. Sold to the American importer. Uncrated. Cleaned and marked with a new serial number and importer mark. Put back in a different crate. Shipped to Australia. Then sold to me on the opposite side of the country some time later. It's been some places. So I wouldn't be surprised if that was a Chinese knock off that somehow got thrown in with an order headed for Ethiopia

This is the Mauser we "have back home."

So you're saying the groves on a Mauser Bayonet lug are Deep and Crisp and Even? I suddenly feel Christmassy.

So... Ethiopian Bubba decided to build his own Mauser by hand, out of whatever parts he could scrounge up, with only a bunch of catalog pictures for reference. The result is honestly impressive.

I would love to see it fire a round, just to see if it could

Looks like a Bannerman special

Is there any connection to Bannerman or the Elbownians?

This was clearly a WWauser 3319/¿& production rifle exported to ethiopia

What an oddball!

A chimera of weapons.

So... a new book in process of being written?

As an ethiopian who is a descendant from soldiers in that period to explain for future videos warriors/ soldier’s preferred to shoot at close ranges like 50 yrs or less to make sure u got a clean shot and that it was a kill to conserve ammo cuz good ammo was so precious that it was used a currency a lot of the time so thats why they removed sights as such groups tended to prefer to soften up target with several rounds into a group of enemies then sling their various rifles on their backs to go in for the kill and preceded to go with melee weapons for 3 reasons 1 ease of using them 2 confirming the kill 3 to mutilate ur enemy preferably alive and bring back severed body parts as war trophies ( usually castration ) to brag to their families and communities that they were a really solider and not a “soft heart coward who was sitting around being lazy weak like a woman “

Is it an ostensibly functional firearm, or could it just be a toy, or replica made for play/display? The back sight is so cargo cult that I cannot imagine anyone who knew the remotest thing about firearms building something like that as a functional part.

Wow some guns can have such stories

Ok this is really cool this is the kind of thing that interests me about these Ethiopian rifles. It kinda reminds me of the savage model 40 super Sporter 30-06 🤣

I think there was an Ethiopian working in the armoury whose hobby was making frankenrifles!

Any cartridges with mud as gunpowder in the crates? If so I guess this must be some Elbonian surplus.