JoLoAr .45 ACP One-Hand-Cocking Pistol
Forgotten Weapons
•
8m 45s
The JoLoAr pistol was a combination of a poor-selling and unremarkable Spanish blowback semiauto pistol called the Sharpshooter and an idea by a man named Jose Lopez Arnaiz (whose name is the source of the pistol’s name). Arnaiz conceived the idea of mounting a lever (palanca in Spanish) onto a pistol slide, to allow the pistol to be charged one-handed. There is a rumor (unsubstantiated) that he was inspired by the one-armed commander of the Spanish Foreign Legion, Colonel José Millán-Astray. But whatever the inspiration, Arnaiz patented his idea, and went looking for a manufacturer.
The company he found was Hijos de Calixto Arrizabalaga, who were making the rather mundane Sharpshooter. This was a blowback pistol, which was designed without an extractor. Instead, it was equipped with a tip-up barrel for clearing malfunctions and unloading the chamber. This feature carried over to the JoLoAr, although an extractor had also been added to the design by that time. Wanting to maintain control over his idea, Arnaiz opened his own small shop where his employees would add his patented palanca to otherwise-complete JoLoAr pistols made by Arrizabalaga.
Arrizabalaga’s experiment with the Arnaiz idea worked out fairly well, really. About 30,000 JoLoAr pistols were made between the mid 1920s and early 1930s, which is probably a lot more than would have been sold as plain Sharpshooters. This example is in .45ACP; quite scarce in the United States today.
Up Next in Forgotten Weapons
-
Q&A 22: Travel and More
Whew - this was a long one! As usual, I had far more questions submitted by you awesome Patrons than I could answer, so if yours didn't get in this time please submit it again next time.
0:00:52 - What have been my favorite or most enlightening trips abroad?
0:02:55 - Systems like Blish that wor... -
Q&A 19: Answers From The Boonies
0:25 - FAMAS parts kits coming?
1:15 - Why heel magazine releases on European handguns?
3:07 - Are Continsouza Berthiers worth less than MAS and MAC ones?
5:10 - Having stronger FAMAS magazines made.
5:50 - Why were there M2 and M3 Carbines instead of M1A2 and M1A3 Carbines?
7:17 - What was...
-
Q&A 21: French Edition
Today's Q&A is all about French guns, because I am getting close to being finished writing a book on French military rifles - the first book to cover this subject in English from the Chassepot through the FAMAS!
01:34 - Favorite French pistol, rifle, and machine gun
03:13 - How did I get interes...