In the heart of San Antonio’s downtown historic district, tucked just blocks from City Hall and the sheriff’s office, a small saddlery and gun-shop quietly earned a notorious reputation during the depths of the Great Depression.
The owner was Hyman S. Lebman (sometimes spelled Lehman), a craftsman in leather and firearms who over time became known as a “gunsmith to the outlaws.” His story blends Texas-style entrepreneurship, inventive firearms design, and the wild under-world of 1930s bank robbers.
Early Life & San Antonio Roots
Born in 1903, Hyman Saul Lebman grew up in San Antonio and at some point established his dual-trade business: leather goods and gunsmithing, at 111 South Flores Street. By the early 1930s his shop catered to “oil-men, sportsmen and cattle wranglers,” but secretly (or so history tells) also to a darker clientele. Lebman’s position—half-block south of City Hall, half-block north of the sheriff’s office—gave the business a curious legitimacy despite the storm brewing around it.
The “Baby Machine Gun” & Custom Firearms
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What distinguished Lebman was not just serviceable revolvers or rifles—it was his inventive zeal. He took standard firearms such as the Colt 1911 semi-automatic pistol and converted them into full-automatic weapons, outfitted with extended magazines, fore-grips, and compensators—a pistol turned into a tiny machine gun.
These arms, referred to by some as the “Lebman special” or “baby machine gun,” were compact, deadly and attractive to a certain type of customer. As one summary put it: “He modified the action and trigger group to allow full-automatic fire… a longer magazine, a Thompson-style fore-grip and compensator.”
According to authenticated sources, Lebman produced custom .45 ACP and .38 Super variants, with extended magazines (18- or 22-round) and augmented muzzle assemblies. The operational result: a concealable but potent handgun with the volume of fire of a sub-machine gun—a device consonant with the era’s brazen bank robbers.
Customers & Criminal Connections
Though Lebman maintained that he simply provided services to “men in suits” and didn’t know they were criminals, the evidence suggests otherwise. His clients purportedly included high-profile outlaws such as John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson (Lester Gillis).
One account notes that Nelson and his wife, along with Henchman Homer Van Meter, visited his home for Thanksgiving in 1933. Among the most dramatic links: one of Lebman’s converted pistols (a .38 Super 1911) was found at the scene of the famed shoot-out at the Little Bohemia Lodge in Wisconsin in April 1934.
Tracing the connections: after the weapon was recovered, Federal authorities traced the serial number back to Colt’s Connecticut factory, then to a Fort Worth firearms dealer, then to Lebman in San Antonio.
Despite the gravity of these revelations, Lebman was never convicted of federal crimes related to supplying gangsters; his prosecution was limited to Texas state law infractions (machine-gun statute), and he ultimately avoided prison.
Legal Troubles & Aftermath
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In 1933 Texas passed a state law regarding machine-gun possession. Lebman was convicted in 1935 under that statute and sentenced to five years imprisonment—but his conviction was later overturned on appeal when a retrial ended in a hung jury. He ended up never serving time.
Despite continued scrutiny by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, he remained in business, shifting away from outlaw arms by the mid-1970s when Alzheimer’s forced his retirement. He died in 1990.
Why This Matters for San Antonio History
Lebman’s story intersects with several threads of San Antonio’s past: the craftsmanship tradition, the leather-goods trades of the city, the broader Texas firearms culture, and the darker underside of law-enforcement and gangster-legend lore in the 1930s. Unlike the more romanticized tales of cowboys and cattle drives, this is a gritty slice of local history that touches the national story of crime, law-enforcement and industrial innovation.
The fact that his shop sat within downtown San Antonio grounds—not hidden in remote ranch country—makes the tale even more compelling. There is something deeply Texan about a leather-saddlery-turn-gunsmith who produced customized arms in a downtown storefront and—whether knowingly or not—served some of the country’s most notorious outlaws. It’s a mix of local industry and national infamy.
Technical Innovation and Legacy
Beyond the criminal associations, Lebman’s designs hold a place in firearms-history. The “baby machine gun” is often cited as one of the most inventive conversions of the Colt 1911 platform, and it appears in both collector circles and popular-culture references (including film).
His workshop-based modifications demonstrated mechanical ingenuity, blending compensators, fore-grips, long magazines and codec assembly in ways that foreshadowed later high-capacity handguns.
Moreover, the fact that these weapons turned up in major FBI cases means Lebman’s work played a role—however controversial—in the federal push for tighter firearms regulation. The passage of the National Firearms Act (NFA) in 1934, for example, changed the legal landscape for automatic weapons in the United States—and Lebman’s arms were part of the impetus.
Though he operated in the shadows where outlaw myth meets mechanical craft, his contributions to firearms design remain part of that story. A gun collector article noted: “Today, Lebman and his guns are all but forgotten. One … has been in the FBI’s custody since 1943. The others are in various museums and private collections.”
The Shop & Local Memory
For decades his shop at 111 South Flores stood as a local landmark of an unusual sort. His work spanned traditional saddlery, leather goods and gunsmithing, which offered neighbors the everyday trades of Southwestern craftsmanship—but alongside that sat an undercurrent of something else entirely. His family reportedly said: “We did more work with policemen than we did with anybody else.”
Today, the story of Lebman gives San Antonio a unique talking point: a downtown craftsman whose work resonates in both legitimate leather trade and infamous outlaw legend. For history buffs, firearms aficionados and local culture seekers alike alike, Lebman’s legacy offers a textured slice of 20th-century Texas.
Final Thoughts
The life of Hyman S. Lebman defies easy categorization. Was he a naive shop-owner who just happened to have dangerous customers? Or was he more deeply embedded in the gangster supply network of the 1930s? Accounts vary, and even his son insisted his father didn’t know his clients were outlaws.
But the facts remain that weapons traceable to Lebman turned up in major crime scenes; his modifications altered firearms history; and his downtown San Antonio craft shop stood at the intersection of Texas trade and national crime.
In its own way, the story of Lebman reflects two Texas realities: the long tradition of independent craftsmanship, and the way that bold, inventive individuals sometimes cross the boundary into legend. In San Antonio’s story of guns and gangsters, Hyman S. Lebman occupies a unique foothold. For visitors or locals curious about the city’s lesser-told history, the building on South Flores and the story behind it are worth a second look.