"Top 10 Combat Handguns"

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South
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"Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#1

Post by South » 14 Jul 2008, 07:45

Good morning all,

While looking for something here on the M3 carbine for a nearby thread, I found my copy of the May, 1994,issue of "Guns and Ammo" Magazine,Peterson Publishing Company, didn't see ISSN.

This issue has 2 articles perhaps of interest. One is titled "American Small Arms of World War II" by Gary James on page 52. The other is titled ""Top 10 Combat Handguns" by Jan Liboure, the cover story, starting on page 35.

The American Small Arms of WWII article mentions and pictures the rifles (and M1A1 Carbine [parachutist model]) and also features the Winchester Model 12 Trench Gun; in common terms: a shotgun.

The article on the combat handguns was a panel discussion of entries for the "top 10". It is post WWII oriented.This list, with pictures, features:

1. Colt Government Model

2. Sig-Sauer Autos

3. S&W K and L Frame Revolvers

4. Glock Pistols

5. S&W J Frame Revolver

6. Browning Hi-Power

7. Seecamp .32 Auto

8. Para-Ordnance .45 Autos

9. S&W N Frame Revolvers

10.Beretta M-92 Series Autos

.......................................................


Comments ?



Warm regards,

Bob

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cruff
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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#2

Post by cruff » 14 Jul 2008, 14:38

For handguns, I gotta vote in favor of a revolver. A revolver is the best option for reliability. A large caliber, preferably a top break type for speed of reloading. Just my thoughts........Chris


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Scharf
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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#3

Post by Scharf » 14 Jul 2008, 17:16

Hi guys,
And again we have a nice discussion started :) (this propaply has been discussed before, I don't know)
This is quite hard, because we talk about all 1900-century "handguns".
Well, glocks are well known but are they combat handguns....92:s are on use or used on several countries, many different units. Browning is on use and has been a long time. Colt 1911, I mean government, is well known, but very poor capacity.
I'd say all these guns on list have some merits.
My voice go to Sig 226-family. Just my personal opinnion and my personal gun :lol: Very accuracy, reliable and beatiful gun(s). I also like more heavy weight pistols, easier to aim and handle.

This is going to be a loooooooooooooooong discussion.

Scharf :D

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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#4

Post by Sid Guttridge » 14 Jul 2008, 17:25

Hi South,

I would suggest that the handgun was so insignificant a combat weapon as to make a list of the top ten combat hand guns almost entirely redundant.

Only early dragoons were ever issued with hand guns en masse. They employed it in a manoevre known, I think, as the "caracol". However, this proved ineffective and was soon dropped.

Since then, the hand gun has been little more than a symbolic weapon carried mostly by officers as a token of status. It was always redundant at anything but the shortest of ranges, and even there it was superseded by the SMG by WWII.

I would suggest that there has never been a battle in which so much as 1% of casualties were caused by handguns.

Cheers,

Sid.

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phylo_roadking
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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#5

Post by phylo_roadking » 14 Jul 2008, 18:47

Sid - I think you'll find the caracole had and has had since a much longer history than that; it was a staple tactic of Roman javelin-armed cavalry...AND as late as 1940 was the defensive tactic used by Boulton-Paul Defiant-equiped RAF squadrons. In THAT case the time required to get into formation was its downfall - although there are two occasions - one over Dunkirk and one over the South Coast of England, when the tactic proved severely embarassing to the Luftwaffe.

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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#6

Post by Sid Guttridge » 15 Jul 2008, 11:55

Hi Phylo,

Indeed, but neither the ancient Romans nor the modern RAF ever used hand guns as combat weapons, so I am not sure that is strictly relevant here.

The American Civil War aspect, as mentioned earlier by LWD, is certainly a challenge to what I wrote, albeit a relatively limited one. I would like to know more.

For example, to start with, what was the largest all-cavalry action or battle in the American Civil War?

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#7

Post by trapperP » 15 Jul 2008, 13:11

Here we go again - line up, choose numbers and let fly! first, I don't think any such comparison should lump revolvers and semi-auto handguns together, and yes, Virginia, there is that much difference. As to combat effectiveness, well, the argumant for the1911/45ACP is hard to beat BUT the 1911 is a beast to learn to shoot - and many can not master this weapon. Coupled with the limited magazine capacity, I would move it down the list.
Nine millimeter is, I believe, just about the bare minimum for an effective military caliber, and it just may be about the upper limit for use by all folks, say female troops, those with small hands, etc. Now to get to the meat, as it were, and spring my thoughts on you, the old Browning Hi-Power, in my opinion, comes very near being the perfect military side arm. Dead reliable, adequate caliber, large capacity, accurate, user friendly - need I say more? I find only one negative in the Hi-Power and that is the fact that it is single action only. I believe this was a deliberate action in the design as the double action requires more parts and is inherently more complicated. I believe Browning's ideas were for a less complicated design and Saive completed the development and design with this idea foremost. The result was the Browning Hi-Power, the "King of the Nines."
trapperP

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LWD
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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#8

Post by LWD » 15 Jul 2008, 13:44

I didn't find the Colt hard to shoot. I don't have particularly big hands either although they are not small. If you are talking ammo capacity there are some newer pistols in that caliber with larger capacities. Not sure how critical an aspect that is in any case.

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Scharf
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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#9

Post by Scharf » 15 Jul 2008, 21:29

And that top ten combat handgun is? :? :? :?
I am sorry, but should there be other thread to this discussion, I mean American civil war...

Just my opinnion :)

Scharf

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JTV
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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#10

Post by JTV » 15 Jul 2008, 21:59

LWD wrote:I didn't find the Colt hard to shoot. I don't have particularly big hands either although they are not small. If you are talking ammo capacity there are some newer pistols in that caliber with larger capacities. Not sure how critical an aspect that is in any case.
With about quarter of century of shooting experience with small arms I would say that large calibre pistols are THE small arms type when it comes to noting that what works to one shooter does not work to another. With rifles and shotguns and even small calibre pistols almost everything works quite well with most people, but with large calibre pistols finding one that any particular person shoots well is not that easy. IMHO from military point of view (since this is military history website) also the question of best combat handguns tends to somewhat academic - if you are in a war zone and have only a pistol you are basically guaranteed to be outgunned and the soldiers don't usually get to choose what they carry. The importance of military sidearms in battle use also tends to be rather small nowadays - for most armies in the war zone they are the backup weapons, which are to be used if nothing better is at hand. IMHO due to this reliability is the number one concern - you only need to use a pistol when the shit has really hit a fan and if the sidearm doesn't work right there and then its bodybag time.

Considering that practically all armies nowadays issue their newest pistols with large magazine capacity, it seems to be a issue. The basic design of Colt 1911 has never been known for its reliability and over the years I have seen plenty of jams with 1911 type pistols of various manufacturers. When it comes to high capacity pistols of Colt 1911 breed they tend to have even poorer reputation than others - STI and the like manufacture target shooting and competion weapons, not combat weapons. When it comes to military purchases Colt 1911 type pistols are very poor choice. Due to their design and materials they are both expensive and difficult to manufacture, which have now for decades been serious handicaps for any small arm selected to military use (since in case of war about zillion of them may need to be made in minimal time).

It is rather interesting to notice absence of pistols of some manufacturers like H&K, CZ, Walther and S & W from that list while S & W revolvers get mentioned several times - very American view and also likely somewhat outdated by now.

Jarkko
Last edited by JTV on 15 Jul 2008, 22:15, edited 1 time in total.

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phylo_roadking
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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#11

Post by phylo_roadking » 15 Jul 2008, 22:15

if you are in a war zone and have only a pistol you are basically guaranteed to be outgunned and you don't usually get to choose what you carry
In THIS case - I'm tempted to say that the best COMBAT handgun is one of the stretched magazine types, like the 13-round Hi-Power variant :lol: If you're stuck with a pistol in combat, you may as well have SOME little advantage somewhere! Even if it is only a couple of extra suppression shots per magazine...if you're stuck in combat with JUST a pistol, what you want is a couple of extra shots to keep the other guy's head down while you A/ look for something laying around that's better, or B/ run away...

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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#12

Post by Jon G. » 16 Jul 2008, 00:07

Scharf wrote:And that top ten combat handgun is? :? :? :?
I am sorry, but should there be other thread to this discussion, I mean American civil war...

Just my opinnion :)

Scharf
Done; the new thread is at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 7&t=141508

Please continue the discussion about ACW cavalry weapons there.

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JTV
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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#13

Post by JTV » 16 Jul 2008, 07:50

phylo_roadking wrote:
if you are in a war zone and have only a pistol you are basically guaranteed to be outgunned and you don't usually get to choose what you carry
In THIS case - I'm tempted to say that the best COMBAT handgun is one of the stretched magazine types, like the 13-round Hi-Power variant :lol: If you're stuck with a pistol in combat, you may as well have SOME little advantage somewhere! Even if it is only a couple of extra suppression shots per magazine...if you're stuck in combat with JUST a pistol, what you want is a couple of extra shots to keep the other guy's head down while you A/ look for something laying around that's better, or B/ run away...
I would not all 13-round magazine stretched anymore :) - most military designs nowadays seem to have at least 15-round standard magazines while for some pistols (Glock for example) also high capacity magazines with about 30-round capacity are available. IMHO FN High Power was the best pistol of World War 2 - not only because of its magazine capacity, but because of good ergonomics (location of safety switch and magazine release, hammer), practical design (very easy to disassemble and re-assemble, no small parts) and excellent durability. If I would make a list of best WW2 era sidearms Colt 1911A1 (good terminal ballistics, reliability-wise there were many worser designs in use back then), P-38 (double-action trigger and good reliability), Webley Mk VI (good terminal ballistics and good reliability),TT-33 (cheap to manufacture, but yet very reliable), Vis wz.35 (good solid pistol, if not particularly remarkable in any way) would definetely make it to the list.

Compared to this day during WW2 at paper at least it doesn't seem to have been so unusual to issue officers just pistols (I am pretty sure low ranking infantry officers of most nationalities carried typically also rifle or submachinegun). But on the other hand in those days hand automatic pistol offered yet some firepower advance from a short range when compared to what most armies issued to most of their infantry soldiers - bolt action rifles. Nowadays this advantage is obviously gone - the average infantry soldier is now armed with select-fire assault rifle, which has advantage over pistols in every possible way.

When it comes to WW2 military sidearms one could well argue that surprisingly not much was made for developing easier to manufacture or cheaper pistols during the war compared, say, to submachineguns and rifles. It seems that pretty much all countries that part in WW2 and manufactured pistols just kept manufacturing the pistols they had introduced to military use already before the war instead of bothering to develop and introduce anything radically newer, cheaper (*) and easier to manufacture.

(*) Finish in some pistols and revolvers was replaced with cheaper alternative, but I would not really call that radical.

Jarkko

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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#14

Post by Sid Guttridge » 16 Jul 2008, 12:31

Hi Schyarf,

My proposition is that there never has been a "combat hand gun" of any military significance and that any list of the top ten therefore has no real meaning. The ACW diversion was illustrative of that.

A list of the top ten least worst combat handguns might be be more to the point.

The handgun is little more than symbolic weapon in the military. It is really a civilian weapon of very little practical military value, and this has almost always been the case. I say this as someone who bought and carried a Browning automatic around for two years in Rhodesia simply for the pleasure of the piece. However, as a civilian farm assistant even old Sten guns were more use and in the military on ops I always carried a G3 rifle.

Cheers,

Sid.

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phylo_roadking
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Re: "Top 10 Combat Handguns"

#15

Post by phylo_roadking » 16 Jul 2008, 13:23

Jarkko - the reason there were not radical changes was more likely...there's not a lot new you can do at any point with a pistol. They're actually very simple items anyway and do a very simple job...in the case of a revolver SO simple you're relying on gravity or a shaking hand to clear spent brass! The limits at any given point are the materials - by that I don't mean availability, I mean metallurgy - the purpose they're required for, and size. IIRC what the period saw was JUST the ramping-up of production at established factories and production line; if there are figures available, it would be interesting to see pre-war and wartime production figures for something with a long design life, like the British Enfield revolver. Similarly - there should be SOMEWHERE a list of machining actions it takes to produce a given design, and certainly the TIME it takes to produce a finished item.

Production in wartime is rarely a case of making something wholly new - Sid's Sten was simple stampings and a minimum of machining based around a current ammo type. It's a case of ramping up existing production as far and as fast as needed....and for a nation like Britain, with a large colonial interest, I think you'll find that production figures for something like a service-issue pistol were already quite high before the war...

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