The Handgun Story traces the fascinating history of the 'one hand gun'
from its crude fourteenth-century origins to the sophisticated products
of today. As technology has progressed, handguns have got smaller and
deadlier, to be carried in holsters, pockets and even lady's mufflers.
Today they are the weapons of choice for undercover agents and would -
be assassins; ideally suited for both attack and self-defense.
The earliest pistols had a tendency to misfire, but this was cured by
the cap-lock. Cap-lock revolvers proved a massive success in the
American Civil War with hundreds of thousands used on each side.
Self-contained metal-case cartridges were to bring a fundamental change
to handgun design: not only by allowing the introduction of revolvers
that ejected automatically or were easily reloaded, but also by paving
the way for the automatic pistol. World War I provided the handgun with
a proving ground. At the end of the hostilities, with so much surplus
weaponry, work on the handgun could have ceased; instead, a new
developmental phase was begun by the nations that had emerged from the
crumbling Imperial empires. During World War II the efficiency of
well-established designs was confirmed and new designs, such as the
Walther P. 38, showed their potential. The emergence of the
submachine-gun in 1945 reduced the status of the handgun - but only
temporarily. The need for efficient self-defense shows no signs of
lessening; and the rise in shooting for sport, particularly with the
revolver, has sharpened the quest for efficiency.
The never ending search for advanced production techniques shows that
the handgun has as much a future in the twenty-first century as it had
in the heyday of the Wild West, or in the trenches of Passchendaele.
