[on2wheels52]

Just to fill in some of the blanks, the Norinco is based on the Lignose Einhand. I found this information:

"A cocking and loading mechanism for an automatic pistol had been attempted early in the history of automatic handguns. The White-Merrill was the first design I’ve been able to locate, created for the U.S. military tests of 1907. It had a one-hand cocking spur beneath the trigger guard which could be operated by the middle and ring fingers of the shooting hand, but the ordinance department declared it “not entirely satisfactory.” Not everyone had hands strong enough to work the cocking spur, and the gun never made it past the prototype stage. Colt experimented with a couple of different systems for cocking their 1903 “Hammerless” model, but only one prototype for each design is known to exist, and neither was considered practical enough to manufacture. Ole Hermann Johannes Krag was granted a U.S. patent in 1910 for a pistol with a design very similar to that of the Chylewski--hammer fired, with the cocker forming the front portion of the trigger guard. A version of this pistol was tested by the U.S. Ordnance Department in May of 1911, but it did not perform well (though its problems had nothing to do with the cocking mechanism). Krag received a second U.S. patent in 1912 for another one-hand pistol design.
Sometime in the years 1913-1914 Witold Chylewski worked on the design of a slide retracting system to allow one-handed cocking and loading of an automatic pistol. The idea was a simple one--make the trigger guard in two parts, the forward portion being moveable, shaped like a trigger, and attached to a block mounted in a slot in the frame of the gun. The upper shoulder of the block fitted into two steps on either side of the forward portion of the slide. When the trigger-shaped front portion of the guard was pulled to the rear it moved the slide with it, cocking the hammer. When released, the recoil spring would cause the slide to go forward and chamber a round if the magazine were loaded. The mechanism was only viable for guns with light recoil springs, such as 6.35mm or 7.65mm blowback operated pistols. Chylewski obtained a Swiss patent for his mechanism in 1916 and Societe Industrielle Suisse Neuhausen produced a 6.35mm one-hand pistol for him for a brief time under the Chylewski name. Apparently only about 1000 were made.
The Bergmann company obtained the patent rights from Chylewski, and must have had time to make a few specimens before the company was sold to Lignose--Model 2A and 3A pistols with the Bergmann name are relatively scarce. Lignose, however, continued to produce them right up to the beginning of World War II in 1939."

So it seems that while the concept of having an auto-loading pistol that can be operated with one had had some merit 100 years ago, no one seems very excited about making one today (Captain Hook would be a customer).
My buddy (who is a bigger guy than me) was unable to pull through the self-loading feature on the Norinco, though I could, even left-handed. Perhaps he has a touch of arthritis.

Jim