Yes, the Mandalorian actually carries a
Bergmann Model of 1894 - blaster - pistol. So, I've been actually planning to do a video
on guns that Star Wars props are based on, because virtually everything in especially
the original three Star Wars movies, they were all just like regular actual
guns with stuff glued onto them. Which is why like every time I have a video on anything vaguely
related to the Sterling, it gets called an E-11 blaster rifle. At any rate, I haven't gotten around to that
yet, but my hand has been kind of forced by the release of the first episode of The Mandalorian,
a TV program about a Mandalorian bounty hunter. And in this they make a fairly prominent use of a Bergmann
Model of 1894 pistol as the basis for the title character's sidearm. And it's a super cool gun. And so I've gotten a
bunch of comments from people asking about it, and so we're gonna go ahead
and take a look at that right now. Now right off the bat, the image that I have seen
floating around the internet a bunch, is this one. And what's funny to me is this
image is actually not quite right, because the top one, the Mandalorian's
pistol there, has actually been mirrored. So they're showing actually the left side of the prop
gun there compared to the right side of a real gun. And I think someone did it because that's the
only really good still frame they were able to get, and they wanted to mate it
up side-by-side to a real pistol. And by the way, that bottom pistol is a still image from my
video on the Bergmann No.1, the Bergmann Model of 1894. So ... I've tried to get a couple of still frames
that are a little bit better at showing this. One of the things that people point out about that original mirror
image thing is like, "Oh, they put a drill bit on the side of the gun." Well in actual fact the original Bergmann No.1s, or at least some
of them, like this one from the Swiss trials, had a cleaning rod stashed on the side of the gun with this interesting sort
of jag pattern that makes it look rather like a drill bit. Now the gun that I actually had hands on to
do a video didn't have that cleaning rod on it, but you can see it on the Swiss trials gun picture. So, they've actually not done all that much. This is kind of like Han Solo's blaster pistol in the original movies
where it was a C96 Broomhandle without all that much done to it. What they've actually done here is they've added a
muzzle cone, thing, to make it look bigger at the muzzle. They've added a new rear sight,
and it looks like they put like some ... not Picatinny rail, but like serrations on the top of the frame, sort of top of the slide. The Bergmann doesn't
have a slide per se, so it's just kind of the top ... of the gun. They put on a new rear sight to
match the front sight, not a bad idea. Interestingly they actually changed the hammer. They made the hammer look a bit
like the C96 Broomhandle hammers, as opposed to the original sort of sharp
pointed hammer that the Bergmann had. There is this semi-circular grasping
thing on the side of the Bergmann, and that's to open up the loading
port on the side of the gun. They got rid of that, they actually
replaced it with some sort of circular disc, decorative thing. ... From the pictures I've been able to see, you can't really
tell what it is. But they've kept sort of the circular motif, but they got rid of the big thumb
grasping bit that you use to open the gun. And then they changed up
the base of the grip of the gun. So originally all the Bergmann No.1s had this bird's
head grip with a lanyard ring on it, or lanyard loop on it. Instead in the TV series, in the Mandalorian, they
have kind of squared off the bottom of the grip. And the thing that it looks most like to me is actually
like the magazine floorplate off of an L-35 Lahti pistol. So, one of the things that I think some
people are going to be concerned about is, "Oh great, now a bunch of New Wave Star Wars
nerds are going to buy up all the Bergmann No.1s and cut them up to make Mandalorian pistols." Well, I can tell you with pretty much complete
confidence that that's not going to happen. There are extremely few Bergmann
No.1s, or Bergmann 1894s, still around. The one that I had in my video was serial number
14 and I doubt they made more than 20, if that many. This was really a prototype model. There was the
Bergmann No.2 in 1896 that really started serial production. They look similar but not quite the same,
and most substantially, they're a lot smaller. So if you're going to give the Mandalorian a service sidearm sort
of thing, you want a gun that's big enough to look impressive. The Bergmann No.2 is a little pocket pistol
that doesn't fit the role or the character. So I think it's really cool that whoever was doing the
weapon props for the Mandalorian picked this thing. It's big enough to look appropriate to the
part, I think it's a fantastic looking gun. And as you can see, it really doesn't take much to turn a
Bergmann No.1 into a pretty sweet looking Star Wars blaster pistol. So, one of the things about the Star Wars universe,
as I mentioned earlier on, is that virtually all of the guns in it are in fact based on real
actual firearms with bits glued onto them. So at some point I will go
ahead and do another video ... ... probably focusing on just the original first three
movies to begin with, because there's a ton of stuff. But just pointing out what they actually used, a
lot of the original movies are World War Two guns. So anyway that's coming but seeing a
ton of people talking about the Mandalorian, I thought it'd be fun to put up this little quickie
on the Mandalorian's Bergmann blaster pistol. Thanks for watching.
Yeah we get it
So regarding the "drill bit" cleaning rod, it's seem quite similar to the ones the FDF issue with RK rifles. You can twist rayon fiber around it for cleaning the barrel.
A great video, it answers all of the questions that have appeared in the comments both here and at a Star Wars subreddit and removes a ton of misconceptions in just a few minutes.
N U T
I knew it was some sort of antique pistol!
LuscasFilm continuing the tradition of basing blasters off of real weapons.