Everything for gangsters. Lebman gun
Here it is: Lebman’s pistol for gangsters!
“After the shootout, you sent them leg warmers.” With blood.
“I cut myself when I was shaving.”
“Have you shaved your leggings?”
- I sleep in leggings!
"Only girls in jazz"
“I cut myself when I was shaving.”
“Have you shaved your leggings?”
- I sleep in leggings!
"Only girls in jazz"
Weapon and firms. In the recently published "IN" material “From the Schnellfeuer Mauser and the PASAM submachine gun to the Norlite USK-G Standard” It tells about an attempt to turn the good old Mauser into a submachine gun, and the modern popular Glock into a carbine. The topic aroused the interest of the readership and will continue today. Continued by the story of attempts to turn some other, and very famous, samples of pistols into submachine guns.
"Parabellum" with a snail shop and a holster-butt
Interestingly, the beginning of such attempts was laid by the First World War. In 1914, in Germany, experiments were conducted on automatic firing of Parabellum pistols, which had an elongated barrel. It turned out that this is possible, but the barrel is greatly overheated, which can lead to a failure of the weapon. They stopped at this, since there was no special need for pistols firing in bursts.
“Luger artillery” - that was the name of this model, and it was a truly impressive weapon, albeit a very bulky one. The first 15 rounds of ammunition in the store could still be charged manually, but then you could not do without a special device!
In 1914, a variant of the Steyr pistol M1912 with an extended magazine for 16 rounds was developed in Austria-Hungary. Prior to this, an eight-shot magazine equipped with a clip was used on it. Based on this model, in the summer of 1916, they began to produce a modification of the M12 / P16 mod. 1916, which could shoot bursts, however, all 16 rounds of ammunition were shot in this way in just a second. The pistol was equipped with an original removable wooden holster-butt, and 9873 pieces were fired. They were armed with assault units of the Austro-Hungarian army and pilot-observers of airplanes. There was even an attempt to create ... a twin firing device of two such pistols with a rigidly fixed butt, but things did not go further than experiments with him.
But this is the standard army “Shteyr”, which participated in two world wars and demonstrated such high reliability that it was produced until 1957!
Although it was charged from a clip - like a rifle!
In Germany, in 1917, engineer Friedrich Blum designed a drum magazine TM.08 (Trommelmagazin 08) for 32 rounds, which could be used in Parabellum pistols. A pistol with a TM.08 magazine and a stock holster was designated as P.17. He also had a translator for firing bursts and as such was used as a weapon of the assault groups of the German army. In the last years of World War I, this pistol was produced in an amount of approximately 144000 copies, so both he and the snail store became quite well known.
In the photo, the loading process of the P.17 pistol with the TM.08 magazine attached
And here is the “Steyr” M1912 with an extended magazine ...
And he is with a butt!
The same "paired" sample!
But after the end of the war, many of these pistols were destroyed, and the barrels of the remaining ones were shortened and put on sale. A number of exporting firms took advantage of this, which in the 1920s began selling these pistols in the United States. Stoeger & Co. did this in New York and Pacific Arms Corporation in San Francisco. "Stoger" generally became the official trademark with the name "Luger" in the USA, and since 1929 it even began to stamp the following inscription on the receiver of its pistols: "GENUINE LUGER - REGISTERED US PATENT OFFICE". Having a long barrel, they were distinguished by good accuracy, but they could not shoot in bursts, although, in principle, nothing particularly interfered with converting them for automatic firing.
A soldier of the patchwork empire, armed with an automatic Shteyr ...
This time in America was ... hard! "Prohibition" reigned in the country. Alcohol was a deficit, but there were more weapons than ever, moreover, very different and modern. The police caught bootleggers, shot at them, and the bootleggers shot back at the police. On February 14, 1929, a massacre occurred on Valentine's Day, when during a criminal showdown between gangs of bootleggers, seven people were shot from Thompson submachine guns. It was this submachine gun with stores for 50 and even 100 rounds that became at that time the favorite weapon of many American gangsters who were ready to give any money for it. Moreover, even more than a large caliber of 11,43 (the famous "45th") did not suit some of them, and they especially ordered themselves submachine guns for .50 caliber - a weapon absolutely phenomenal in terms of lethal force. And Thompson was good for everyone, except for one - too much weight and size!
And there was a man in America who decided to make something more compact and equally powerful on the basis of the Colt 1911A1 pistol, the favorite semi-automatic pistol .45 caliber used by the US armed forces in the First World War. This man's name was Hyman Saul Lebman (referred to as Lehman in some documents), he was a saddle master and gunsmith in San Antonio, Texas. He did both to order for Texas athletes, oil workers and herders, and he lived very well. In 1933, he met a couple of charming young people who needed effective weapons that possessed increased firepower.
"Colt" M1905. In total, about 6000 were released. To increase the accuracy of shooting, a holster could be attached to this gun as a stock!
And he did not know that his clients were the notorious gangsters John Dillinger and Baby Nelson, who represented themselves as wealthy Texas oil workers, which, however, was quite enough for him.
John Dillinger (top) and George Baby Nelson (bottom)
They were already the main criminals at the top of the list of the most wanted people by the FBI. But the gunsmith didn’t even know about it. They even visited Lehman's house and dined with his family.
Well, Lebman did not think for a long time, but took the “Colt M1911A1” and turned it into something completely new, namely into a compact submachine gun. First of all, he redid the trigger for fully automatic fire. Now the good old Colt could shoot at a speed of 1000 rounds per minute. It is clear that the standard store, which housed only seven rounds, was not suitable for such firing. And he added, firstly, a compensator on the barrel, which made the barrel lower when firing, and secondly, provided it with an elongated magazine of a larger capacity, which now contained 18 rounds!
Thompson's submachine gun was good for everyone, but it was very bulky, so disguising it in a bag with golf clubs was not so easy! Shot from the movie "Only Jazz in Jazz"
Directly below the barrel was the front handle of the Thompson M1928 submachine gun with finger grooves. Now it was possible to hold a weapon with both hands at once, making it much easier to control it. Some of the ordered pistols were made to the caliber .38 Super Automatic. This cartridge, created in 1929, was similar in size to .45ACP, but it fired a 9 mm caliber bullet, so if 45 rounds were placed in the .18ACP Colt store, then this one is already 22.
.45 ACP cartridge (left) versus .32 ACP
In the end, five pistols were made, then they were sold to Nelson, whom Lebman knew under the pseudonym James Williams.
Already in 1934, during the massacre in Little Bohemia in Wisconsin, Nelson used a .38 Super 1911 S / N14130 pistol in a shootout with police and shot one and wounded two policemen! A second gun was discovered later at Dillinger. Another was found in Lebman’s store on 111 South Flores Street, in 1935, after a gang sent him to a gunsmith ... for repair.
As soon as the New Bohemia pistol was discovered, the FBI immediately tracked the serial numbers of the other pistols and turned on Lebman, who was charged with violating the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 and the Texas State Arms Act. In August 1935, he was sentenced to five years in Texas, but the sentence was quashed because the district judge made a mistake in processing court documents. The second trial was already held in a jury, which he acquitted of his verdict.
And this is what Lebman ended up with!
Today Lebman and his weapons are almost forgotten. One pistol found in his store has been in the FBI Museum since 1943. The rest are in various museums and private collections. Lebman himself worked for a long time, until the 1970s, and even became an expert at Monarch Gun in California. He retired due to Alzheimer's disease, and died in 1990, having survived both Nelson and Dillinger for more than half a century.
His son, Marvin, a former lawyer, wrote in an article for the newspaper “My San Antonio” that his father did nothing but sell weapons to men in handsome suits and hats. Like this! Just a business, nothing more!
“It was an honest business from which we did not make any secrets. We were half a block south of City Hall, and half a block north of the police department. Across the street from the district sheriff’s office. “We constantly sold something to our policemen, and worked with them more often than with anyone else.”
By the way, the Lebman store after his death did not close immediately, but in 1995.
Replica Lebman Pistol
And now let's add a description of all these events, taken from a modern work of art:
“... took something not yet seen in this world. He did it for him - Les had a few of them, and he even presented one as a present to Johnny; so a loyal supporter gives the cardinal some trifle as a keepsake, a talented gunsmith from San Antonio. Fully automatic pistol, standard .45 Colt “Colt”, full-time weapon of law enforcement officials, but with minor improvements on the inside, thanks to which one pull of the trigger fired all cartridges in a three-second burst. Because the gun fired so fast, it required a lot of ammunition, so Mr. Lebman, a San Antonio gunsmith, carefully cooked several magazines together so that they contained eighteen rounds of AKP caliber .45 the size of a robin egg each. The longer the trigger was held down, the stronger the recoil increased, and the tenth to eighteenth bullets should have been wasted in the sky - however, Lebman thought this over too. He equipped the gun with a Cutts muzzle compensator and an additional vertical handle from the Thompson in the front: the compensator struggled with the muzzle being lifted up, the front handle offered a second hand carved piece of wood with recesses for the fingers to withstand the very same muzzle departure. ”
(Stephen Hunter, The Shooter novel.)
PS The author is sincerely grateful to Mr. Wildket for his help in preparing this material.
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