I believe I read in Dönitz Memoirs that the crew was not supposed to handle the pistols while on sea. The crew of a certain U-boat disassembled a pistol to see what was wrong with the pistols (this was early in the war when they had serious troubles with the pistols), Dönitz noted that this was not a habit. So it seems that the pistols were set in harbor and weren't easily changed aboard.
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