A pistol is a common term to describe a handgun. The words pistol and handgun can both be used interchangeably. The English word was introduced in ca. 1570 — when early handguns were produced in Europe and is derived from the Middle Frenchpistolet, meaning a small gun/knife. In colloquial usage, the word "pistol" is often used to describe any types of handgun, inclusive of revolvers and the pocket-sized derringers. The most common type of pistol in contemporary usage is the semi-automatic pistol, while the older single-shot and manual repeating pistols are now rarely seen and used primarily for nostalgichunting, and the fully automatic machine pistols are uncommon in civilian usage due to strict laws and regulations governing their manufacture and sale.
Terminology
Sometimes in usage, the term "pistol" refers to a handgun having a single fixed chamber integral with its barrel, making pistols distinct from the other main type of handgun, the revolver, which has multiple chambers within a rotating cylinder that is separately aligned with a single barrel; and the derringer, which is a compact weapon often with multiple barrels. UK/Commonwealth usage does not always make this distinction, particularly when the terms are used by the military. For example, the official designation of the Webley Mk VI revolver was "Pistol, Revolver, Webley, No. 1 Mk VI". In contrast to Merriam-Webster, the Oxford English Dictionary describes "pistol" as a small firearm to be used in one hand and the usage of "revolver" as being a type of handgun and gives its original form as "revolving pistol"
History and etymology
The pistol originates in the 16th century, when early handguns were produced in Europe. The English word was introduced in ca. 1570 from the Middle French pistolet. The etymology of the French wordpistolet is disputed. It may be from a Czech word for early hand cannons, píšťala, or alternatively from Italian pistolese, after Pistoia, a city renowned for Renaissance-era gunsmithing, where hand-held guns were first produced in the 1540s. The first suggestion derives the word from Czech píšťala, a type of hand-cannon used in the Hussite Wars during the 1420s. The Czech word was adopted in German as pitschale, pitschole, petsole, and variants. The second suggestion is less likely; the use of the word as a designation of a gun is not documented before 1605 in Italy, long after it was used in French and German. The Czech word is well documented since the Hussite wars in 1420s.
Single shot handguns were mainly seen during the era of flintlock and musket weaponry where the pistol was loaded with a lead ball and fired by a flint striker, and then later a percussion cap. However, as technology improved, so did the single shot pistol. New operating mechanisms were created, and due to this, they are still made today. They are the oldest type of pistol, and are often used to hunt wild game. Additionally, their compact size compared to most other types of handgun makes them more concealable.
Multi-barreled
Multi-barreled pistols, such as the Pepperbox, were common during the same time as single shot pistols. As designers looked for ways to increase fire rates, multiple barrels were added to all guns including pistols. One example of a multi-barreled pistol is the COP.357 Derringer. , which contains four barrels.
Harmonica pistol
Around 1850, pistols such as the Jarre harmonica gun were produced that had a sliding magazine. The sliding magazine contained pinfire cartridges or speedloaders. The magazine needed to be moved manually in many designs, hence distinguishing them from semi-automatic pistols.
Revolver
With the development of the revolver, short for revolving pistol, in the 19th century, gunsmiths had finally achieved the goal of a practical capability for delivering multiple loads to one handgun barrel in quick succession. 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 an indexing mechanism linked to the weapon's trigger or its hammer. These nominally cylindrical chambers, usually numbering between five and eight depending on the size of the revolver and the size of 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.
Lever-action
Lever action pistols are very rare, the most notable of which is the Volcanic pistol.
Semi-automatic
After the revolver, the semi-automatic pistol was the next step in the development of the pistol. By avoiding multiple chambers—which need to be individually reloaded—semi-automatic pistols delivered faster rates of fire and required only a few seconds to reload. In blowback-type semi-automatics, the recoil force is used to push the slide back and eject the shell so that the magazine spring can push another round up; then as the slide returns, it chambers the round. An example of a modern blowback action semi-automatic pistol is the Walther PPK. Blowback pistols are some of the more simply designed handguns. Many semi-automatic pistols today operate using short-recoil. This design is often coupled with the Browning type tilting barrel.
Machine pistol
A machine pistol is a pistol that is capable of fully automatic fire. The first machine pistols were produced in the German Empire, and the term is derived from the German word maschinenpistolen. Though it is often used interchangeably with submachine gun, a machine pistol is generally used to describe a weapon that is more compact than a typical submachine gun. 18, a machine pistol derived from the semi-automatic Glock 17.
