LugerForum Discussion Forums - Louis Marquis Belt Buckle Gun

Louis Marquis, who developed the shooting buckle, was captured during World War I, where he came up with the idea of making a pistol built into a belt buckle.

In the 1930s and 1940s, civilian designer Louis Marquis refined the buckle mechanisms and in 1942 he proposed the use of this pistol-buckle by SS officers as a camouflaged weapon.

In 1943, after a personal meeting with Reichsführer Himmler, Marquis received permission to release the first trial batch. The belt weapon was named "SS-Waffenakademie Koppelschlo” (Belt Buckle-Pistol of the SS Armed Forces Academy). The trial batch of weapons was released in early 1944 at the Assmann brothers' bicycle factory in Leibnitz.

The pistol buckle was produced in two modifications: a double-barreled model with a caliber of 7.65 (for the 7.65 x 17 mm cartridge - .32 ACP) and a model with a caliber of 5.6 (rimfire cartridge 5.6 x 15 mm - .22 LR), which had four barrels.

The shooting buckle was made of steel, its parts were assembled with screws. The surface of the "SS-Waffenakademie Koppelschlo" was blued, the Nazi symbol in the form of an eagle sitting on a swastika was attached to the top cover.

The pistol buckle had markings on its surfaces in the form of the text "Louis Marquis, W. Elderfield", a digital designation of the serial number and caliber of the weapon, as well as the stamp "DRP" (Deutsche Reich Patent Pending), a test stamp and the symbol of the SS troops in the form of two lightning bolts was on the .22 variation. The buckle "SS-Waffenakademie Koppelschlo" was worn on a regular officer's belt, despite the fact that it differed significantly in size from a regular officer's buckle.

A pin in the upper part of the end of the buckle body holds the cover of the buckle closed. The barrel blocks of the weapon were made from a single piece of steel two (7.65 mm caliber) or four (5.6 mm) smooth barrel channels with chambers drilled parallel to each other. The barrel block was fixed with a hinge in the right part of the buckle body and was fixed in the folded state with the help of special hooks with two latches with levers.

To bring the pistol buckle into the firing position, it was necessary to press two buttons located on the left side of the buckle - they opened the fastener of the upper cover and turned the barrel blocks into the firing position. The cover of the double-barrel model was folded down, and in the four-barrel model up. The barrel blocks were turned into the firing position (perpendicular to the buckle body) by horizontally located springs, which acted on the pushers and shaped cams.

After the barrels were in firing position, the cartridges were installed opposite the strikers built into the body. Each barrel bore had a separate striker and a trigger key (button). The trigger buttons are located on the left side, shooting could be done either in a salvo, by pressing all the buttons simultaneously, or one by one. To reload, it was necessary to remove the cartridges from the chambers (for example, with a ramrod) and then insert new cartridges into the breech.

Soon after the first experimental batch of pistol buckles was released, the Assmann brothers' enterprise was seriously damaged by an Allied airstrike. I have not come across any information in the literature about the use of the SS-Waffenakademie Koppelschlo buckles in sabotage or combat operations. Unfortunately, there is also no precise information about the number of shooting buckles produced. There is a 7.65mm pistol buckle numbered 158 in NRA museum and number 155 in the collection of G. Pearson and this pistol is number 154.

https://www.nramuseum.org/guns/the-g...le-pistol.aspx

Please also refer to this link for an interesting documentary about these guns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaZh-mc0XPU