One of these days, when I have enough money, I’m going to start investing in old firearms (but the new ones are just so darn cool, too…). Tempting us poor commoners again is Ian at Forgotten Weapons, this time with a German compact handgun commonly known as the “Jager” pistol.

The Jager pistol was designed in response to World War I-time conditions in Germany, where production of firearms was required on machines and tooling not ideal for handgun manufacturing. Instead of the common milled frame the handgun was assembled from easier to manufacture components. While the handgun was arguably quite good, it was a royal pain in the (derriere) to assemble from its constituent components.

Ian takes us through the design of the handgun starting with it completely disassembled. The base handgun is the result of about 10 major components with the frame notably being in two separate components, which is part of an interesting assembly assembly process.

The handgun has an equally interesting history, which C&Rsenal gets a nod from Forgotten Weapons. I, for one, am thrilled they are working together, which means much more knowledge transfer to those of us without the ability to travel to the major national auctions and the financial resources to collect the weapons for posterity.