The lever on the side of the slide is called a palanca, and flips down to allow one-handed cocking. There's no trigger guard since it would get in the way of that. As the pistol doesn't have a safety, the idea is you could carry it empty and bring it into action one-handed. In practice it's usually faster to use two.
The barrel actually tips up so you can load a round directly into the chamber, there's no actual hold-open. The gun is uses unlocked breech, relying on a strong recoil spring and a very heavy slide, this while using a round with similar performance (but lower overall pressure) to the 9mm Luger.
As to why it has such a bizarre rear sight mounted right on the barrel, search me. I have no idea. They were also made in compact versions in .32 and .380, and a .45 ACP version for Peruvian mounted police.
Eos, where was the other one? I'm always interested in knowing about another Jo.Lo.Ar, or any pre-Civil War Spanish pistols in Canada.
The barrel actually tips up so you can load a round directly into the chamber, there's no actual hold-open. The gun is uses unlocked breech, relying on a strong recoil spring and a very heavy slide, this while using a round with similar performance (but lower overall pressure) to the 9mm Luger.
As to why it has such a bizarre rear sight mounted right on the barrel, search me. I have no idea. They were also made in compact versions in .32 and .380, and a .45 ACP version for Peruvian mounted police.
Eos, where was the other one? I'm always interested in knowing about another Jo.Lo.Ar, or any pre-Civil War Spanish pistols in Canada.
