Selected Handgun Detail

Manufacturer
	American Derringer Corporation More Info

About the Gun

Compact stainless-steel blowback pocket automatic with a single-action trigger, a frame-mounted thumb safety, fixed sights, and wood grips. It is American Derringer’s small semi-automatic, not a two-barrel derringer and not the manually cycled LM4.

Production

Production ran from the early 1990s through the mid-2000s.

Market value

MSRP at production was around $450–$550. Current used market value for examples in good to very good condition ranges $300–$500.

Cartridge Specifications
Cartridge:	.25 Automatic
Alias:	6.35mm Browning
More Info

Analysis

American Derringer introduced the LM5 in the early 1990s after Elizabeth Saunders took over the company, as a limited-quantity stainless pocket automatic beside the derringer catalog and the LM4 manual repeater. Factory literature listed it from .25 Auto up through .32 Mag; .380 Auto was also offered. Output stayed small—special-order volume rather than a regular production run—and Standard Catalog already treated the model as discontinued by the late 2000s. It is not the earlier San Antonio American Fire Arms .25 Auto of the 1970s, and it does not share the LM4’s forward-cycling locked-breech action. Used examples are scarce and trade as oddities from the Waco line rather than as a common pocket-pistol type.