 Ordnance pistol of the French Navy, 19th century, using a Percussion cap mechanism A pistol or handgun is a small firearm (typically less than about 30 cm [about 12 inches] long) designed with only one handgrip and intended to be used with one hand or with two hands wrapped around the one handgrip. Image File history File links Source:http://www. ...
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Browning Arms Company was founded in Utah in 1927. ...
Browning Hi-Power The Browning Hi-Power is based on a semi-automatic 9 mm pistol conceived and patented in the United States in 1922 by American firearms inventor John Browning, who eventually took his ideas to Belgium and the arms manufacturer Fabrique Nationale de Herstal. ...
Image File history File links Pistolet dordonance de la Marine française, XIXe siècle, Musée de la Marine de Paris. ...
Image File history File links Pistolet dordonance de la Marine française, XIXe siècle, Musée de la Marine de Paris. ...
The percussion cap or primer was the crucial invention that enabled firearms to fire in any weather. ...
Image File history File links Deringer_unknown_adamsguns. ...
Image File history File links Deringer_unknown_adamsguns. ...
The term derringer is a genericized misspelling of the last name of Henry Deringer, a famous maker of small pocket pistols in the 1800s. ...
Image File history File links P99-disassembled-720x540. ...
Image File history File links P99-disassembled-720x540. ...
The Walther P99 is a semiautomatic pistol made in Germany by Walther Sportwaffen. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
Overview
All handguns are divided into one of two major groups depending upon the location of the chamber. Revolvers have a revolving chamber (which is to say, a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers); other pistols have a chamber integral with the barrel. There are various sub-types.
Some handguns include single-shot pistols, revolvers, semi-automatic pistols, and fully automatic, or machine pistols. In the 15th century the term "pistol" was used for small knives and daggers which could be concealed in a person's clothing. By the 18th century the term came to be used exclusively to refer to hand-held firearms. Single shot pistols have existed since the early years of firearms. ...
rEVOLVEr (2004) is the fourth studio album release by Swedish thrash metal band The Haunted. ...
Springfield Armory M1911A1 . ...
A machine pistol shares several properties of the semi-automatic handgun and the sub-machine gun. ...
(14th century - 15th century - 16th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was that century which lasted from 1401 to 1500. ...
(17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ...
Etymology The term "pistol" is derived from the French pistole (or pistolet), which has these possible origins:- - From the Czech pistole and this one from the Czech píšťala (flute or pipe, referring to the shape of a Hussite firearm).
- From the city of Pistoia, Italy, where perhaps a manufacturer was one Camillio Vettelli in the 1540s.
- That early pistols were carried by cavalry in holsters hung from the pommel (or pistallo in medieval French) of a horse's saddle.
The Hussites comprised a Christian movement following the teachings of the reformer Jan Hus (circa 1369–1415), who was influenced by John Wyclif and became one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
Pistoia (ancient Pistoria) is a city in the Tuscany region of Italy, the capital of a province of the same name, located about 30 km (18 mi) west and north of Florence. ...
See also: Hilt (band) and Peter Hilt The hilt of a sword is its handle, consisting of a guard, grip and pommel. ...
The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. ...
Types of handguns
 Luger or P08 Parabellum, used by the German military Varieties of handgun: "automatic" self-loading pistols, revolvers (including black powder revolvers), multi-barreled pistols, single-shot hunting or target pistols and finally flintlock pistols. In a pistol, the chamber, in which the cartridge is held for firing, is the rearmost portion of the barrel. Thus the term "pistol" technically excludes revolvers, although this distinction is often ignored in colloquial usage, where revolvers are commonly referred to as "pistols." Image File history File links Luger-M1900. ...
Image File history File links Luger-M1900. ...
The Parabellum-Pistole (Pistol Parabellum), popularly known as the Luger pistol is a semi-automatic self-loading pistol patented by Georg Luger in 1898 and manufactured by Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken (DWM) starting in 1900. ...
A Semi-automatic (also known as Self-loading) pistol is a type of handheld firearm, a kind of pistol. ...
rEVOLVEr (2004) is the fourth studio album release by Swedish thrash metal band The Haunted. ...
In firearms, the chamber is the part of the barrel in which the cartridge is inserted prior to being fired. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
Flintlock The flintlock firing mechanism dates back to the 16th century, although it was another hundred years before it was generally used in infantry muskets, by which time it had been perfected. It survived well into the 19th century and was often known as the French lock because Marin le Bourgeoys, a French gunmaker working in Paris for Henry IV's Louvre, had invented it - in about 1610. He had modified a much more complicated mechanism into a simpler one-piece mechanism. It was also called a firelock. The basic action is that the trigger is pulled and a spring causes the striker, the frizzen, to strike the flint which showers sparks on to the gunpowder in the priming pan.
Multi-barreled Multi-Barreled pistols such as some variants of Derringer and Pepper-box pistols are still in circulation today. The Pepper-box pistol is a multishot handheld firearm, which was popular in North America around the time of the American Civil War. The pepperbox was invented in the 1830s and was meant mainly for civilian use. It spread rapidly in the United Kingdom and some parts of continental Europe. It started disappearing gradually in the 1850s with the manufacture of true revolvers by Colt, Webley and others. It was similar to the revolver since like it, it held bullets in a rotating cylinder, in separate chambers. Unlike the revolver however, each bullet had its own barrel. The term derringer is a genericized misspelling of the last name of Henry Deringer, a famous maker of small pocket pistols in the 1800s. ...
Pepper-box revolver Pepper-box revolver from Småland, Sweden, made by Johan Engholm, Ödestugu (1820-1918) The Pepper-box revolver or pepperbox revolver is a multishot handheld firearm, which was popular in North America around the time of the American Civil War. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ...
rEVOLVEr (2004) is the fourth studio album release by Swedish thrash metal band The Haunted. ...
Image File history File links Source:http://www. ...
Image File history File links Source:http://www. ...
Enfield No. ...
Revolvers Revolvers feed ammunition via the rotation of a cartridge-filled cylinder, in which each cartridge is contained in its own ignition chamber, and is sequentially brought into alignment with the weapon's barrel by a mechanism linked to the weapon's trigger (double-action) or its hammer (single-action). These nominally cylindrical chambers, usually numbering between five and ten depending on the size of the revolver and the size the cartridge being fired, are bored through the cylinder so that their axes are parallel to the cylinder's axis of rotation; thus, as the cylinder rotates, the chambers revolve about the cylinder's axis. Due to simplicity of construction and operation, revolvers are considered by some to be more reliable than semi-automatic pistols. However, revolvers can fail to function under extreme use conditions due to the build-up of metal and powder residue around the revolving cylinder. rEVOLVEr (2004) is the fourth studio album release by Swedish thrash metal band The Haunted. ...
Boxes of ammunition clog a warehouse in Baghdad Ammunition is a generic military term meaning (the assembly of) a projectile and its propellant. ...
Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1740x1321, 1206 KB) Walther P99 chambered for 9x19mm round, green polymer frame File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Pistol Semi-automatic firearm Walther P99 User:LoganK User...
Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1740x1321, 1206 KB) Walther P99 chambered for 9x19mm round, green polymer frame File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Pistol Semi-automatic firearm Walther P99 User:LoganK User...
Carl Walther GmbH Sportwaffen is a German arms manufacturer. ...
The Walther P99 is a semiautomatic pistol made in Germany by Walther Sportwaffen. ...
A semi-automatic pistol is a handgun commonly used as a sidearm by police and military all over the world. ...
Semi-automatic pistols
Compact semiautomatic Smith & Wesson .45 ACP Chief's Special — Model CS45 Semi-automatic pistols fire one round after each pull of the trigger, without the need to manually cock the hammer. After a round is fired, the pistol will cycle, ejecting the spent casing and chambering a new round from the magazine, allowing the user to fire another shot immediately. One of the main advantages of semi-automatic pistols is that many of them can hold more rounds than a revolver. Their flat profile also tends to make them easier to conceal than revolvers. A potential disadvantage is that the traditional recoil-based operating mechanisms limit the power of available rounds. Many users, however, feel that the added ammunition capacity and faster reload times compensate for this deficiency. Image File history File links S&W-Chief. ...
Image File history File links S&W-Chief. ...
Smith & Wesson NASDAQ: SWHC are the largest manufacturers of handguns in the United States. ...
Springfield Armory M1911A1 . ...
Some terms that have been, or still are, used as synonyms for semi-automatic pistol are:
- automatic pistol
- autopistol
- self-loading pistol
- selfloader
Machine pistols A machine pistol is generally defined as a firearm designed to be fired with one hand, and capable of fully automatic or selective fire. While there are a number of machine pistols such as the Glock 18 and later models of the Mauser C96, these are rare; the light weight, small size, and extremely rapid rates of fire of a machine pistol make them difficult to control, making the larger heavier submachine gun a better choice in cases where the small size of a machine pistol is not needed. Most machine pistols can attach a shoulder stock (the Heckler & Koch VP70 would only fire single rounds at a time unless the stock was attached); others, such as the Beretta 93R, add a forward handgrip. Either of these additions technically create a legal non-pistol under the US National Firearms Act, as pistols are by definition designed to be fired with one hand. The addition of a stock or forward handgrip is considered a design change that creates either a short-barreled rifle or any other weapon, and therefore such additions are generally only found on legal machine guns. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2265x1377, 616 KB) Work by Rama File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Pistol Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2265x1377, 616 KB) Work by Rama File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Pistol Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner...
The Uzi is a compact, boxy, light-weight submachine gun. ...
A machine pistol shares several properties of the semi-automatic handgun and the sub-machine gun. ...
A selective fire weapon can be fired in either of at least two modes, depending on the position of the selector switch. ...
The GLOCK 18 is a handgun manufactured by GLOCK. It is much like a GLOCK 17 with a fire selector switch on its slide that enables it to fire in semi-automatic or fully automatic modes. ...
An National Revolutionary Army soldier with a gas mask and a Mauser M1932. ...
The MP5, a famous submachine gun, sees widespread use amongst those that can afford it. ...
Beretta Model 93R is a selective-fire machine pistol. ...
The National Firearms Act (NFA), cited as the Act of June 26, 1934, Ch. ...
A machine gun is a fully-automatic firearm that is capable of firing bullets in rapid succession. ...
Operating Mechanisms Single-action (SA) handguns have a trigger mechanism whose sole function is to drop a pre-cocked hammer to discharge a cartridge. For revolvers, the popular Colt Peacemaker of Old West fame is typically thought of. Its hammer must be manually cocked for each shot. For auto-loading pistols the Colt 1911 or Browning Hi-Power are typical examples. They must be cocked for the first shot, but subsequent shots are cocked automatically. These types of guns typically have a very light and crisp trigger pull, making for more accurate target shooting. Colt Single Action Army handgun (Modern Verson) Also known as the Colt Peacemaker or Single Action Army, the Colt Single Action Army handgun is a single action revolver holding 6 rounds of ammunition, that was designed for the US cavalry by Colts Manufacturing Company and adopted in 1875, and...
Great Basin region, typical American West The Western United States has played a significant role in history and fiction. ...
The M1911 is a single-action, semiautomatic handgun chambered for the . ...
Browning Hi-Power The Browning Hi-Power is based on a semi-automatic 9 mm pistol conceived and patented in the United States in 1922 by American firearms inventor John Browning, who eventually took his ideas to Belgium and the arms manufacturer Fabrique Nationale de Herstal. ...
Traditional double-action (DA) handguns have a mechanism that can be either pre-cocked, like the above single-action gun, or can be fired with the gun uncocked. In this case, the gun has an additional mechanism added to the trigger that will cock the gun (and rotate the cylinder in the case of revolvers) as the trigger is pulled. Once the trigger is pulled far enough, the hammer is released and the gun fired. For autoloading pistols the self-loading mechanism will also re-cock the hammer after the first shot is fired so that subsequent shots are fired single-action. For revolvers, each shot is fired with the hammer initially uncocked unless the shooter manually cocked the gun. Popular auto pistols in this category include the Walther P38 and Beretta Model 92. These guns typically have a longer, heavier trigger pull for the first shot then light, crisp pulls for subsequent shots. Popular revolvers include the Ruger Redhawk and Smith & Wesson Model 629. These have long, heavy trigger pulls for all shots unless the revolver is manually cocked. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1280x960, 115 KB) Authors own picture. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1280x960, 115 KB) Authors own picture. ...
The Jericho 941 is a double action, high capacity pistol developed by Israeli Military Industries, and introduced in 1990. ...
Ball and hollowpoint 9 mm Luger rounds The 9 mm Parabellum pistol cartridge (9 x 19 mm Luger, 9 x 19 mm NATO) was introduced in the late 1890s by the German weapons manufacturer Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM) for their Pistole Parabellum. ...
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Walther P38 The Walther P38 is a 9 mm pistol that was issued to NCOs and officers of the Wehrmacht near the end of World War II. It replaced the costly Luger P08. ...
The Beretta 92s are full size pistols. ...
Sturm, Ruger & Company is a Connecticut-based manufacturing company composed of three divisions: Ruger Firearms, Ruger Investment Castings, and Ruger Golf. ...
Smith & Wesson NASDAQ: SWHC are the largest manufacturers of handguns in the United States. ...
Double-action only (DAO) handguns do not have the ability to be cocked and is usually evidenced by a lack of either the hammer spur or the entire hammer. A typical autopistol in this category is the Ruger KP93DAO and Taurus Millennium, and a typical revolver is the Smith & Wesson Model 640 "Chief's Special". All pistols in this category have a long, heavy trigger pull for all shots. Sturm, Ruger & Company is a Connecticut-based manufacturing company composed of three divisions: Ruger Firearms, Ruger Investment Castings, and Ruger Golf. ...
This article needs to be updated. ...
Smith & Wesson NASDAQ: SWHC are the largest manufacturers of handguns in the United States. ...
Pre-set triggers are only on autoloading pistols. In this case the pistol mechanism is always partially cocked while being carried and during firing. The partially-cocked firing pin or striker is not cocked enough to cause an accidental release to discharge a cartridge, adding to the safeness of the design, but is cocked enough to remove much of the trigger pull and weight of a purely double-action pistol. These types of pistols do not have external hammers and do not generally have a decock function. Common pistols in the category are the Springfield Armory XD and the various forms of the extremely popular Glock. The trigger pull of these guns is between double-action and single-action pistols. Pre-set triggers may or may not have a second-strike feature on a dud cartridge. The XD and a knife. ...
Glock is an Austrian defense contractor (named after the founder Gaston Glock) founded in 1963 in Deutsch-Wagram, near Vienna, Austria. ...
Some automatic pistol models such as the HK Heckler & Koch USP (Universal Self-loading Pistol) come in a variety of mechanism types and can be easily changed by a gunsmith for both left- and right-handed shooters and for different operating mechanism and safety features. Heckler & Koch G41 Heckler & Koch GmbH (H&K) (pronounced //) is a German weapons manufacturing company famous for various series of small firearms, notably the MP5 submachine gun, the MP7 personal defense weapon, USP series handguns, high-precision PSG1 sniper rifle, and the G3 and G36 assault rifles. ...
A gunsmith is a person who designs, builds, repairs or modifies firearms to blueprint and customer specifications, using hand tools and machine tools such as grinders and lathes. ...
Advantages of pistols In comparison to longer guns such as shoulder weapons (rifles and shotguns), pistols are smaller, lighter, easier to conceal, and faster to bring to bear. Another important tactical consideration, in the context of civilian self-defense, is that an attacker in close quarters with the defender can more easily wrestle a shoulder weapon's muzzle to a position where it is not covering him, and can more easily wrestle the gun away from the defender, whereas a handgun offers little to grab, and is more likely to still be covering some portion of the attacker during the struggle. Finally, a pistol is actually more socially acceptable, whether carried by sworn law enforcement officers or authorized civilians (e.g. private investigators, bodyguards and concealed-weapon-permit holders) than a long gun such as a shotgun or carbine.
Disadvantages of pistols Generally being a self-defense weapon for use under 50 metres, most handgun rounds have neither the energy nor the accuracy of a round fired from a rifle or shotgun. Self defense refers to actions taken by a person to defend onself, ones property or ones home. ...
The metre, or meter (U.S.), is a measure of length. ...
It has been suggested that Break action be merged into this article or section. ...
Pistols and gun politics Smaller pistols are easily concealed on a person—a trait that is particularly useful to people wishing to carry a handgun for self-protection or for criminals wishing to bear arms. Larger handguns, including many hunting pistols, are often much longer and thus less concealable. For these reasons, handguns are a particular focus of debates on gun politics, and in many jurisdictions their ownership is much more heavily regulated than long arms. The term gun politics refers to the various public policy debates surrounding the freedom or restriction (gun rights versus gun control) of private ownership and usage of firearms, and to what extent such policy influences crime, capacity for self-defense, and the balance of power between the individual and the...
In the United States, 48 states allow some form of concealed carry by citizens meeting training or other requirements. 39 of these states, called "shall-issue" states, require issue of a permit if there is no compelling reason not to issue a permit (such as a prior felony conviction, a restraining order, or history of mental illness). Generally, in a shall issue state, if a person cannot obtain a concealed weapons permit once training requirements are met, that person also cannot lawfully own a firearm. The remaining 9 states, called "may-issue" states, may deny a permit for any reason, usually at the discretion of local law enforcement. In the United States, concealed carry is the right to carry a handgun or other weapon in public in a concealed manner. ...
For the record label, see Felony Records The term felony is a term used in common law systems for very serious crimes, whereas misdemeanors are considered to be less serious offenses. ...
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that either prohibits or compels (enjoins or restrains) a party from continuing a particular activity. ...
A mental illness as defined in psychiatry and other mental health professions, is abnormal mental condition or disorder expressing symptoms that cause significant distress and/or dysfunction. ...
In the United States, a person must be 21 years of age to purchase a handgun or ammunition intended for a handgun from a Federally licensed dealer, which is higher than the age requirement of 18 for rifles and shotguns. // A Federal Firearms License, or FFL, is a license that enables an individual or a company to engage in a business that pertains to the production of firearms and ammunitions or the interstate and intrastate sale of firearms. ...
In the United Kingdom, civillian ownership of almost any pistol has been outlawed since the Dunblane massacre of 1996; the only exclustion were single shot rimfire and muzzleloading pistols; all cartridge firearms were later banned in 1997. Air pistols are still legal, however, those with power levels over 6 foot pounds (half the limit for air rifles) are classified as firearms. The Dunblane massacre was a multiple murder-suicide which occurred at the primary school in the town of Dunblane, Scotland on 13 March 1996. ...
Single shot pistols have existed since the early years of firearms. ...
A rimfire is a type of firearm cartridge. ...
A US soldier drops a shell into the muzzle of an M224 60-mm mortar. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Air guns are weapons that propel a bullet using compressed air or another gas, possibly liquefied. ...
In physics, a foot-pound (symbol ft·lbf or ft·lbf) is an Imperial and U.S. customary unit of mechanical work, or energy, although in scientific fields one commonly uses the equivalent metric unit of the joule (J). ...
See the main gun politics article or the article on concealed carry in particular for more details on this debate. The term gun politics refers to the various public policy debates surrounding the freedom or restriction (gun rights versus gun control) of private ownership and usage of firearms, and to what extent such policy influences crime, capacity for self-defense, and the balance of power between the individual and the...
In the United States, concealed carry is the right to carry a handgun or other weapon in public in a concealed manner. ...
Other related info In the 1780s, Alessandro Volta built a toy electric pistol ([1]) in which an electric spark caused the explosion of a mixture of air and hydrogen, firing a cork from the end of the gun. Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (February 18, 1745 - March 5, 1827) was an Italian physicist known especially for the development of the electric battery in 1800. ...
Layers of Atmosphere (NOAA) Air redirects here. ...
This article is about the chemistry of hydrogen. ...
See also Image File history File links Commons-logo. ...
Wikimedia Commons logo by Reid Beels The Wikimedia Commons (also called Commons or Wikicommons) is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. ...
Blowback is a system in which automatic or semi-automatic firearms operate through the energy created by combustion in the chamber and bore acting directly on the bolt face through the cartridge. ...
In the United States, concealed carry is the right to carry a handgun or other weapon in public in a concealed manner. ...
A gun is a common name given to a device that fires high-velocity projectiles. ...
Handguns fire their projectiles at a significantly lower velocity than rifles. ...
Polish-made machine pistols BÅ‚yskawica and Kis, distant derivates of the British Sten GLOCK 18C shown with high capacity magazine. ...
A pocket pistol is an American term for any small, pocket-sized semi-automatic pistol or, less-popular, any other handgun (e. ...
Small arms captured in Fallujah, Iraq by the US Marine Corps in 2004 The term small arms generally describes any number of smaller infantry weapons, such as firearms that an individual soldier can carry. ...
Springfield Armory M1911A1 . ...
The shooting sports include those competitive sports involving tests of accuracy and speed when shooting various types of guns, including airguns. ...
The bayonet is used as both knife and spear. ...
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