u/Kalashalite

It's a beast in the jungle

The "Backup 38 SPL Pistol" appears to one of the old Italian clones of the Remington over and under derringer. As someone who's shot one more than a little I can assure you that in a survival situation unless you can lure your quarry into a game of cards it's not going to be of much use.

Quarter and .32 ACP for scale. It has a very aggressive step in the neck, it's rimmed, no primer or area for a primer to go, what looks to be necked down to about .25 cal. I assumed it may be a dummy round.

Is this even ammo?

https://smallarmsreview.com/interview-with-tim-lafrance-of-lafrance-specialties/

TIM: That’s an interesting story! It started with a guy named Joe Swanson, who lived in the San Diego area, and made blank ammunition for the movies since 1974. Joe was a friend of mine and knew I didn’t really want anything to do with the movie people following a negative experience I had from the movie, Day of the Jackal, where I had trouble getting paid for work I had done. One day, in about 1980, Joe dropped by the shop with an Uzi and asked me what was wrong with it. After looking at it, I told him the bolt was crooked and the trigger group wasn’t converted cleanly, but that I could fix it for about $200. He asked if I could have it done by the end of the week. When I found out it was a movie gun, I told him yes, but he had to pay me cash when he came to pick it up. I had it fixed a couple days later and called Joe to come pick it up. He came by and paid me in cash, but then asked me if I could fix seven more also by the end of the week. At the time, I could use the money so I said I would. Joe came back Saturday with a check from Syd Stembridge made out to me. I was sure it wouldn’t cash because it was a movie industry check, not because of Syd- the movie industry had a history of stiffing the gun handlers, but I was pleasantly surprised when it did. I finally started working directly with Syd, but made him go with me to the bank to cash the checks the first few times. Ellis Mercantile, the other big movie gun business at that time got hold of me and offered me half up front to work on their guns. That’s when I started converting the guns to full automatic. We did about 400 MP-5’s, 400 AK’s, all the Desert Eagles, and a bunch more until about 1992, when the bottom fell out and they started filming offshore.

I did a lot of specialty guns, like the sleeve derringer and “Pobyrin 9.2 mm” based on the Desert Eagle in Red Heat, and the plumbers’ gun for a Bill Friedken movie, where all the parts came out of the plumbers tool box to make a silenced rifle. We got an order once from Stembridge for eight Micro Uzi’s, but he wanted them two-tone nickel plated with jeweled handles. We also made the Micro’s for Chuck Norris in his action movies. I even picked up Miami Vice, doing all their work. In 1986, just before the machinegun ban, we took in 1200 guns to be converted, started the work by drilling the holes and engraving them, and didn’t finish up some of those until 1989. The first movie set that I delivered to personally was for Arnold Schwarzenegger who was starring in Running Man. I made some full auto .22 Calico’s for the movie and got to take my ten year old son with me. He was thrilled to meet Arnold in person. I also did the guns for Commando, and for some Clint Eastwood movies.

I knew as soon as I saw them listed I'd snag one of these. Ended up ordering three since two of my friends are also filthy chocophiles.

I put it on top of my field jacket for a comparison photo. They look extremely similar until you get them out in the sunlight. The cap is more orange/brown if that makes sense.

https://smallarmsreview.com/extreme-dragunov/

At last, a worthy stablemate to that Saiga in 444 Marlin. The guy in the article probably genuinely believed this was a Chinese NDM-86 somehow.