Joe Shea's Deep Cover Firearms

More Faction: With the Crusaders gun autism

A persistent theme in the Faction series is that the Shea family is sophisticated in their use of weaponry, and while some weapons may appear exotic to a reader, it would never be infeasible for the Sheas to have access to such equipment, nor are any of their enhancements ourside of the parameters of what is being done at the time. This leaves plenty of room to educate readers about state of the art in weaponry of a given period and to dip toes into the ‘tism without distracting from the narrative.

Joe Shea’s bootleg"Fitz" revolvers

In the 1920s John Henry Fitzgerald of the Colt Firearms Company, a gunsmith, competitive shooter, police officer and shooting trainer, developed a then-state of the art concealed carry revolver still relevant today.

Contemporary full-caliber handguns - .38 Special and up - were offered with barrels no shorter than 4", typically 5" or longer, and were carried in a duty holster on the belt. "Pocket pistols" were chambered in marginal calibers.

Black powder handguns established this trend - full-caliber firearms had long barrels for power (powder burn time = velocity) and accuracy (sight radius = precision). Yet, short barrel modifications had long been a thing and short-barreled British Bulldog revolvers were popular in Europe and abroad.

Enter John Henry FitzGerald. A police officer and competitive shooter with large hands, "Fitz" went to work for Colt in 1918. Below left is an image from his 1930 book "Shooting," wherein he demonstrates his pioneering two-hand shooting style; at right, he works on a 1911 at a shooting competition.

A large man with equally large hands, Fitz began experimenting with the .45 Colt New Service revolver in 1924 to make them "faster." Possibly unfamiliar to modern readers, the lack of climate control in buildings and cars required that people wear heavy topcoats, thick gloves, etc. for much of the year, which hampered ready heater access in a fracas.

Fitz ultimately settled upon sewing a pair of holsters into his coat pockets to carry New Service revolvers modified as follows:

• 2" barrel

• Bobbed hammer spur

• Shortened ejector rod

• Front of trigger guard cut away

• Checkered trigger

• Shortened, rounded butt
  

The below photos are modern close-ups of an authentic Fitz custom Colt New Service .45 Colt revolver sold by the famed James D. Julia auction house. Note that the bobbed hammer - to prevent snagging on the draw - still allows for deliberate single action thumb cocking for longer shots. While today triggers are generally rounded and polished to allow for smooth, comfortable, consistent double action shooting, Fitz checkered triggers for purchase with skin, gloves, or mittens.

Below is a variant with a smooth, double action only hammer owned by “Fitz” himself.

Enter fifteen year old Josef Shea in Depression-era Port Townsend, WA. Responsible for the protection of his mother and sister in their boarding house, he heeds the advice of a Treasury agent boarder hunting bootleggers along the Strait of Juan de Fuca and San Juan Islands which form the border between the U.S. and Canada. He sends a well-worn Colt Army Special - acquired with his mother’s permission! - to a Texas gunsmith recommended by said Treasury agent for a “Fitzing.”

The results would have been somewhat akin to a blend of the guns below, with stag grips, open trigger guard, double action only bobbed hammer (as fit for a belly gun, per the agent), and a shortened barrel with a front sight post sporting a high-visibility gold bead like the target rifles of the era. This is the revolver that Josef Shea carries on his adventure to Europe and, with the permission of his bosses, to Spain.

Postwar, Joe builds out “Fitzes” much like the one below left, with Super Police Night Sights from the King Gun Sight Company.

After the events on the Aragon front, Joe Shea receives, courtesy of Mr. White, equipment smuggled via diplomatic pouch which includes a replacement for his bootleg Fitz, a Colt New Service chambered in .44-40, which so happens to be the same chambering as .44 Largo as found in the El Tigre lever action rifles - copies of the Winchester 1892 - as issued to Spain’s Civil Guard. A weapon is not good for long if its ammunition cannot be locally sourced. To conceal its origins and make its potential discovery explainable as a locally-sourced self defense weapon, the gun bears fake Spanish markings in the style of the Eibar gunmakers who had long copied successful firearms from around the world, a data point which comes in handy for Josef and his friends in the Requeté during the Campaign in the North. He carries the revolver for the rest of the book.

Joe Shea’s Frommer "Baby" deep cover pistol

While in chaotic and violent 1936 Barcelona, at the urging of a fellow employee of the Atlantic-American Press Agency, Joe Shea acquired a back-up to his .38 Special Fitz bootleg Colt revolver. Spain was, at the time, absolutely flooded with domestic 7.65mm / .32 ACP handguns, but many were of inconsistent quality, and they tended to be larger than the envelope recommended by the fellow operative. He selects from their cache of weapons an obscure Hungarian 7.65mm / .32 ACP vest pocket pistol for this deep cover role - a Frommer "Baby."

The Frommer "Baby" was a vest pocket version of the Frommer Stop manufactured by FEG and adopted by the Hungarian element of the Austro-Hungarian Army, named for its designer, Rudolf Frommer. Both the Stop and Baby were chambered in 7.65mm Frommer (7.65x17mm or .32 ACP) and 9mm Frommer (9x17mm or .380 ACP).

The Frommer cartridges were of the same dimensions as the standard commercial cartridges but loaded hot to operate at higher velocities. European manufactured ammunition will operate these weapons just fine, but U.S. loadings generally will not, as they are loaded to lower pressures due to the amount of old garbage guns on the U.S. market. This author highly recommends for any of the many fine European handguns in these marginal chamberings that the reader use European ball for plinking, practice or defense, Buffalo Bore flat nosed lead, or research handloads loaded to Euro pressures.

The Frommer Stop and Baby utilize a long recoil mechanism like the Winchester Models 8 and 11, wherein the barrel and rotating bolt, while locked together, travel for slightly more than the length of the cartridge during recoil. These are features not typically seen in pocket pistols, and the fact that they have been consistently replaced by the utterly stupid-simple straight blowback shows that this was an evolutionary dead end for a small handgun. It worked, but cost more to produce and was more complicated than necessary. Indeed, Joe Shea would have been unable to mount a suppressor to the “Baby” due to the tolerances of the mechanism not permitting semi-automatic function with additional weight brought into the picture. Oftentimes, simpler is better.

The Frommer Baby appears overly complicated, has an odd point of aim and may represent an evolutionary dead end, but it works with readily available ammunition and absolutely disappears in a boot or behind a belt buckle, which is all a solo operative needs as a last ditch bit of insurance.