I have to admit that I don't know. The PPC guns belong to my father, who shot for a California department in the '70s. I always thought the short barrel model was just his perverse sense of humor (he also has a 4" model that he actually carried on duty - see below), but I've read that there were "backup gun" matches. Perhaps it was for one of those.

As far as I know, it was built by Bill Davis.