How can the answer be improved? The Ortgies 7.65 mm pistol was a hammerless semi-automatic pistol produced in Germany in the years immediately after World War I, first by its inventor Heinrich Ortgies and then by Deutsche Werke.

The Ortgies is a pistol whose interested aspects are often overlooked on the assumption that it is just another identical.32 ACP blowback pistol. Well, it is that – but it is also more.

Mechanically, the Ortgies has a rather unusual grip safety mechanism that is quite different from what we expect to see today. It is also interesting in that the.32 and.380 versions differ only in the easily-interchanged barrel – even the magazines are marked for both calibers. However, the most interesting part of the Ortgies story (in my opinion) is its production. In less than 5 full years (1919-1923), close to a half million of these guns were made, primarily by an industrial subsidiary of the German government.

The guns were in large part a work program, creating export goods which could bring desperately needed hard currency into Germany to counteract the economic devastation of the Versailles treaty. Have a look at the video and you may come away with a newfound appreciation for the humble Ortgies, like I did! Examples in this video. “design of the H&K P7” In terms of placement P7 solution – element to squeeze in front – is similar to earlier German automatic pistol – Schwarzlose Model 1908: “Did the Germans have a thing for grip operated safeties?” Marinepistole Luger 04 has grip safety, but it was abandoned in Pistole 08, so they probably consider that as not necessary in military automatic pistol. On the other hand, on the other hand Swiss Luger in all iterations (1900, 1900/06, 1906/29) retained grip safety. Tajmer sekundomer so zvukovim signalom dlya sorevnovanij. In case of personal automatic pistol made in Germany I have no simple answer – some models of pistol have grip safety, other don’t have.