Does anyone know what this is? Punch Gun?

[dom1104]

It apparently fires a .32 caliber projectile, other than that I am 100% lost as to what it is.

Did I pay too much for this trinket? It supposedly dates back to the turn of the century.

 

[armoredman]

Looks like a humane killer, used to put horses and such down by vets at the turn of last century. I could be wrong.

 

[SDC]

It looks to be a variant of the George Webber single-shot "squeezer-pistol", patented in 1905 by George Webber of Chicago (which prohibits this pistol by name, ironically). If you go to http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm and enter 0788866 in the search field, you can see his patent drawings for this. Depending on where you are, this item may be entirely illegal, with no way to get it legal to own again; this is likely considered an AOW under current laws, which requires registration with ATFE and payment of a tax stamp.

 

[30-30shooter]

the idea behind that is it was to be put on a glove between your fingers and the force of you punching someone caused the firing pin to hit the primer, it very popular with french resistance fighters. i think that's what it is, iv never seen one only heard about them on the history channel.

 

[Jim K]

Unfortunately, I think the History Channel is better at propagating myth than reporting history. IIRC they once stated that the Liberator pistol was used by the French resistance to kill thousands of Germans. Never happened. And in a show about Bonnie and Clyde, they showed an AK-47 and an SKS. I guess B&C had a time machine.

Jim

 

[SDC]

30-30, you're probably thinking of the Sedgley Glove Pistol, which was designed for the OSS during WW2, but which never saw any use, as far as I've been able to find out; those had a distinctive "box-style" design, though, unlike the Webber.

 

[Jim K]

According to some sources the glove pistol was designed for the Navy SeaBees*. Supposedly, a SeaBee driving a bulldozer was attacked by a Japanese soldier who climbed on the machine with malicious intent. The American slugged him and he was then killed by Marines. But someone got the idea that the defense against such an attack was to attach a pistol to the work gloves that the SeaBees normally wore, so an attacker would not only be KO'd but shot as well. The idea actually had some life until someone realized that providing thousands of costly weapons against the very unlikely chance of a repeat attack of that kind, was just not cost effective. The SeaBees continued to carry rifles on their bulldozers and so far as is known, none were ever again attacked by a Japanese soldier in that way.


*From "CB" or Construction Battalion, a Navy outfit equipped with heavy machinery that built and maintained Marine Corp air bases and built fortifications; their courage and ability to both work and fight was legendary.

Jim

 

[bigfatdave]

Looks like a specialized syrings

"now available, the high-speed lead injector!"

 

[rcmodel]

According to some sources the glove pistol was designed for the Navy SeaBees*.

My dad was a SeaBee in the Philippines during most all of WWII.
That the glove gun was designed for the SeaBee's seems pretty far fetched to me.

All the photo's he had showed them wearing shorts & shoes, and little else. Don't even know if work gloves were readily available to them.
Especially work gloves with guns on them!

He was issued an 03 Springfield, and they had Thompson's & handguns available when a door gunner on a bulldozer was called for.

They were also quite ingenous about building armored drivers compartments on every piece of equipment out of scraped landing craft steel plate too.

He has told me snipers and kamazie attacks by single straggler Japanese solders were fairly common when they first got there and started clearing what jungle was left for airfields.

But the Army, Marines, and Filipino's there made pretty short work of cleaning out the stragglers.

There was apparently a bounty put on Japanese heads, and my father had photo's of the Filipino's bringing them in strung on vine/ropes.

rc

 

[JohnBT]

"All the photo's he had showed them wearing shorts & shoes, and little else."

My father was there with the Army Air Corps (13th Jungle Air Force) having started out in New Guinea. He said a lot of them wore hats too.

 

[Jim K]

As I said, that was the story. In any event, the "glove guns" were never made in any quantity and never issued to anyone. Just an interesting byway in gun collecting.

Jim

 

[Rad4570]

+1 on the humane killer. Some time down the road they switched to a pneumatic device to fill the niche.

 

[Big Juan]

I believe there is a somewhat similar item in the BBHC gun museum here in Cody. You might contact the curator and ask them. Thanks for sharing, very interesting.
Buffalo Bill Historical Center:

http://www.bbhc.org/

 

[IBEWBULL]

30-30, you're probably thinking of the Sedgley Glove Pistol, which was designed for the OSS during WW2, but which never saw any use, as far as I've been able to find out; those had a distinctive "box-style" design, though, unlike the Webber.

I believe these were issued to heavy equipment operators in the Sea-bees in the Pacific Theater. I am sure it was a back up to a 1911 in a holster or carbine.