Nice looking antiques, all of them.

Erik, what did your great ... grand father use his for? Bandits, hunting, a 'gentleman's' piece?

Is that an African pebble game board underneath yours? Sometimes played in the dirt by scooping holes in the African bush shebeens.

If it was bigger it would be like a Howdah pistol. As you know the British used howdah pistols as the last line of defence against enraged tigers from the back of howdah's on elephants.

For pistols as a backup gun, one reason PHs might carry them is if the beast (probably not an elephant though) gets in biting distance the rifle becomes useless but in some examples could still be shot with a pistol (ie when it was on top of them).

Another example which I personally had was with "BigFive" when we had to crawl and slither through a tunnel in the thick riverine bush. A rifle was impossible to use but his pistol could have been used in an emergency. We were only following up a wounded bushbuck but they have been known to get aggressive.

IF LEGAL I wonder how one of these ever promised Baikal .45/70 would go as a modern Howdah pistol if the barrels were cutback and the stock made into a pistol grip?

I wonder what sort of loads would be possible to shoot from it? Maybe worth a new thread?