FLZ - Mako (Novelty Patent, Twite)

FLZ - Mako (Novelty Patent, Twite) 

With thanks to Eberhard for this pic:

With thanks to John G for these pics.

He said on the airgunbbs.com:

"[This pistol] dates to the 1920’s and was made by Langenhan. It was advertised in Germany as the “Mako Novelty Patent” air pistol, and in the UK by Clyde Bell as the “Twite”. It seems to be a very rare pistol and I know of only a handful in collections. A very nice boxed example is pictured in the Gallery here:  https://forum.vintageairgunsgallery....ite/#post-1504
This is from a Clyde Bell catalogue:

The cocking mechanism can be understood from the following pictures. The barrel is pushed into the cylinder until the piston engages with the sear, as in the second picture. The barrel is then pulled back out when it can be broken against a retaining spring detent and the dart or pellet is inserted, as in the third picture. The barrel is then closed and the gun is ready to fire.

The cocking principle has a lot in common with the Hubertus, except that with the Hubertus the pellet can be inserted into the breech before the barrel is returned. It raises the question, did this pistol inspire Jung when he developed his Hubertus?

The spring is quite strong and requires your full weight when cocking by pushing the barrel against floor. It has about the same power as a Gat but is more accurate to shoot.

One of the reasons I have been looking for one of these pistols is that I have owned an odd pistol for the past 20 years which Is clearly an early smaller version, and I wanted to put the two together. This earlier version, which seems to be the only known example, is shown here below the later model. It is in a rather tatty state but does work. Although no catalogue pictures of this specific version are known, one very similar is pictured in a 1907 German catalogue, and differs only in the barrel being rotated to load the pellet rather than broken. So if the design was around as early as 1907, then from a timing point of view it is quite feasible that Jung could have used it as a basis for his Hubertus design."

FLZ - Mako (Novelty Patent, Twite) 

With thanks to John G for the heads up.

FLZ? - Mako-type pistol 

With thanks to John G. He says:

Many years ago at the (now defunct) Nottingham arms fair I saw an interesting, small and somewhat battered pistol on Dennis Hiller's stall.  He had no idea what it was, and I certainly didn't, and the rest of the collecting fraternity there also had no suggestions.  As it had no markings and was in a pretty bad state, it came in for a lot of criticism and there were no buyers, even though the price was low.  I decided to take a gamble and bought it, more out of curiosity than anything else, and for a few years thereafter it sat in my collection largely ignored.  Then an example of the Mako Novelty Patent pistol appeared on the scene, and once I was made aware of its cocking and loading principle, I realised that my unknown pistol was just another version of the same.  Although it was smaller in size and differed significantly in cosmetic details from the Mako , it had an identical cocking and loading mechanism. Here are the two compared:

The design of their front sights also shows a close similarity:

 The hole you can see in the cylinder end-housing is not original and has been drilled by someone for some obscure reason.  There is a matching one on the other side.   I am confident that the smaller version of the two pistols is the older, and although it was always going to be lower in power due to its size, it has a heavier and more solid construction.

I have yet to see a catalogue listing of this diminutive version, and so far it is still the only known example. The only markings are DRGM in a small circle, as found on the normal Mako.

For those unfamiliar with the  cocking sequence, this is how it operates.  The barrel is pushed in to compress the spring and lock the piston against the sear, and is then pulled fully out, much as with the Hubertus pistol. However, unlike the Hubertus, the barrel can then be broken and a pellet inserted into the breech.