Or, if you were Polish cavalry, you’d run the hammer against your saddle. Then, when you needed to shoot it, you’d thumb the hammer back.
#Czech issue ortgies pistol manual#
The Polish manual of arms called for loading the pistol, chambering a round and then using the decocking lever to drop the hammer. The one below it on the frame is a takedown lever. That lever on the left side on the slide is a decocking lever. Here’s how you start taking apart the VIS35: Unload and then lock the slide back. Not a true German pistol, but used by the nation in World War II and a great collector's piece.Īs mechanically clever as that might be, I suspect that the vast majority of users during the European “fracas” carried it with the safety off-with an empty chamber-and racked the slide when they had need of a supply of. 32 ACP at the ready-and with a spare magazine buried in the full-flap holster, too. The lever pops up, and you’re ready to go. How do you get the safety off in order to fire it? You press the small button underneath the safety lever. The safety (as much as you’re willing to trust it) is on. Press it down until it clicks, and it’ll lock in place-but only when the hammer is cocked. That tiny, little lever that you see behind the trigger? That’s the safety. The interesting thing about the CZ 27 is the safety. However, it was made in large quantities (more than 450,000 during the war) and was issued to army and police units. With an eight-round magazine and all the throw-weight of the thundering. 32) with a complicated manufacturing process, but it was reliable, accurate and dependable. 32 pistol (for a long time, Europeans were really enamored of the. A lot of the second-line armored vehicles and many trucks were Czech, French, Polish and so on. When the Germans invaded a country, they usually kept the small arms and military-industrial production capacity of the conquered country up and running. From 1900 through 1945, around 3 million Lugers had been made. Where it was and what happened between 1945 (when it was probably snatched up by a GI in Germany) and my acquiring it, I have no idea. My Luger went to the Hildesheim Rural Police District, where it was inventoried and marked as weapon number 134. The author’s Luger was made without a date stamp on the chamber-because Germany was making more of them than the Versailles Treaty allowed. Mine also had a magazine disconnector, but those were all (or almost all) removed when the regulations were changed. The safety prevents firing when so (and incorrectly) disassembled. I’m not making this up! German police officers apparently did just this often enough to require a regulation and a design change. A bit of history and a warning: If you disassemble a Luger with a round in the chamber, it can remain cocked-and be fired in the disassembled state. As a result, it had the Weimar-required “police safety,” a modified sideplate with a spring clip on top. Mine wasn’t made for military use it was meant to be used as a police pistol.