Rifleman Q&A: Italian-Made EIG Derringer

** When you buy products through the links on our site, we may earn a commission that supports NRA's mission to protect, preserve and defend the Second Amendment. **
brownie.jpg

Q: I have my grandfather’s pistol that we think he picked up in the ‘50s when he was stationed in Europe. It appears similar to the Mossberg Brownie referenced in the April 2019 issue of American Rifleman.

We found it in his collection after he passed, so it is one of the pistols we do not know the history of other than it is supposedly referred to as a “melon baller.” My searches on the Internet leave me with more questions than answers. Other than resemblance to Mossberg’s Brownie, can you help source information about this four-shot pistol?
   

A: Your gun is commonly called the Italian Brownie by collectors, or, more formally, the EIG four-barrel derringer. This Italian-­made derringer is not an exact copy of the Mossberg Brownie, but it does not need a DNA test to determine the designer must have had a disassembled Mossberg Brownie on his drafting table.

Mossberg made 37,000 Brownies between 1919 and 1932. The “XXII” next to the Italian proofmarks on your pistol is a date code showing your gun was made in 1966. It was made by Fratelli Tanfoglio of Brescia, Italy, for the EIG company.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibited the importation of small pistols. Companies such as EIG evaded the intent of the Gun Control Act by importing all but the frame of the many models of small semi-automatic pistols they had been importing from Spain and Italy, and then having the frames made in U.S. factories.

If they imported all but the frame of the Brownie, there wouldn’t be much left—I suspect they didn’t bother and dropped that model. Yours is marked with Italian proofmarks of 1966, so it was a pre-GCA ‘68 import.

According to an April 30, 1969, article in the New York Times, EIG was owned by Saul Eig, and he had ordered enough parts to make hundreds of thousands of small semi-automatic pistols in a factory he was building in Florida.

Investigative reporters found one shipment from Tanfoglio, Brescia, Italy, contained enough parts to complete 10,000 semi-automatic pistols.

Latest

.308 Win.
.308 Win.

Handloads: A Quiet .308 Win. For Large-Format Pistols

Of the many commercial .308 Winchester loads, few, if any, are designed for barrels shorter than 16". The one that follows helps address this gap while remaining simple to suppress and light on the wrists.

Court Approves Watchtower Firearms DIP Financing

Watchtower Firearms was granted final approval for debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas in late June.

Review: Ruger LC Carbine In 10 mm Auto

Following the success of its .45 ACP-chambered LC Carbine, Ruger realized that this platform would go a long way toward making the 10 mm Auto more controllable and fun to shoot, and a new 10 mm version was released in 2024.

The Armed Citizen® July 14, 2025

Read today's "The Armed Citizen" entry for real stories of law-abiding citizens, past and present, who used their firearms to save lives.

Favorite Firearms: A Little Stevens From Chicago

"Over the next five or six years, and before I went off to college, I fired hundreds and hundreds of rounds of .22 BB Caps, CB Caps, Shorts and Longs through this rifle."

Preview: Strike Industries T-Bone Charging Handle

The T-Bone from Strike Industries is an ideal fit for suppressed applications, as it can be configured by the user to redirect gas blowback entirely to either side ...

Interests



Get the best of American Rifleman delivered to your inbox.