This is an extremely rare Chinese experimental rifle. The rifle was designed by General T.F. Liu in 1918 at the Hanyang Arsenal, China and was manufactured on a contract basis by the Pratt & Whitney firearms factory in Hartford, Conn. The rifle is accompanied with documentation from a legal firm in Hartford, CT., stating that the rifle was retained by a trustee of the estate of the Pratt & Whitney Company until it fell into receivership. The rifle was manufactured as a Prototype and was probably intended for subsequent field trials and testing in China but was never turned over to them due to the take over by the Communists. The rifle itself is straight pull design similar to the Schmidt-Rubin or Ross rifles. It has a one-piece bolt carrier/cover mechanism that cocks the rifle each time it's fired and has an internal box magazine that appears to hold approximately 5-6 rounds. The front barrel band is a single one piece design that has a bayonet lug on the bottom, but the most interesting thing is that it has a detachable, machined barrel shroud that has a two position setting on it that may function as a muzzle break. The only markings on the rifle are serial #4 behind the rear sight base and a series of Chinese characters that are marked from left to right across the receiver ring and a partial yellow label in front of the trigger guard that is marked "CHINA". The rear sight is marked on the side of the base for 400-2000 yards. The rifle is 100% beautifully machined on the parts and it has deep rust blued finish. The wood is the traditional deep dark American walnut. The buttplate has a sliding trap-door that holds a four section cleaning rod.

Near mint and in unfired totally original condition. There is 99% plus original rust blued finish and the wood as noted is a beautiful deep, dark American walnut in the same exceptional original condition. Mechanically excellent. This rifle is obviously one of a kind and would be well worth additional research. A truly extraordinary example of a unique American manufactured early production semi-automatic rifle that writer feels could not be improved upon.