Mexico’s President for nearly 30 years, Porfirio Diaz was very interested in modernizing the Mexican Army. He invested in new artillery, magazine guns, and small arms – such as the Mondragon semiautomatic rifle. In addition, Mexico tested the Luger pistol circa 1903-1905. They found it to be quite satisfactory, and appear to have been interested in purchasing them for artillery and cavalry use, but never followed through – presumably political or monetary problems prevented doing so (and Diaz was removed from power by 1911). Mexican property Lugers are extremely rare, as only a small number were purchased for testing. They can be identified by an “EJERCITO MEXICANO” mark engraved on the left side (done in Mexico, not by DWM). They are otherwise standard Old Model Lugers, in 7.65mm, with the typical traits such as dished toggles and a flat leaf mainspring.
Machine pistol
Trejo Model 1 Machine Pistol at James D Julia
The Trejo pistols were made by a small family company in Puebla, Mexico from the late 1940s until the early 1970s. They made primarily .22 LR rimfire pistols, in both small (Model 1) and large […]
Uncategorized
Fusil Mexico – One More Set of Photos
You may recall the Fusil Mexico from our initial post or followup – it is the interesting slide-action rifle that showed up at a Denver gun show a few months ago. Well, the owner has […]
Semiauto Rifles
M1908 Mondragon Semiauto Rifle at RIA
The M1908 Mondragon is widely acknowledged to have been the first self-loading rifle adopted as a standard infantry arm by a national military force. There are a couple earlier designs used by military forces, but […]