Deutsche Werke Ortgies pistol .380

[Battis]

I had to copy and paste the title - too many letters.
Does anyone here have any experience with this pistol? I checked one out tonight. Pretty basic but seems to be well made. Interesting grip safety that stays "off" after the first time you squeeze it (it doesn't rebound back out), and you have to push a button to reactivate the safety.

[415m3]

I have one in 32acp that is a lot of fun to shoot. They were produced from 1919-1925ish and are well regarded as quality little pocket pistols. Lots of neat little quirks like a hidden button inside the mag well to remove the grips, they are a real bitch to reassemble from field strip unless you know about the little secret lever, and...they have not a single screw anywhere.

[Battis]

Can you swap a.32 barrel for a .380 and back again? I think I read that somewhere.

[415m3]

I've read that as well, but haven't found a .380 barrel to try it with. My .32 has a pitted barrel but it shoots my cast RN so well that I never bothered with it. Are you buying the one you saw?

[Battis]

I have it on hold for a week, then I have to decide. I like these old pistols.

[415m3]

If the price is right, go for it. Wolff springs are readily available and they shoot great if you load a little warm.

[Battis]

I meant to check the Wolff site to see if they carried the springs. They're asking $350 for the gun, and it's in great shape. I already load for .380. Very tempting.

[415m3]

Get it!

[uscra112]

I have a .32ACP that I found at an estate auction. Reading up, they were supposed to be a popular target gun during the interwar years. Those Chermins must have had good eyes; the sights are tiny.

CAUTION: The takedown of the gun is tricky, and reassembly trickier still. As you lift the slide off the frame the mainspring will launch itself and the spring guide if you forgot to pull the trigger to relax it. Getting it back together by the book involves compressing the spring and catching the rear of the spring guide in a shallow detent in the slide, which is chancy at best. If it slips, and I guarantee you it will, the spring and the guide will be fired across the room to fetch up in some invisible spot under the furniture. FURTHERMORE it is essential that the grip safety not be compressed while reassembling, which is next to impossible to do. (In frustration I eventually drilled a 1/16" cross hole in it so I could insert a pin to hold it while I put the slide back on. A paper clip will do.)

Otherwise it's a neat little pistol. Not sure the asking price is in line. I got mine for $100. Maybe because nobody else there wanted a .32ACP pistol?

At last viewing, Numrich had firing pins and the guide. They did not have the spring. I found one in a hardware store selection that works, though. My spares kit for the gun has three, plus one guide from Numrich and two that I made on the lathe. The more spares I have, the less likely it is that I'll need them, is my theory.

Yes, you could change a .32 to .380 by swapping barrels and magazines. Not as simple as it sounds. The lug on the barrel is a very tight fit in the frame. I gave up trying to get mine apart.

Yes, mine likes the ammo loaded a bit hot. It isn't happy with Magtech ammo; one or two Failures to Eject in every magazine-full. It runs fine on Speer Gold Dot premium, but that's too expensive for everyday. Have a box of American Eagle to try, but one thing and another I haven't yet. Have dies and a mould, so one of these days I'll load some myself.

[Battis]

The problem with comparison shopping for this gun is that I can't find any online for sale in that caliber. There's one on GunsAmerica that sold but they don't list the "sold for" price. There seems to be more .32 and .25 but I can't find a .380, even an old sale. If anyone finds one with a selling price, let me know. It looks like a nice shooter.

[uscra112]

The old time auctioneers would cry, "the more you pay, the more it's worth!" Maybe compare the price to other striker-fired .380 pistols with 7-round magazines? I'll vouch for the fact that it's heavier than the modern Tupperware guns, being an all-steel blowback design. So it's maybe not as good as a carry pistol, but in my own estimation all-steel is a plus, (I have a visceral dislike of Tupperware).

See how subjective "value" is? There ain't no Kelley Blue Book for guns as unusual as this.

[415m3]

I paid $125 for my .32, with a lightly pitted barrel and worn exterior. But it functions fine and is quite accurate

[uscra112]

If you go to Gunbroker, and then go to "Advanced Search", select the "Completed Items" tab, and then search the Keyword ORTGIES, you'll see all the pistols that have sold in the last ?? years. Look to the right in the fine print to see how many bids each on received. There's quite a number of them. Not but a couple in .380, though.

Some buyers got lucky, one was plumb crazy. $300 doesn't look too bad in that comparison.

[Battis]

I did the Advanced Search but all I saw were .25s and .32s. I'll check again. The one I have on hold is marked 9mm (9mm Kurtz). I don't have a .380 (my wife has a S&W EZ .380 - great gun). Time to go back and have a second look.

[Speedo66]

CAUTION: The takedown of the gun is tricky, and reassembly trickier still. As you lift the slide off the frame the mainspring will launch itself and the spring guide if you forgot to pull the trigger to relax it. Getting it back together by the book involves compressing the spring and catching the rear of the spring guide in a shallow detent in the slide, which is chancy at best. If it slips, and I guarantee you it will, the spring and the guide will be fired across the room to fetch up in some invisible spot under the furniture. FURTHERMORE it is essential that the grip safety not be compressed while reassembling, which is next to impossible to do. (In frustration I eventually drilled a 1/16" cross hole in it so I could insert a pin to hold it while I put the slide back on. A paper clip will do.)


Sounds like something to do inside a clear 1 gallon zip lock bag.

[Battis]

I always wonder when I'm reassembling a problem gun what the factory workers did to speed things up. I'm pretty sure the workers who assembled the Winchester Self Loaders (for example) had specific tools or a jig to make it easier. USCRA112 - you drilled a hole and used a pin or paperclip to hold the spring. Might there have been a tool to aid in the spring installation? Old guns are very interesting.

[justashooter]

nazi marked pistols of this type have higher sale price. there were many, as it was a secondary standard in WW2

[uscra112]

I drilled a hole so as to hold the grip safety to the rear. There is no spring involved until the gun is back together. Then the back end of the striker spring guide bears on a little tab at the top of it. In THEORY the striker spring and guide are temporarily caught in the little detent in the slide while you assemble it to the frame, but it's all but impossible (in my gun) to get it to stay there. So I drop the slide on with the spring and guide relaxed. Then I poke it forward with a small screwdriver, so the guide drops in front of the tab on the grip safety, and then the slide can go all the way down. To do this requires the pin to keep the grip safety to the rear.

[Battis]

Interesting fix. When I get the gun (or if) I'll keep it in mind. Are they all that difficult to put back together?

[uscra112]

The design is common for .25, .32, and 9mm Kurz. So yes, they are all like that. Not hard to deal with once I drilled that little hole. Before that I was quite ready to ditch the thing. And I'm a fairly patient guy when it comes to mechanism.

It is an interesting little piece. As someone already posted, there isn't a single screw in it. Like the Broomhandle, it's a Chinese puzzle of a design. Very German. They have always placed a high value on originality and cleverness, often at the expense of practicality. I worked for Zeiss for 15 years....believe me I know.

There is an exploded drawing/parts list available for download at Numrich.

[uscra112]

Sounds like something to do inside a clear 1 gallon zip lock bag.

Until you get the hang of it, absolutely!

[Battis]

I bought the gun, brought it home, ran some dummy rounds through it and all was well. I went to the range with it and my wife's S&W .380 - great gun. I loaded up the Ortigies and...nothing. Light primer strikes, every one of them. I fired the ammo in my wife's gun and they all went bang. I ordered a set of springs from Wolff Springs, which is what I usually do with every new-old gun I get. It's to be expected. Nice gun.

[uscra112]

While you think of it, see if Numrich still has firing pins. The one on mine had lost a bit of its' tip, and that may be true of yours, too.

[415m3]

Easily fixed, hopefully. Where’s the pics?

[Battis]

I should have taken pics before I took it apart. It's tricky but interesting to put it back together. I was going to buy a new firing pin but I think I'll wait to see if the new springs work. Numrich has a .32 barrel for $99, but I have several .32s. The mag is marked 9mm on one side and 7.65 on the other.

[Battis]

Because of the warnings about reassembling the gun, I actually took my time and studied the setup. I practiced installing the slide without the recoil spring or firing pin installed. When I found that "sweet spot" where it dropped in, I tried it with the recoil spring. I cleaned out the indent in the slide before installing the firing pin, spring and guide. I found that you don't have to depress the button to keep the safety off and pop the slide on - you just have to point the barrel straight up so gravity keeps the safety off, and the slide clicks right into that sweet spot. I kept the rear end of the slide pointing at my body in case the firing pin spring let go.
Anyways, thanks for the warnings - they helped.

[RG1911]

My little Ortgies .32ACP pistol was discovered in my wife's dad's filing cabinet when she was working to help her mother clear her house and sell it so she could move into the assisted living community almost seven years ago. My wife put it in a storage unit with a bunch of other stuff, where it has sat until she and youngest son brought it home via the Uhaul into which the storage units had been emptied after her mom died.

250595 250596

Information about the Ortgies is rather sparse and in some cases, contradictory, perhaps because they were made only in the 5 or 7 years from 1919 to 1924 or 1926. One source said other sources indicate new (manufactured but not sold) pistols were sold for some time after manufacture ended, perhaps into the early 1930s. Also, it was never adopted by any military, something that usually leads to more interest and information. Another source said the pistol may have been made primarily for export to generate an income flow into a Germany that even then was having significant financial difficulties.

I'm still looking for an owner's manual.

Only an estimated 154,000 (one source) to 250,000 (another source) pistols were made, in calibers 6.35, 7.65 (.32ACP) and 9mm Kurz (.380ACP). This one is in the 77,000 range, so I'm guesstimating that it was made around 1921-22.

It has been in the family more than 50 years, being passed along from member to member. My wife's dad inherited it from his dad, who got it from his uncle who had fought in Germany in both WWI and WWII. The pistol probably was not carried along in either war.

To the best of my wife's knowledge, the pistol has not been fired in 40-50 years; being apparently just put into various filing cabinets and dresser drawers and ignored. In Ohio, this did the finish no good, although it's not as bad as I had feared.

A couple sources say that the magazines for the first series of pistols were marked as being correct for both .32ACP and .380ACP. Not many were made in .380. So, unless the magazines changed, it might be possible to convert the pistol to .380 by finding a barrel and installing it.

Fortunately, one of my old firearms disassembly/assembly manuals has a section for the Ortgies; otherwise I may well have damaged something (primarily the grips).

It is striker-fired and disassembles by drawing the slide back a small amount, pressing the takedown button (rear of frame in first image), and lifting the back of the slide up and moving it forward and off the frame.

According to the disassembly instructions, the barrel can be removed by rotating it to the left and out of its slot. Considering that nothing moved when I first got the pistol, I have not yet tried removing the barrel. I suspect it is going to take quite a soaking with Kroil.

The grips have an odd attaching mechanism that is located on the inside back of the magazine well and that must be pressed (with a screwdriver or similar implement). The grips, which are dovetailed into the frame at the front, then can be carefully lifted out from the back. It's a bit of a fiddly process.

The grip safety (there is no other safety) is a bit odd. First, there's no way for any reasonable grip to depress it far enough to fire the pistol. But, if you push the takedown button, the grip safety snaps forward and you can fire the pistol all you want.

The trigger pull is not horribly heavy, but it is looong and a bit scratchy, especially if you are accustomed to a match 1911. I'm looking to see if I can remedy the scratchy part. After a match at the range, I took a moment to function test the pistol. The first round needed a tap on the back of the slide to fully chamber; the other 7 worked just fine. Recoil is snappy, at least with my loads.

Upon examination, I also don't think the pistol was cleaned in a very long time. All the moving parts were either frozen or super stiff. I soaked it for a couple days in penetrating oil before it operated more smoothly. I flushed out the penetrating oil and gunk and oiled the necessary parts using a good gun oil.

I thought the barrel was an almost total loss it looked so corroded. But I attacked it with bore cleaner and a stainless steel bore brush (something I almost never do since it's a bit rough on the bore). Happily, almost all of the crud came out and the bore looks quite good.

Cheers,
Richard

[uscra112]

Looks pretty good. Mine was plated, and retains only about 60% of the plating. Do you think yours was originally plated, too?

The barrel I'm sure is intended to be a very tight fit in it's seat, not intended to be taken down. If it were easy to twist out, the accuracy would certainly suffer.

It does take a determined squeeze on the grip to release the safety. Best done during the draw, and not combined with trigger pull like a 1911.

If the striker is cocked, pressing the takedown stud lets the grip safety move back under pressure from the striker spring. No way can it move forward; the striker spring is pushing back on it very hard.

It's worth studying, with the slide off, how the sear, the takedown stud, and the grip safety bar interact. Only then will pressing the takedown stud let the safety bar fall forward, because there's no pressure on it from the striker spring.

[RG1911]

Looks pretty good. Mine was plated, and retains only about 60% of the plating. Do you think yours was originally plated, too?

The barrel I'm sure is intended to be a very tight fit in it's seat, not intended to be taken down. If it were easy to twist out, the accuracy would certainly suffer.

It does take a determined squeeze on the grip to release the safety. Best done during the draw, and not combined with trigger pull like a 1911.

If the striker is cocked, pressing the takedown stud lets the grip safety move back under pressure from the striker spring. No way can it move forward; the striker spring is pushing back on it very hard.

It's worth studying, with the slide off, how the sear, the takedown stud, and the grip safety bar interact. Only then will pressing the takedown stud let the safety bar fall forward, because there's no pressure on it from the striker spring.

No signs of ever having been plated.

The grip safety peculiarity is a sometimes/sometimes not proposition. This may straighten itself out after the pistol is fully broken-in (it's remarkably tight; I don't think it saw many rounds in its life) and more crud works its way out. I keep soaking it in cleaner.

I'll see how the mechanism works with the slide off.

It's so thin that I would give serious consideration to this as an EDC pistol if it weren't so darn heavy (like my Walther PP). It puts a real drag on my waistband. ('Fraid at my age my waistline is going the wrong way.) Perhaps like my 1911, it would be most comfortable in a shoulder holster.

It is a very well-made pistol and I am pleased that my wife gave it to me.

Cheers, Richard

[Battis]

I installed the new springs from Wolff (recoil and striker springs), loaded up 50 cast bullet rounds, went to the range and had at it. One light strike out of 50, every case ejected. Accurate, solid. Not as comfortable to shoot as the EZ .380 but not many guns are.