Top 10 Service Handguns

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by this thread on The Top 10 Battle Rifles, I thought it might be interesting to have the Top 10 Service Handguns thread as well.

I’ve added some explanatory notes, as well has linking to the relevant wikipedia articles for all the guns.

  1. Beaumont-Adams Revolver

The first practical double-action revolver, and generally accepted to be superior to the single-action Colt 1851 Navy revolver.

  1. Colt Single Action Army

The Gun That Won The West, and is still popular 133 years after first being introduced. Well-made, firing a powerful round, this is the first gun that comes to mind for many people when they hear the term “revolver”.

  1. Mauser C96 “Broomhandle”

The first practical semi-automatic pistol, it was very popular until the 1950s and saw extensive use in Africa, WWI, WWII, and China. Winston Churchill and T.E. Lawrence both carried and used Mauser Broomhandles during their military adventures.

  1. Nagant M1895

The Nagant M1895 uses a strange “Gas Seal” system for reasons that don’t bear much relevance in the 21st century, but nonetheless the Nagant M1895 served both Tsarist and Soviet Russia admirably, being nigh-indestructible, cheap to produce, and guaranteed to work even in the harshest of Russian Winters. They’re still in service with the Russian Railways and some remote Police Departments over 110 years after first being introduced.

  1. Sig P226

The other contender as a replacement for the Colt M1911A1 in US service (the Beretta M92FS was eventually adopted instead), the Sig P226 is a well-made, accurate pistol which has been adopted by several other countries and has generally proven itself to be an outstanding service handgun.

  1. Browning Hi-Power

The most widely adopted 9mm handgun of recent times (pretty much the entire British Commonwealth has or does use(d) this as a service handgun), it was also the only infantry weapon to be manufactured and used by both sides during WWII.

  1. Walther PPK

Sure, it may be small, but the Luftwaffe, Gestapo, and even Hitler himself loved them. Better known as James Bond’s handgun of choice, they’re still a popular CCW weapon today.

  1. Smith & Wesson Military & Police Revolver

For years, when someone said “Service Revolver”, chances are they were referring to either this pistol (if in the US), or, if in the British Empire/Commonwealth, the next handgun on our list…

  1. Webley Revolver

One of the longest serving Service Handguns of all time (First introduced in 1889), the .455 Webley revolvers combined a powerful cartridge with solid engineering, great accuracy, and a very effective top-break opening/extraction system, giving the Webley a surprisingly high rate of fire and an unsurpassed reputation for stopping charging enemies (be they Zulus, Arab tribesmen, or German Soldiers) dead in their tracks.

  1. Colt M1911A1

Self-explanatory, I think. :wink:

So, what are your thoughts? What are the top 10 service handguns, and why?

2

My two pennies worth,different hand guns for different situations.

For use in hijacked aircraft to prevent explosive decompression,low velocity (gas propelled for example .) soft lead ,plastic rounds ,fleshettes maybe.

In a covert anti terrorist role you cant fire a revolver from inside a pocket as the cylinder and hammer will snag though their fall from popularity in the military was due to a slower reload time.

In situations as Belfast used to be , i.e. urban counter terrorism use say a “Desert Eagle” and you’ll shoot the bad guy and then the road sweeper in the middle of the street followed by a little old lady on a passing bus,and all with the same round so its not recommended .The S.F police dept must have been insane to allow Dirty Harry to have a Magnum as his personal weapon!

The much lighter round of the Browning - Hi-Powers drawback was that not only was it not guaranteed to kill the target but it wasn’t even a certainty that it would disable the target enough to stop them fighting.
The previous tactic of “Double Tap” i.e. putting two rounds in quick succession into one bad guy then moving to the next and repeating the action and so on as favoured by the British army was dropped virtually overnight when a terrorist continued trying to kill the goodies seemingly unaffected with two 9mm rounds in his HEAD!

As the army had thousands of HI-powers in use and no budget to replace them the new tactics were to empty at least one magazine in to the terrorist, which is what happened at Gibraltar,Marraid Farrel was believed to be carrying a trgger switch for a huge car bomb which even a muscle spasm could have activated

.
Some bright sparks used to load ",put one up the spout"detach the mag.insert another round in the mag and reattach the mag.the idea being to have an extra round ready to go but what it in fact did was to weaken the magazine springs causing stopages at the worst possible moment . Something a revolver is immune to.

In passing many people owe their lives to the I.R.A.s lack of weapons knowledge as their armourer would usually fix the magazine to the potential murder weapon and pass it down the line to the would be killers which could take several days by which time the mag.springs had given up the ghost ,the weapon jammed on firing scaring the "victim"shitless but leaving him/her alive .

I think "shorts"are useful fighting inside buildings,cave complexes tunnels and other confined spaces but on an open battlefield they really are only useful for officers to pull on deserting/mutinying men (which hasn’t happened for one hell of a long time as far as I know),reassure medics that they aren’t totally unarmed and perhaps guarding prisoners ,which is why many squaddies have no particular favourites.

Personally I’d rather carry a Mini Uzi myself.

3

And before anyone mentions it I know I’ve omitted some letters accidently due to fatigue ,so I’m just off outside to give myself a damned good thrashing as punishment for my temerity.

If I catch myself doing it again … well lets just say no more Mr.Nice Guy!

4

Given that it was J.M. Browning’s ultimate design and the enduring popularity of this gun and all successors to it, I’d put the Browning Hi-Power at the top of the list. The linkless locking tilting barrel is almost universal in short recoil operated autoloaders (with a few exceptions like Beretta’s locking block and rotating barrel, and of course Browning’s previous swinging link design institutionalized in the 1911), and many of the features of this gun (grip angle, high capacity staggered magazine) found their way into other very popular handguns like the Sig P226 and the CZ-75-type firearms. One still sees them in use today with many militaries, and the type has demonstrated a high degree of reliability, and a fealty second only to the 1911.

I’m disappointed not to see Heckler & Koch represented somewhere in there, though I can’t really say which of their weapons should be selected. They’ve created a lot of innovative designs (P7, P9S) with novel mechanisms and features, but few have had the kind of popularity or service use to justify a position on the list, and while the USP/SOCOM/Mark 23 is an outstanding design, it’s really just an evolutionary development of the Hi-Power.

Nah, the reason militaries went away from the revolver was because of poor reliability on the battlefield. The open action design was prone both to fouling from contamination and damage that would render the mechanism inoperable. Despite the oft (and incorrect) claim that revolvers can’t jam, autoloading pistols are far more reliable in combat conditions. That they’re also more compact and give greater firepower is a plus, but not a big one; frankly, a handgun is a poor offensive weapon and is used only by rear guard personnel or as a secondary weapon. (The image of a WWII lieutenant leading his platoon out of the trenches with a 1911 in hand is laughable; for all the good it will do him, he might as well be carrying a sword. If I’m climbing out of the trenches, I want the nice weight of a Garand in my hands.)

I’m not sure why you think this particular maneuver would weaken the magazine springs. It’s true that springs undergo fatigue with use, and that it has been known for certain runs of magazines to have improperly treated springs, but generally speaking, magazines are designed to store the entire capacity of rounds indefinitely (though it is still wise to unload magazines that are going to be stored for a long period). Some magazines have a stop or buffer to prevent overloading, and removing this to get another round in is ill-advised. It’s also possible, particularly with staggered high capacity magazines that the stiffness of the spring (which is not constant force) can cause occasional feed problems with the first or second round and thus the magazines are deliberately underloaded, but I’m not aware of this being an issues for any modern (post-Eighties) handgun.

What is foolish, even though (or perhaps because) you frequently see it in movies and t.v., is loading the chamber of an autoloading handgun through the ejection port and then releasing the slide. This puts great stress on the extractor claw and has been known to have caused unintentional discharges on occasion. Load rounds into the chamber only from the magazine.

Stranger

5

And Han Solo.

6

Definitely the Walther PPK. Good enough for 007, good enough for me. Perhaps of interest:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42272000/jpg/_42272720_bond_other203b.jpg&imgrefurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6113020.stm&h=152&w=203&sz=14&hl=en&start=46&tbnid=TiAtmhEOkCfjgM:&tbnh=74&tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbond%2Bwalther%2Bppk%26start%3D40%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN

7

Difficult/expensive to get a PPK in the U.S. after the 1968 ban. But I did have a blue PPK/S at one time, which is ‘near-as-dammit’. Now I have a stainless-steel one.

8

#1 - Colt 1911. I also see no need to discuss this one.

Some more in no particular order (and without justification) -

Browning Hi-Power

Sig P226

Luger

HK USP

Makarov PM

Colt 1860/1861

9

FYI: The Sig 226 is in use by the US Military as the M11.

10

No Beretta 92 on the list?

11

The M11 is the SIG P228, not the P226.

The P226 is a full-sized handgun like the M9; it makes sense to have a compact pistol like the P228 in the inventory for applications requiring concealment.

12

Should there be?
Re: Magazine springs - Springs fail from use, not compression. I have no doubt that IRA had equipment problems, but a mag from a major manufacturer should have no trouble with sitting around fully loaded for years (cite). Overcompression will, of course, cause failure as well - but loading a mag to the level it was designed to be loaded shouldn’t create overcompression. As I don’t know what they had nor where they got their stuff, I can’t really say what the problems the IRA experienced might have been, just that good stuff shouldn’t fail if you keep your mag topped off.
Gotta agree with Stranger on this one.

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Good Catch.

14

I can’t help bu feel that the Luger should be somewhere in the top 5 of this list, If only because it’s action is so cool to watch cycle.

15

I used to have a Luger (1942 ‘byf’ manufacture). The P.08 is one of the prettiest pistols ever made. And it’s a joy to point. But in my limited experience it wasn’t extremely reliable. I was always getting stovepipes with it. I’d like to get another one someday, but in a hard spot I’d rather have a Beretta 92 or Colt 1911.

16

I have a Beretta 92F and it has not failed to feed or fire ever, having had many thousands of rounds fired through it. They ranged from military ball to fancy high stopping power rounds (Black Talons and the like) to amatuer handloads. It has never failed. It is the one semi-auto hand gun I have owned that I trust 100%. It is accurate enough for anything I will ever need it for. And it holds 15 rounds.

I haven’t fired a lot of other comparable guns likely to be mentioned in this thread but based on my personal experience it is a damn good weapon. I think they may have had some problems with slides cracking at one time but my understanding is that was a particular batch and has long since been corrected.

17

Colt 1911. Period. There are no other weapons on the list.

18

Although it’s credited with being field-serviceable with no more special tools than one’s fingernalis, those who have taken this pistol to the shooting range report that the only reliable method of hitting the target is to wait until the rangemaster calls clear, then going up to the target and bludgeoning it with the weapon.

The US market was flooded with these pistols in the early 1980’s when the Chinese sold off warehousefuls that Chiang Kai Shek’s police had abandoned to free up freight space on the last boat to Taiwan for stiff chairs and trunks of fancy uniforms. They’d truss up the condemned’s jaws so that he or she could not shout Maoist slogans as a last testament, then shoot him or her from less than twelve inches. Whatever the condemned may have wished to say, this was hardly a testament to the handgun’s accuracy.

I see from the Wikipedia article that, although Lawrence of Arabia took a shoulder wound from a C96 as he preened upon a wrecked train, the more likely sidearm of a Turkish officer would have been a Smith & Wesson revolver. In which case Lawrence would have more liberally watered the desert sands with his poet’s blood.

19

The Chinese-made Broomhandles were regarded as being complet crap, but the German ones were surprisingly accurate, and the Spanish ones weren’t too bad, either.

T.E. Lawrance actually carried one in real life- he sold it in Beirut c. October 1909, however. It’s present whereabouts are unknown.

An interesting site on Lawrence’s pistols

20

Didn’t Mythbusters debunk the explosive decompression from bullets?

I’m not sure how many firefights there were that a pistol could have been useful in, there were soldiers with SA80s backing up street patrols and some officers were issued sub machine guns. Despite living in Northern Ireland, the only recognition I picked up on were helicopters, so the SMGs could have been anything. If I see one in on wikipedia, I’ll post it :slight_smile:

Dad’s working with a few ex-cops/soldiers and the cops laughed at the guns they were issued. Their pistols (I’ve seen them issued with revolvers and automatic pistols) were hopeless at hitting anything further away than across a room (because of training or the pistol, he didn’t say.) Some officers took to having the first chamber empty on their revolvers incase they were seized in a struggle.

He also recounted a tale of policemen fired upon at night. They dived behind a wall for cover but realised a street light was still making them quite obvious. They started shooting (and missing) with their pistols and were joined by a colleague with an SMG. The Army arrived quickly to find no terrorists, just a bunch of policemen, lying on their backs shooting at the sky. Funny, if true :slight_smile: