Public Enemies .38 Super Machine Pistol

[Nyles]

Been meaning to post this for awhile, finally have time. The two most recent issues of Man At Arms For The Gun Collector have some interesting information about Dillinger's Super 38 machine pistol. I'll type out the relevant sections:

From the article "The Pre-WWII Colt Super .38 Automatic", in Volume 31 No.3:

The "Roaring Twenties" were partially symbolised by the Thompson submachine gun and the Colt automatic pistols, which were being used by mobsters from Chicago to New York. Recognizing the need for greater firepower, police departments in Burlington, Vermont, St Louis, Missouri and Escanaba, Michigan, started buying Colt Super 38 pistols. The ability to penetrate car bodies and bulletproof vests became important and did not go unnoticed by the infamous gangsters of the 1930s - John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Homer Van Meter, and many others. Dillinger and Nelson had saddle maker and gunsmith Harold Lebman of San Antonio convert Colt pistols into fully automatic submachine guns complete with extended magazines and Thompson foregrips.

Colt's engineering department submitted similar design prototypes, in both .38 Super and .45ACP calibers, to the US Government for consideration as military weapons.

So apparently Baby Face Nelson had his own machine pistol, not just Dillinger. Also, the magazine has a picture of one of the Colt-made machine pistols. It has a detachable stock similar to the style used on the Artillery Luger, a fairly straight wooden foregrip and a simple compensator, and a very long magazine. Most interestingly, it has a change lever on the right hand rear of the slide.

Volume 31 No.4 has an even more interesting letter to the editor:

This letter concerns your article in Vol. 31 No.3, 3009, pages 34-43...espescially the paragraph in the center of page 35. (The text in question noted that gangsters "Baby Face" Nelson and John Dillinger had gunsmith Harold Lebman convert their Colt Super 38 pistols into fully automatic submachine guns complete with extended magazines and Thompson foregrips - Editor)

My father was Hyman S. Lebman (his name was not Harold, as quoted in the article), and I worked with him from the time I was 10 years old (1937) until he developped Alzheimers in 1976. He passed away in 1990. He told me many stories about the customers who he later found out were John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson. He thought they were charming, wealthy, oil men who were interested in guns, and even invited them to his house for his wife to make them dinner when I was about 3 or 4.

Our shop had a firing range in the basement, and when he was experimenting with a model 1911 on full automatic, the 3rd or 4th round went off directly over head, through the floor, and I was visiting above at the time. It scared him so much tha he invented and installed a compensator on the muzzle to control the recoil. At one time much later, when I was visiting Washington, DC, I made an appointment with the FBI, and they were happy to bring out their collection of my dad's guns for me to see.

Sincerely, Marvin Lebman

[Gunmaster45]

Very interesting. The lever on the right side of the slide is the selector switch, BTW.

But I'm glad we found out Nelson had his own machine pistol, that's good info for the page.

[Nyles]

I'm not an idiot GM. Change lever is just a non-American term for selector switch.

[Gunmaster45]

Well then I'm an idiot because I didn't know that.

[Excalibur]

Originally Posted by Nyles

I'm not an idiot GM. Change lever is just a non-American term for selector switch.

What do you mean non American? I know a British paratrooper and I've never heard him say change lever

[Gunmaster45]

Well British and Canadian are different non-Americans. I assume that has something to do with it.