Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on Forgotten Weapons. I am Ian McCollum.
And today we're going to take a look at a little tiny vest-pocket automatic pistol
Manufactured by SIG in Neuhausen. Now this is interesting for a couple of reasons
From a historical perspective, it is only the second automatic pistol manufactured by SIG.
Their first one was the 1894 'Mannlicher' blow-forward pistols in 6.5mm
Those had to be manufactured in Switzerland in order to be entered into Swiss military trials at that time
And then after that there would be a delay of like 25 years before SIG would get into another handgun and it would be this one
So because this thing's so tiny, you can't really see anything from back there; So let's bring the camera in closer right now.
The second thing that makes this really cool and the more cool thing, really, is this is the first of the trigger cocking pistols
This one's got some grease in it so the slide moves a little slowly there
But this is the first of the pistols that was manufactured where you could actually rack the slide using your trigger finger.
So, that's the trigger
That recocks the gun and chambers a new cartridge.
So the idea for this patent was from a Pole by the name of 'Vito Chylewski'
Who was living in Vienna, Austria and he came up with this idea.
This is a great way to be able to carry a pistol very safely with the chamber empty
In a pocket or whatnot and then be able to easily rack the slide with one hand using your trigger finger when you decide that you want to shoot
He came up with this idea well before World War One and he patented it in a variety of European countries
Between like 1910 and 1918, but it took him until after the war to find a company that was actually interested
And willing and capable of producing it and that company was SIG in Neuhausen.
So he did some negotiation with them
And they came to an agreement that sig would go ahead and make a thousand of the guns
And pay him a royalty on those guns
And then if it took off SIG would maintain the exclusive distributorship for the guns
in the entire world except for North and South America, and so obviously the hope was that they'd take off and you know become very popular
Well, there were problems in manufacturing apparently and the guns were not all that popular
And so by either 1921 or 1923; Sources vary
Apparently the deal kinda fell apart. The original thousand guns were actually made
But that was all, SIG didn't end up making use of its option to manufacture any more.
The patent rights fell back to Chylewski at that point and he would go on to take the gun and interest; First Bergmann and then Lignose
With this system and the guns would be made under both of those brand names, by both of those factories
With actually substantially more success than SIG originally had
So you'll see the Lignose guns around in a variety of configurations
Some of them have longer longer grips; They're available in both .25 and .32 caliber
Where the Chylewskis are pretty much all the same
There are a few variations; There are some with a little bit of a longer barrel
And there's some variety in the markings, which we didn't actually look at
The marking here is very very light
But it is "Société Industrielle Suisse Neuhausen"
That 'J' by the way is how the letter "I" was formed back at this point
This one is serial number '130' out of 1000
And of course it's "Patent Chylewski"
There's one of these I've seen pictures of that is "Brevet Chylewski"
And has this marking milled out
So it seems very potentially likely to me that SIG may have not been able to sell a bunch of the guns that they had made
And so they may have gone ahead and basically wholesaled a big batch of them to someone else, presumably Belgian
Who took the SIG name off, remarked them as 'Brevet' instead of 'Patent' and resold them somewhere else
These have a detachable magazine and these are all in 25 ACP. They hold seven rounds.
And that's pretty much all there is to these guys.
There is a manual safety there in addition to obvious ability to carry these with the chamber empty.
And there you go - one trigger cocking SIG Chylewski pistol.
Hopefully you guys found this to be an interesting video
I know the Lignose pistols are definitely a lot more common out there
Than these SIG Chylewskis and I thought it would be cool to take a look at the one gun
That was the origin of this whole single hand cocking thing
So if you enjoy seeing this sort of thing on the web, please do consider supporting me directly through forgottenweapons.com or through Patreon.
It is support from viewers like you that makes it possible for me to travel and
Find neat little guns like this and bring them to you guys. Thanks for watching!