What's the Firearm? Thu 2007.09.27
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This is the legendary Semmerling LM4, the smallest multi-shot .45 ACP ever offered. (There is a smaller single-shot .45, the size of a playing card, but you wouldn't enjoy firing it.) The LM4 has a 4-round magazine. (Ball ammo is specified for proper operation.) It's manually operated, as explained below. (A prototype semi-automatic version, the XLM, was produced for a military contract, but was abandoned due to excessive recoil.)
About 600 original LM4s were produced (with about 10 a month virtually hand made) between 1978 and 1982, at a price or around $750, which was high at the time. Today, if you find an original for sale, it will be $2-5K, depending upon condition.
It was designed as a backup gun which could fire the same (or bigger) round as one's primary handgun, yet is closer to the size of .32s and .380s.
Overall length was a scant 5.2" long with 3.45" of that barrel, a remarkable feat allowing the .45 to achieve full muzzle velocity and very little flash. (Most of today's .45 semi-auto sub-compacts have only 3" barrels, which decrease the muzzle velocity.)
While it looks like a semi-automatic, it is actually manually operated. It's fired from a static, fully-locked breech. To load the next round manually your thumb sends the slide forward ejecting the spent case. A flick rearward and the next round is stripped and effortlessly fed into the chamber. (If you look at where the slide ends, you can get a rough idea of how this works.)
With practice, one can fire all five rounds (one in the chamber and four in the magazine) accurately in not much over 5 seconds.
The Semmerling is fashioned out of 33 parts (including screws) making it one of the simplest guns ever made.
In its standard configuration, the Semmerling LM4 came in a matte black color, with the slide frames detailed in a high polish. The company also offered a complete high polish blued model as well as the hard chrome plated variant. Grips were available in plastic, Ebony or Cocobolo with a "thin kit" steel side plate (showing how many rounds remained) was optional.
Apparently the American Derringer Corporation bought the rights about ten years ago, and lists the LM4, but produces it only in Stainless Steel and only in special runs. (It will not take orders again until 2008.)
Much of this information is from an article by Daniel Dibner in the Sept/Oct American Handgunner magazine, and is corroborated by the Wikipedia and Answers.com entries. Information and images on the net are limited.
During 2005, the largest collections of Semmerlings comprising examples of the LM1, LM2, LM3, LM4 and the XLM along with all prototypes, tooling, drawings, production and testing equipment, advertising materials and leather accessories were provided to The National Firearms Museum, The Cody Firearms Museum and the Smithsonian.
Images at an NRA site:
From the ADC owner's manual:
The LM4 is discussed (with illustrations) in this Seecamp forum thread.
As a bit of trivia, the character "Repairman Jack" in the novels by F. Paul Wilson sometimes carried a Semmerling.
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