New for 2021 in Davide Pedersoli’s catalog of firearms is a single-shot hammer-fired .22LR rifle called Black Widow. This is a break-action gun with the barrel folding towards the stock until it reaches the grip. When folded, the gun has quite a compact triangular shape and according to the manufacturer, can be easily stored in a medium-sized backpack.

Being a single shot rimfire rifle with polymer furniture, the Pedersoli Black Widow is also very lightweight tipping the scales at 3.3 lbs. The grip has a rather interesting design with an oversized sort of a beavertail. Presumably, the holes in the bottom strap of the skeletonized stock are for storing cartridges.

The removable handguard is wrapped around the barrel and has a short, 3-slot Picatinny rail section at the very front bottom portion. Apparently, as seen in the picture below, the handguard must be detached, slid forward and rotated 180 degrees to allow folding the gun to a minimum footprint. The lever underneath the receiver, in front of the trigger guard, is likely for opening the action or locking the folded gun … or maybe both (there is very little information available at the moment). The muzzle of the 19″ barrel is threaded and covered with a thread protector. The gun comes with iron sights installed and has a drilled and tapped barrel block to allow attaching scopes. The overall length of this rifle is 36″.

The MSRP of the Pedersoli Black Widow is not yet specified and the gun can’t be found on the websites of this Italian company’s US distributors. The estimated start of shipping is June 2021. We’ll make sure to report the availability of this firearm in the US.

For those of you who are into backpack guns and survival gear, tell us in the comments section what do you think about the Pedersoli Black Widow? What price point do you think would be justified and make it competitive on the market?

Pictures by Davide Pedersoli, www.davide-pedersoli.com