Still going through endless cool stuff that belonged to my dad. He brought this little gas pistol home from Germany after he was stationed there during the Korean War. Just wondering if anyone has one or knows about them.







Makes me miss him even more!

That's just enough to get you in trouble in WI? . . . and anywhere else if a LEO sees it.

These fired a small crimped teargas cartridge. Rohm later made low priced cartridge guns, notably the one used in the Reagan assassination attempt.

What trouble, SJA?


I passed that one along to my brother and it had some tiny cartridges with it. I should have captured photos of those.

It's very cool! Thanks for sharing the pictures and story.

Thank you, ADC!

Rohm were the Saturday night specials

that is also not a gun exactly as mentioned blanks , tear gas , marking paint

now there was the posibility that some of those starter pistols were fairly easy to convert from blank firing to cartridge firing.

neat that it was your dads

The blank cartridges fit into a bar the sits at right angles to the bore so no way to fire live ammunition.
Also, the Rohm pistol frames were made of Zamak a low melting point zinc alloy, so weren't Importable after 1968.
After that date they were assembled in Florida to get around import laws.

WI is both an open carry state and Patrice has a CCL

outside of MKE and maybe Madison most cops might recommend she get a better gun but probably are not super worried about her.

not unusual to be in the hardware store and someone has a gun on their hip.

Thanks, Coonlove!

Thanks, Pete! You're right, that is absolutely not my carry gun. I have many real guns to choose from and a favorite that I carry. To me, it's just another cool little thing I've run into while going through my dad's collection of cool stuff. I don't know much about it but I figured some of you would.

My dad passed away in 2019, but my parents lived in a big multilevel house where my mom lived until recently. She decided at 91 years old to move to a senior place with less steps. We were never really forced to go through all of my dad's stuff until my mom decided to move. My dad had a basement workshop, a garage workshop, a small shed and a den packed full of stuff. Drove my mom crazy. I have brought home tools, guns, boxes of books, loads of stuff. Zim has been tripping over boxes here for months. He scored some tools though!


I miss him so much!

So back to the little pistol. From a practical standpoint, what was it used for? It appears to be advertised for multiple things.

a non lethal primarily psychological deterrent

a vest pocket gun that wasn't actually a bullet firing gun.

Europe had some interesting laws about guns , people found interesting ways of working with them.

ask yourself this , you are a thief in West Germany in 1966 and someone pulls a gun when you get caught , are you sticking around to figure out if they are a bad aim or it is just a blank gun?

Kinda resembles the starter pistol my Uncle brought home after WW1

Europe has indeed had some interesting gun laws. Look up the Velo - dog revolver from France in 1890's. Designed for bicyclists to shoot aggressive dogs! Imagine that being a selling point today.....

Thanks, you guys! The colored fluids and chemicals part is intriguing. Also the statement that it is useful for training animals!

My dad had one of those, he served in WW2 as well as Korea and somewhere along the way picked it up, he also had a copy of a Luger that shot number 4 lead shot using caps, it wasn’t very powerful as you would expect being powered by those old red rolled caps but it was still fun, haven’t seen another like it since but have found the gas guns at gun shows now and then

Like you we found a lot of cool stuff when ma moved out of the house when she got older, sadly didn’t find either of those guns but did find a couple of others as well as lots of tools and other things

It’s a bittersweet thing going through a loved ones things and getting a picture of their life you might not have known anything about

Nightlife, I hope you found enough things that brought back good memories. Thanks for reading and sharing.

A blessed post that stirs all kinda memories.
THANKS Patrice !

Thank YOU, Crowfoot! Just wait until I get out his miniature cannons! Lots more to come and to smile about!