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Hyman S. Lebman, Gunsmith To The Outlaws


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Baby Face Nelson was a main contact with Lebman, out of San Antonio. They we have Van Meter, Bentz and of course Dillinger. Don't know about Floyd, maybe Helmer will know ? Pierpont & Nelson pretty much hated each other so probably no connection there.

Litte bit of a mystery, at least to me, when & where Dillinger picked up this Winchester 351 conversion, and Thompson # 7731. We did know he stopped in Fort Worth, and bought some weaponry at Wolf & Klar, on his way to Tucson- Did he meet up with Lebman on the way ?

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Jim-

Don't know. They sent me a lot of photos of the guns , I can check see if anything might suggest select fire on the receiver- My guess is full auto only.

Apparently all the weapons are still functional, which was confusing as I thought they had been deactivated, maybe by the FBI. Double confusing, how do you legally poses two stolen Thompson and a converted rifle to full auto. Is this a turn the other FBI cheek thing ? I have no idea.

There was no field stripping or anything, these were brought out of display so my friends could handle them, pictures etc.

Apparently, the officer in charge said they had taken all the weapons out like 8-10 years ago and fired them.

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Jim,

I could see nothing on the gun to indicate a select fire " switch" . Other side has Tucson PD etched by hand, on it. Almost like using a nail ! Gun is pretty beat up- Mfg. date about 1910, # 21218. Lebman gun is #46051, 1933.Tucson also had burned Tucson PD on the wood stock at some point.

Here also is the other 351 recovered, not a Lebman gun, think this one was taken out of the Peru PD as I remember, along with the 21 AC # 5878 .

Tucson Win 351.png

Tucson 351.png

Winchester 351 Tucson.png

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I also have one, not fired it yet- Harder then hell to charge the thing, not like my older one- Transferable one- Just work the S pin, write us from jail. HMMMM, Lebman never did tho, jail time.......

 

Jim-

 

Talked to Sheriff Hudson today, # 21218, the standard 07, is still in the semi-auto configuration. The Lebman one, # 46051 is FA. 100% now, not select fire- this came from the Tucson PD historian. Imagine running 10 rounds through a 351, FA..... wow nelly-

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  • 2 weeks later...

Baby Face Nelson was a main contact with Lebman, out of San Antonio. They we have Van Meter, Bentz and of course Dillinger. Don't know about Floyd

 

If my memory serves, Paris Hatters is only a few blocks away from Lebman's store front and has been in business since 1917. On one of the fitting booths there is a sign that says Pretty Boy Floyd stood here on xxxx date. It's been a couple of years since I was in there but that is the name I remember. It's not beyond possibilty that he may have stopped in Lebman's at the same time he was being fitted for a new fedora several streets away. I will have to look again next time I'm in there.

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  • 9 months later...

Guys, you should see this ! I've met a guy on the gangster side of the forum, that made a replica of the HS Lebman Colt mini submachine gun, that is registered as an AOW, fully legal. Made out of a Colt 1911 Commercial automatic. Not FA, still semi auto.

This is as close to the real deal as I've seen. Nelson, Dillinger, Van Meter & Lebman would all be proud-

 

Don't ask, I've got dibs.

 

 

OCM

Lebman Colt Mini.png

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  • 2 weeks later...

A few years back-maybe 10-I started some research on Lebman with the idea of writing a book, or at least a substantive article. I ran into mostly dead ends but for some of the same information shared in this thread. However I did have a fascinating conversation with Marvin Lebman (Hyman's son). He told me some fascinating stories about that era. He did a lot of the gunsmithing while his dad worked primarily on saddles and tack. They had a sand-filled 55 gallon drum in the basement pictured in that newspaper article, which they used for test firing guns.

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Kwill,

Anything you would care to put on here , about your Lebman experience, would be appreciated.

I've read the article about the guy, that got to see the old basement gun shop and all, maybe there was a video too, can't remember. Bill Helmer knew him in College and I think Marvin.

Was going to write a book also but there wasn't enough stuff on the subject. Larry Wack's FBI site has some nice info on him ( Dusty roads....) . Helmer had a pair of boots made by him, I had a saddle made by him.

Lot of photos of the guns he made and ones that some of us made like Lebman weapons here on the site. Mine is a dummy, another one fires semi auto. Take a look, if you haven't already-

 

OCM

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Thanks for sharing the photos-- I have one of the reproduction '07 Lebmans and really enjoy shooting it. Now if only I could find a transferrable 07!

 

I have a couple of 07's. Only shot one once. Very accurate. Very heavy guns also. Thought of making one into a "Dillinger gun" for the looks.

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Mike-

The guys that made mine were, at one time, selling the parts for a conversion. The front grip is your standard 28 Thompson remake that you can buy for like 25 bucks. The metal forearm is the key. They also had the comps for sale too. Bear arms or something out of Utah as I remember. Maybe Idaho.

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  • 6 months later...

I got interested in Hyman Lebman and the .351 Winchesters he modified after the Public Enemies movie in 2009. I was the one who initially sent all the photos and info I could find to the gunsmith in Idaho and he made me the first (and I thought only) replica. He then decided to make other replicas after that. Glad to hear others have them as well. I like mine as a bit of reproduced history but find it less fun to shoot semi-auto than my stock 1907. I agree that the compensator, Thompson forearm, and naturally significant weight of the rifle would have worked better with a full auto version. I do have 6 of the factory 10-round mags and about 400 rounds of ammo and take the rifles out on occasion for a work out. It's cool to find others interested in Lebman and his inventions/modifications.

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Has anyone ever seen a 15 or 20 round magazine from the 1930s era? I've got 8 of the ten rounders and have been looking for 6 years and I've never even heard of one for sale or displayed. Did your friends who visited the Tucson PD mention any of the 15-20 round mags? Thanks!
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I have not- Winchester only offered 5 or 10 shot magazines for the 07 351 ( Henwood ) . The ones in Tucson ( now) are 5 shot magazines

The old photos of the Lebman conversion, at the arres,t show one with magazine removed, same 07 that Tucson has now. It may be that it was a 10 round magazine not installed and set aside as some/most the Thompsons were without the magazines except the Mackley Racine Thompson (# 3363).

At some point, I think the Lebman front grip went missing too. I've seen older photos of it missing . Looks like a repo to me.

 

The Winchesters were taken out of the display cases and directly inspected by my friends. Photos were taken at that point.

 

OCM

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The St Paul police reportedly found 13 twenty- round mags with Van Meter's car at the Lincoln Court Apartments so somebody was making them?
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Might double check if these were typical XX Thompson box mags , not custom Winchester 1907 351 mags. This is probably in the FBI Dillinger file, from St Paul. I have the files, but it's like 56,000 pages long. Maybe our FBI pal, Larry Wack will chime in. He seems to get this stuff fast.

I have a list of stuff Dillinger and Billie Frechette had stored in the tiny apartment- reads like a department store.

 

Fun stuff-

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I agree with Sandy on the mags being Thompson.

If a 20 rd mag for the 351 Win ever exited I would love to see a picture of it.

There were numerous times gang hide outs were raided and guns confiscated and yet I have seen more pictures of UNICORNS than 20 rd Winchester mags.

Jim C

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Well, that would explain never having seen one. What about 15-rounders? I imagine a full auto .351 rifle like Lebman made for the gangs would empty out a 10 round mag pretty damn quick.

 

On another note, did I read elsewhere in the forum that you (Sandy) owns Homer Van Meter's .351 that was recovered at the Lincoln Court Apartments?

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I don't think you read that anywhere as I do not own Van's 07. These 07 Winchesters seem to pop up everywhere with the outlaws. I've owned a couple including the newly converted Lebman one from Idaho. ( Tom has indicated he was going to produce more ) .

The FA Lebman one recovered in Tucson, I've suspected, may of been a one off example in full auto. Probably ( logically) picked up by gang member Harry Pierpont in San Antonio, on his way to Tucson from Florida. He already was carrying the 07 he took from Peru, Indiana , October 21, 1933.

Good possibility, Dillinger never even pulled the trigger on a FA 07.

This is a bit of outlaw theory as they never signed statements of such operations.

I'm going to contact Larry Wack, he's a great resource for stuff like this. See what turns up if he's up to it-

 

 

OCM

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I apologize - it was in the Winchester 1907 Value topic from January 2014 - where I misinterpreted something Jim C wrote about using the Books Case. Anyway, that's why I asked about it - would have been very cool. I would love to hear what Mr. Wack knows about any of this. Thanks!

 

John

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Also, there were two of the Lebman modified 1907s recovered by the Tucson police. The first photo shows shortly after being captured. You can see they still have the Thompson forearms attached. The second shows a photo from the 60s (I think) and the forearms are removed but there is one loose on the table. In the first photo, both the Lebmans have the magazines inserted and the one on the right looks longer than a factory 10-round to me.

 

 

post-2828-0-02680300-1444063066_thumb.jpg

post-2828-0-76698600-1444063077_thumb.jpg

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Never seen the second photo, good research, kicks out the one off theory ( maybe). Wonder why the grips are off on both ? The FBI & the Tucson PD had traded the guns back and forth for display, which means the FBI may have the second one still . Tucson has two on display, one non modified.

Funny story, the FBI kept the Auburn, Indiana Thompson ( # 8946), after the Tucson PD loaned it to them for display. Gordon brought that up to Auburn and a little battle ensued, Auburn got the gun back, Tucson lost out, their loaned gun was sent to the original owner. One reason why the Lebman one there stays there forever and is engraved as the Tucson PD. I guess the original owner would of been Lebman.

Oddly, in the photo taken outside the court house in Tucson, the arresting officers are holding the weapons recovered and does not "appear" to have a second modified 07. I have a clear shot of it. These are hard to read sometimes.

I did find the FBI report on the Van Meter guns, a Thompson in a leather case (?) 1 clip and a C drum loaded. A Winchester Repeating Rifle in 351 and 13 clips 20 shot capacity. See what Larry turns up, maybe something different. My guess they made a mistake on the capacity as a 10 round capacity is an odd ball. ( just a guess)

The first photo, I'd have to look at it again, I've got it buried somewhere in computer files.

I think I have two hand written receipts from Frank Eyman, one of the arresting officers, on the Tucson guns. I think there is only the two 07s , one Lebman, other the Peru gun, so why is there two Lebmans in your photo.

The Tucson PD files were lifted many years ago, so no records-

Yet another outlaw mystery as usual.

I'll double check tho-

 

OCM

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I stand corrected, in the photo of the officers out front there are TWO Lebman conversions, one is hard to see the front grip but it is there. No un-modified 07s.

So, why is there a un-modified 07 in the Tucson display now-? I have no clue. Means the FBI probably has the other one they are keeping like the Auburn Thompson.

Larry Wack indicated to me the one common display of the guns in front of the three officers were probably ones just brought out for evidence in the inquest. It only shows the one Lebman 07.

Cool.

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