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"It's old school, but you can't beat the accuracy, power, and reliability of a revolver."
Frank Castle, The Punisher video game

And remember, compared to other guns, Revolvers Are Just Better.


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     Charter Arms Bulldog 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bulldog44.jpeg

A snub-nosed, five-round revolver available in .357 Magnum and .44 Special, first introduced in 1973. It was extraordinary popular in The '70s and The '80s, with more than half a million units sold in less than twenty years, due to its light trigger pull, its surprisingly high accuracy and power for such a small gun, and its size making it excellent for concealed carry (or a cop's backup gun). Notoriously, it was the choice weapon for the Serial Killer David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz, earning him the media nickname "The .44 Caliber Killer".


  • Rick Deckard's "LAPD 2019" blaster in Blade Runner was a heavily-modified Bulldog with a custom grip and the receiver and dual triggers of a Steyr Model SL rifle attached. By extension, it shows up in the 1997 video game adaptation as well.
    • Also by extension, the Fallout series' recurring unique weapon, the .223 pistol or "That Gun", which is one of its many Shout Outs to classic sci-fi movies.
    • Doom³'s pistol is patterned after the blaster, although changed to be a magazine-fed automatic handgun instead of a revolver.
    • It's also available as the "DEK-RD Railpistol" skin for the Heavy Pistol in Saints Row IV.
    • Update #43 of the VR shooting-range game Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades added it as the "LAPD 2019 Special", chambering it for a fictional "Discarding Sabot Magnetic" variation of 10mm Auto. It can fire a variety of unique ammo types, including shotgun-like "Swarm" rounds, 10mm grenades, high-velocity "Turbo Penetrator" rounds, and even slow-moving proximity mines that adhere to whatever surface they impact with (or just blow up mid-air if something is moving near them along their flight path). It also has a railgun-assisted mode to fire rounds at extremely high velocities, requiring regular replacement of both batteries underneath to power the railgun (with the lights on the weapon changing color to show the current charge) and heat sinks above to keep the railgun shots from permanently damaging the weapon by overheating it (the bolt handle and ejection port from the Model SL receiver being repurposed for exposing and ejecting the heat sink).
  • Will Graham uses one in Manhunter.
  • The Vietnamese priest in Seven Psychopaths carries a .44 Bulldog.
  • Shows up in the Spike Lee joint Summer of Sam, which is about New Yorkers reacting to the Son of Sam serial killer.

     Chiappa Rhino 
"The Zubr .45 ACP is a revolver handgun with a distinctive design. The muzzle position is aligned with the bottom chamber. Compared to normal topmost revolvers, this change reduces the muzzle flip after shooting by directing the recoil more into the shooter's wrist."
Description, ARMA III

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/images_109.jpeg

The futuristic revolver du jour, the Chiappa Rhino is an Italian .357 Magnum revolver, designed by the same man who created the Mateba auto-revolver, that's been steadily appearing in numerous movie productions, TV shows and video games recently due to its unusual, distinctive appearance — it's one of the very few revolvers that fires with the barrel in the 6 o'clock position, and being much easier to find than the Mateba revolver since it's currently being produced and sold. It also has a hexagonal cylinder as opposed to a traditional round one, and due to its barrel position features a more-or-less internal hammer (the visible "hammer" is actually a cocking lever which, except for the sole double-action-only variant, cocks the internal hammer when pulled back, then moves back to its normal position) which can on almost all variants be utilized in single-action or double-action mode. The six-o'clock barrel position has the advantage of significantly reducing the pistol's felt recoil and muzzle flip, but the absurdly-complicated internal hammer also gives it a very heavy trigger pull, especially in double action.note  This makes it rather difficult to shoot accurately, especially with any kind of speed. The heavy pull weight is somewhat offset by a much-shorter travel than the triggers of other revolver designs, allowing less opportunity to pull the muzzle off-target from fighting the trigger pull, which takes a design that by all rights should be an Epic Fail and kicks it into the Difficult, but Awesome range. Jerry Miculek has proved that accurate rapid fire with a Rhino is very possible for a sufficiently-skilled shooter, though the heavy trigger and odd handling definitely take some getting used to. The Rhino is available in a double-action only version with a two-inch barrel (the 20D), and double/single-action versions in barrel lengths from two (20DS) to six (60DS) inches, with the 40DS and longer including Picatinny rails for the addition of aftermarket lasers and, on the 60DS, optics. Aside from .357 Magnum, the Rhino can be chambered in 9x19mm, .40 S&W and 9x21mm IMI.


  • The revolver in Alien: Isolation is heavily inspired by the Rhino.
  • A 60DS chambered for .45 ACP appears in ARMA III as the "Zubr .45", added in a free update for use with CSAT, as a "heavy" pistol (and CSAT's equivalent to NATO's FNP-45 in the same update) which trades off magazine capacity (and, as a revolver, the ability to use a suppressor) for higher damage than the standard 9x21mm "Rook-40" and an attachment point for a red dot sight to make aiming easier.
  • The 40DS was added to Battlefield 4 with the Naval Strike DLC, where it is called the SW 40 and unlocked with the "Curve Ball" assignment (ten kills with the RGO Impact grenade). It's chambered in .357 Magnum, giving it a similar damage profile to the base game's MP-412; in spite of the information given above, it competes primarily with the fastest rate of fire among the revolvers, in return for heavier recoil and lower accuracy making it best at close range versus the MP-412 excelling at mid range and the Taurus Model 44 doing best at longer ranges.
  • It's appeared in Divergent as one of the few more-or-less realistic weapons.
  • Multiple variations are available in The Division as of Update 1.5, with the 40DS serving as the standard "Rhino", alongside the shorter 20DS as the "Snubnosed Rhino" and the 60DS available as both the "Rhino Special" and a unique gold-plated "Golden Rhino".
  • It serves as Detective Miller's sidearm in The Expanse after he takes it off of a hitman in "Salvage". A loading scene shows that he uses some fancy sci-fi ammunition, but the weapon itself is unchanged from its contemporary look.
  • Given as a sidearm to Togusa in Ghost in the Shell (2017), in lieu of his Mateba auto-revolver from the original manga and other adaptations (because of the aforementioned rarity of the Mateba in real life, which would make it hell for an armorer to obtain for a live-action production).
  • The 60DS appears as the Wild Boar in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, where it was at first unlockable for single player and multiplayer via Ghost Recon Network, but the multiplayer version was later unlocked for everyone in a patch.
  • The "Grim Treatments" update for Killing Floor 2 added a 60DS as a DLC weapon for the Gunslinger, fitted with a red dot sight and firing special fragmentation bullets that split off into three more projectiles which punch through weaker zeds and bounce off of stronger ones or walls, allowing for a One-Hit Polykill on lines of weaker zeds, trickshots like hitting enemies around corners, or missed shots to rebound and hit the target. It reuses the .500 Magnum's animations, including the cocking lever acting like a regular hammer.
  • The 60DS version appears in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds as the "R45", exclusive to the desert region of Miramar. It is chambered in .45 ACP and only can accept a red dot sight as an attachment.
  • The "Cumia Magnum" skin for the Heavy Pistol of Saints Row IV is a Chiappa with an attached red dot sight just behind the front sight.
  • A 40DS chambered in .357 Magnum was added to Rainbow Six Siege with Operation Para Bellum as a sidearm for Italian GIS Operators Alibi and Maestro, called the "Keratos .357" in-game. It is the only revolver in the game that is able to be equipped with a suppressor.
  • A modified Rhino 60DS with a lengthened, katana-esque grip, an external hammer and an 8 round capacity (by way of cylinders that are completely detached and replaced like a magazine) appears as the "Tosainu Type 13" in Shadow Warrior (2013), the first firearm available in the game.
  • A heavily engraved version is wielded by Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad (2016) for when she needs to pull off ranged attacks. She proves to be an incredibly good shot with it, possibly due to the low recoil and lack of muzzle flip. Deadshot also uses it in the climax to detonate the bomb entering the Enchantress's portal.
  • The 50DS appeared iconically in Total Recall (2012), with the protagonist's 'wife' Lori using a stainless-steel one, and the police armed with the same model in the standard black finish.
  • Jet Black's weapon of choice in Cowboy Bebop (2021).
  • Lycoris Recoil Big Bad Majima uses a 2.5" snubnose version of the Rhino as his weapon.

     Colt 1851 Navy Revolver 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_72.jpeg

The Colt 1851 Navy was a percussion cap (also known as cap 'n ball) revolver created by, as the name implies, legendary gunsmith Samuel Colt. The full name is "Colt Belt Pistol of Naval Caliber,"note  but of course who has time for that? To that end, the revolver was frequently called the "Navy Revolver" and later by collectors as the "Colt 1851 Navy". The pistol was an evolution of percussion pocket pistols, such as the popular Baby Dragoon and designed to be a lighter alternative to the .44 Walker Colt. The term "belt pistol" is in fact a marketing reference to its smaller size, since it basically means "you can holster this on a belt," since the Walker Colt was so friggin' big it often had to be carried in a saddle holster. The "Navy" part? In addition to the caliber, Samuel Colt was so appreciative of the Texas Navy for purchasing an earlier model of pistol he manufactured that he named it after them and included a scene of a famous Texas Navy battle on the cylinder of every gun.

Thanks in large part to an aggressive marketing campaign and the pistol's more manageable size compared to the .44 Walker Colt, the 1851 Navy became one of the most popular handguns of the period, with total production numbers exceeded only by the Colt Pocket pistol, becoming one of Colt's earliest mass-market successes. The design would also be adapted to the U.S. Army standard .44 revolver round as the 1860 Army model, and this was in turn adapted to an improved .36 caliber model, the 1861 Navy. The 1851 Navy saw service on both sides of the American Civil War (despite the name, the US Army and Confederate Army both used Colt Navy revolvers too, and the US Navy also issued Colt Army revolvers) and service across Europe, Asia and Africa. Canada, Britain, Tsarist Russia and Austria-Hungary all used Navy Revolvers, with several thousand Navy Revolvers produced in London. The pistol also became popular during the early years of The Wild West and the famous users is practically a Who's Who of frontier celebrities. Among the most famous users of Navy Revolvers included Wild Bill Hickok, Robert E. Lee, Ned Kelly, John Henry "Doc" Holliday and Sir Richard Francis Burton. The Navy Revolver was produced from 1851 to 1873, in several versions with production ending in the wake of metallic cartridge pistols such as the above mentioned (and today, more famous) Colt Single Action Army, though later Navy Revolvers were modified to accept metallic cartridges. The influence of the Navy Colt lives on today, in that the modern .38 Special revolver cartridge (and its descendant, the .357 Magnum) is a direct descendant of a cartridge (the .38 Short Colt) originally designed to be fired from Navy Colts so modified. Modern reproductions are offered by such companies as Uberti for Civil War reenactments, Wild West aficionados and period films, many of which are also modified to accept metallic cartridges. Many of the modern reproductions have brass frames, which had been a cost-saving measure in the Confederate-made copies during the Civil War and is now popular both because it replicates the much rarer Confederate model and also because it looks cool.


  • 3:10 to Yuma (2007) sees this as Dan's weapon. It's a cartridge conversion, most clearly seen in the scene where he loads the revolver while he packs up for the trip.
  • Bioshock Infinite's Hand Cannon is modeled after a Colt 1851, but takes a few liberties with the design. Namely, it fires metal cartridges and uses a break-top action as opposed to a percussion cap system. As the name implies, it is one of the most powerful weapons in the game, unupgraded capable of taking down most regular Mooks in one or two shots.
  • Dances with Wolves makes this John Dunbar's sidearm throughout the film. This too was a cartridge conversion model.
  • In at least one series of The Dark Tower comics, Roland Deschain's ancestral revolvers appear to be modeled after the Colt 1851 Navy.
  • During the gun store scene in Dawn of the Dead (1978), Peter grabs and holsters a pair of Navy Revolvers, most probably reproductions.
  • In Desperados III, John Cooper now carries one, also referred to as "The Old 51", in conjunction with his signature Remington New Model Army from the previous games.
  • Mr. Schermerhorns goes Guns Akimbo with a pair of Navy Revolvers during the Draft Riots scene to defend himself and his home in Gangs of New York.
  • It appears in several instances in the film Gettysburg on both the Union and Confederate sides.
  • It shows up several times in Glory. The most iconic scene in which it appears being where Colonel Shaw fires it into the air to test Private Jupiter's skills under (mock) fire.
  • In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Navy Revolvers modified to fire metallic cartridges are seen in the hands of Blondie, Angel Eyes and Tuco. Blondie's pistol has a silver snake etched into the grip.
  • Colton White starts off in Gun as his revolver of choice. While it's very soon outclassed by the Schofield he obtains in Dodge, he still uses it in cutscenes along with almost every other character in the game.
  • Befitting a Wild West fanboy, Inspector Frank Butterman wields a pair of gold inlaid, ivory-gripped Navy Revolvers towards the end of Hot Fuzz.
  • Killing Floor added the 1851 as the "Flare Revolver" for its 2012 Summer event. As the name suggests, it fires flares instead of regular bullets; like every other pistol in the game, it can also be dual-wielded. As of the "The Descent" update, it's back for Killing Floor 2 as the "Spitfire", meant for Firebugs but also gaining some benefits from Gunslinger and Sharpshooter players, with another later update adding another version, the "HRG Winterbite", which fires miniature nitrogen grenades to freeze enemies.
  • In Kinos Journey, one of the title character's sidearms is a heavily modified Colt 1851 London Model that fires .44 caliber rounds propelled by "liquid gunpowder". Firing high-power rounds sees Kino using the loading lever as a foregrip.
  • In Portlandtown, The Marshal uses a Colt Navy.
  • In The Quick and the Dead John Herod makes Cort use an old, banged-up Colt 1851 to participate in the tournament with, with one bullet so he can't shoot his way out of town. The gun is a Richards-Mason cartridge conversion, most obviously seen when Cort is seen loading the gun with metallic cartridges.
  • In Rick O'Shay, gunslinger Hipshot Percussion carries a pair of Navy revolvers converted to use metal cartridges.
  • The Colt from Supernatural is a heavily engraved 1851 with a prominent pentagram on the grip, designed specially by Samuel Colt (who was a monster hunter) to kill anything shot with it, up to and including Angels and major demons (Though some things are exempt).
  • The Navy Revolver appears as the personal sidearm of Rooster Cogburn in the 2010 version of True Grit.
  • William's sidearm in Westworld.
  • The biopic Wild Bill sees the title character using his iconic pistols, also cartridge-firing conversions.
  • In Girls und Panzer Das Finale OVA Daikon Wars!, Belle of the Oarai Agricultural Science Department uses a paintball gun modelled after the Colt 1851 revolver.

     Colt 1860 Army 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/colt1860.jpg

The single-action Colt 1860 Army is widely regarded as the definitive revolver of its era. A follow-up to Colt's earlier 1851 Navy revolver, it was used by both sides during the American Civil War, and for many years afterward.

Chambered in .44, the 1860 Army features a six-round chamber, and is fired using percussion caps, though later in its life there would be versions converted to cartridges, firing .44 Colt. It could be found with either a 7.5 or 8-inch barrel. Military models were capable of fitting shoulder stocks.


     Colt Anaconda 
"Five years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye. And the world just fuckin' watched. Tomorrow, there would be no shortage of volunteers and no shortage of patriots. I know you understand."
General Shepherd, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_876.jpeg

Introduced in 1990 and produced until 2003, the Colt Anaconda double-action revolver was Colt's attempt to compete with the Smith & Wesson Model 29 and Ruger Blackhawk, and the first Colt revolver chambered for a large-bore Magnum round. Initially chambered in .44 Magnum/.44 Special, the weapon was later offered in .45 Colt and .454 Casull in 1993. It was available in four, six, or eight-inch barrels, with multiple grips, hammers, and triggers also available. Unlike most revolvers, it was only ever offered in a stainless steel finish, with no blued finishes available. The weapon's trigger action was highly praised, while its weight and build worked well to absorb recoil. Early models suffered from poor accuracy, which were fixed with changes to the barrels.
On March 22, 2021, Colt announced it had revived the Anaconda and put it back into production. The new version currently comes in the .44 Magnum chambering with a six or eight-inch long barrel.


     Colt Police Revolvers 
"The other man, the one who did the job, was a big, fattish guy. Quick moving but deliberate. Black trousers. Brown shirt with white stripes. No coat or tie. Black shoes, neat, expensive. .38 Police Positive. No wrist-watch."
James Bond, Diamonds Are Forever

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_1_21.jpeghttps://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_765.jpeghttps://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_2_9.jpegFrom top to bottom: Colt Police Positive, Colt Official Police, Colt Detective Special The Rival to the Smith & Wesson Model 10. Colt manufactured three revolvers with the branding "Police" during the 20th century: the Police Positive (1907-'47), the Official Police (1927-'69), and the most widely-produced version, the Police Positive Special (1908-'95), all either in .32 Long. .32 S&W Long or .38 S&W. There was also the Colt Detective Special (1927-'86 and 1993-'95), a snub-nosednote  variant of the Police Positive Special which was popular among plain-clothes detectives, undercover cops and railway clerks. From 1950–1981, Colt also produced the Colt Cobra, essentially identical to the Detective Special except that it had an aluminum frame. In 2017, Colt revived the Cobra name, with this version featuring a steel frame and fiber-optic front sight; this latest Cobra remains in production. Colt revolvers were dominant among police officers until Smith & Wesson took the lead in The '60s; much like the Smith & Wesson, "Colt revolver" was shorthand for "police gun" for much of the 20th century. Well over a million were made. During World War II, a variant of the Official Police, the Colt Commando, was used to arm military police, spies, security guards at defense plants and shipyards, and crews on merchant ships, but was made in much smaller numbers than the comparable S&W Victory Model.


  • Like with the S&W Model 10, lots and lots of police officers in both fiction and real life used Colt revolvers until The '80s.
  • Al Capone also carried a nickel-plated .38 Police Positive with walnut grips as his sidearm, which was sold at an auction in 2011.
  • The Detective Special is featured in City Hunter as Kaori's weapon, inherited from her late brother. She can't hit anything with it. Initially it was just bad aim, but when she started getting good Ryo had it modified so she would remain 'clean' and able to return to a normal life. It was later brought back to normal specs after she found out.
  • Charles Bronson uses a nickel-plated Police Positive with pearl grips in Death Wish.
  • The Police Pistol in the Fallout: New Vegas DLC Dead Money is based largely on the Colt Police Positive Special.
  • Mark Strong's character wields a Police Positive akimbo with a SIG-Sauer during a shootout scene in The Guard.
  • James Bond:
    • In Casino Royale, Bond sleeps with a snub-nosed Colt Police Positive under his pillow.
    • Wielded by Wynt in Diamonds Are Forever.
    • Quarrel takes one to Crab Key in Dr. No.
    • Auric Goldfinger wields a gold-plated Colt Official Police as his sidearm, although he uses a gold-plated Colt 1908 in the book. He and Bond struggle over the gun later on his plane during the climax. The gun eventually fires, breaking a window and sucking Goldfinger out. One of Goldfinger's guards also pulls one on Bond when Bond escapes from his cell.
    • In The Spy Who Loved Me, Bond carries a Police Positive in his car along with an unidentified semi-automatic pistol. It's misidentified as a "Smith & Wesson Police Positive". Bond gives it to Vivienne to defend herself with, but she's predictably useless with it, as she's used to shooting a .22 semiautomatic.
  • Most of Cole's partners in L.A. Noire carry a Detective Special as their choice weapon. Cole himself uses a full sized Police Positive as a patrolman, though the player has to get him to drop the shotgun to use it during the bank robbery sequence.
  • Within the Marvel Universe, most cops and especially the NYPD were depicted using Colt Police revolvers until the 1990s, the era where police began phasing out revolvers in favor of semiautomatics. Plenty of Mooks used them as well.
  • Sheriff Graham in Once Upon a Time carries a Colt Official Police.
  • James Cagney used the Police Positive in the gangster films The Public Enemy (1931) and Angels with Dirty Faces.
  • In Sin City, Hartigan's "Spare Rod" is a Colt Detective Special kept in an ankle holster.
  • In Sudden Impact, Jennifer Spencer carries a Colt Detective Special which she uses against those who gang-raped her years ago. The gun is important in the film's ending, as Mick takes it from her and uses it to kill San Paolo's police chief. When Harry kills him with his Auto Mag, the Colt is found on him and Harry lets Jennifer off the hook, noting that ballistics will match it up to the murders.
  • The Spy's "Enforcer" in Team Fortress 2 resembles a Detective Special with white grips. It's missing the bridge above the cylinder, which means it doesn't have a rear sight.
  • The first gun you are likely to find in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a Police Positive Special, renamed into the generic "Thirtyeight".
  • The Cobra played a peripheral role in the JFK assassination. While Lee Harvey Oswald was being escorted in handcuffs from the Dallas city jail to the county jail, Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner with underworld connections* , shot and killed him using said gun.
  • Phil Spector was convicted of the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson with a Colt Cobra.

     Colt Python 
...the most powerful handgun in the world. Each round has an impressive penetration factor and knocks the target back with the weight and power of the shot. Custom models are made for valued clients.
Description, Perfect Dark

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sheriffgrimes.jpeg

One of Colt's most popular revolvers along with the Single Action Army, the Python was first introduced in 1955. Chambered for the powerful .357 Magnum round, this gun was still hand-fitted and assembled up until it was discontinued by Colt, instead of by machine, making them very expensive to produce compared to equivalent Smith & Wesson or Ruger revolvers. The Python can be distinguished by the "rib" on top of the barrel (which, unlike a ventilation rib on a shotgun barrel, actually serves no purpose). In addition, the cylinder rotation (clockwise) and barrel rifling (counter-clockwise) are the opposite of every other major revolver maker; the latter is a big red flag to ballistics labs. Colt also released several other "snake" guns (the King Cobra in the same .357 and .38 as the Python, the aforementioned Anaconda in .44, and the Diamondback in .22 Long Rifle and .38 Special), but these were production weapons and did not enjoy the same degree of hand-fitting that the Python did (though still with more hand-fitting than most competing revolvers). Unfortunately this very hand-fitting nature also gave it a high cost of manufacture, and the Python was discontinued from general production in 1999; custom orders were accepted until 2005 when those also were discontinued. On January 1, 2020, however, Colt announced the Python was back in production with minor revisions to the sights and in the alloys used to make it more durable and easier to aim. The rebooted Python was initially available with either a 4.25- or 6-inch barrel, with a 3-inch version added in 2022.

Its rich "Royal Blue" finish was also one of its most notable aspects, which is appropriately named given how popular it was with actual royalty, having been collected by King Juan Carlos of Spain, just about every Middle Eastern monarch,note  and the King of Rock & Roll. The Python was a popular gun, although expensive even in its time; Colt manufactured the less labor-intensive Trooper series in the same caliber as a lower cost alternative to the Python. Additionally, finely-tuned Pythons subjected to hard use have been known to develop problems with their cylinder timing if not meticulously cared for, causing malfunctions of increasing severity and requiring a professional gunsmith’s attention to fix.


  • Cool Action: The 'reload flick', a trick seen in films with all revolvers that have the cylinder on a swingarm: the shooter hits the cylinder release latch and ejects the casings like one normally would, but after reloading he flicks the gun to the right with his wrist, the momentum sending the cylinder swingarm back into position. NEVER try this in real life; it puts unnecessary stress on the cylinder swingarm and can actually bend it, putting the cylinder out of alignment with the barrel, which can and does have explosive consequences. Spinning the cylinder first only makes it worse, and is likely to result in you being shot a filthy look by any wheelgun fan who sees you do it.
  • A very powerful weapon in 7.62 High Calibre, but hampered by slow reloading times and a slow rate of fire.
  • Able Team. Ex-cop Carl Lyons carries one with a Magna-Ported six-inch barrel, among his many other guns.
  • In Alan Wake the eponymous protagonist uses one as his primary weapon.
  • The Python is in Call of Duty: Black Ops, also usable in multiplayer (with options of both full-length and snub-nose barrels, and being the only pistol to accept an ACOG Scope rather than upgraded ironsights) and shows up sporadically in single player; it's apparently Mason's sidearm of choice, as he starts with one alongside his tricked-out MP5K in "Executive Order" and pulls one out of nowhere on several occasions in levels set in Vietnam or Laos, such as to save Woods during a setpiece in "S.O.G." and to clear a VC tunnel in "Victor Charlie". As the game's resident revolver a snub-nosed one also gets special focus during the Russian Roulette scene at the beginning of "Payback".
    • The Python is one of the most powerful handguns in multiplayer, capable of a one-shot kill at any range when playing on Hardcore mode. Attaching the ACOG scope essentially turns it into a handheld sniper weapon with a high rate of fire, damage output, and movement speed.
  • Ryo's constant companion in the City Hunter series and movies, with differences between the anime and the original manga:
    • In the anime it's supposedly "One in a thousand" (referencing the "one in 10,000" special rating for Remington rifles), incredibly accurate due a quirk of fabrication.
    • In the manga it's just a stock model Colt Python that Ryo had customized by a master gunsmith for improved accuracy (the 'One in One Thousand' was instead a .41 Magnum Smith & Wesson which he used to pull off an impossible shot in one particular story arc).
  • Jean-Paul Belmondo used the Python in several of his action films, such as Cop or Hood and Le Professionnel.
  • The weapon of choice of Jak Lauren in Death Lands, alongside knives.
  • Tommy Vercetti gets one of these in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It's the most powerful hand gun in the game, capable of killing any unarmored enemy in one shot (and armored enemies in two), but you can't move while aiming it, and it has a slow fire rate. It shows up again with the same characteristics in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, while Vice City Stories renames it to the "Equalizer" and tricks it out with a non-functional scope.
  • One of the more powerful weapons in the Half-Life series, with the power equivalent to that of two shotgun blasts up close (thanks to being originally envisioned as an even larger Anaconda).
  • Jagged Alliance 2, its Wildfire expansion, and its 3D remake Back in Action all feature the Python revolver, though all except Wildfire incorrectly refer to it as FN's noticeably-different Barracuda.
  • Konami's Justifier lightgun, first used for the home ports of Lethal Enforcers 1, in turn based on the version used in the original arcade game, was heavily based on the Python. This caused a bit of controversy, as most lightguns were mostly fictional, whereas the Justifier was one of the first to resemble a real firearm. Sadly, it was redesigned to look like a generic lightgun in its PlayStation incarnation.
  • Gene Hunt from Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes (2008) carries this as his sidearm.
  • Appears in Mafia III as the Masterson Phoenix, while a scoped version is also available. A gold-plated and engraved variant, named Il Duca, can be obtained through a DLC and has higher capacity and better stability than the standard Phoenix.
  • Used by one of the vigilante cops in Magnum Force. Harry is able to match the ballistics thanks to a Batman Gambit.
  • The 37mm revolver cannons used by the police Labors in Patlabor are scaled up versions of the Python.
  • Appears in Perfect Dark, where it's called the DY 357 Magnum. It's one of the game's more powerful sidearms, although it has a very slow reloading sequence. In a reference to GoldenEye (1997), the previous FPS by the same developers, NSA director Trent Easton gets the "DY 357-LX", a gold version with tiger-print grips, that kills anything that can be killed in one bullet. It returns in the prequel Perfect Dark Zero, this time without the gold-plated version; the player can use one with wooden grips (which Joanna fires in single-action), while her father Jack gets a slightly-customized one with synthetic grips and a triggerguard-mounted Laser Sight.
  • Kirkland carries one in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment. Most prominently featured in the scene where she compares sidearms with Tackleberry, where she tells him that "A .357 can crack the engine block of a truck."
  • Postal 2: Paradise Lost features a Python as simply the "Revolver". It's the slowest of the three pistols, also having a smaller ammo capacity (300 max, compared to 400 for the Deagle and 800 for the Glock), but it's as accurate as and slightly more powerful than the Deagle, and comes with a unique "execution meter" that fills up as you make kills with it, allowing you to spend some of the meter to tag almost any enemy in the game for an instant-kill headshot.
  • During his origin story in Marvel Preview #2, The Punisher carried a six-inch Python as his sidearm instead of his M1911A1.
  • Barry Burton's weapon of choice in the original Resident Evil. Jill or Chris can also get one. The R Emake sees it replaced with a custom design and name change to "Silver Serpent". He also makes use of it in The Mercenaries mode in Resident Evil 5, in a special shoulder holster and used for two of his special melee attacks. A standard Python also shows up in Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, where Chris can liberate it from behind a fire in the second half of the game if Claire leaves him a fire extinguisher, and a regular 4-incher can be found in Resident Evil: Revelations.
  • Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. Killed when he cocks it before firing, giving away his position in the dark.
  • The Simping Detective: Though there is a degree of Depending on the Artist, Jack Point carries one as his sidearm of choice.
  • The sidearm of CIA Agent Riggs in Spec Ops: The Line. However, it can only be used by Walker during Chapter 11 to kill Riggs and has much lower recoil than the Desert Eagle.
  • The final scene of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot features a man concealing a Python on an airport. He's foiled by the protagonists.
  • Chief Hopper carries one in Stranger Things Season 2, following him losing his Smith & Wesson Model 66 in Season 1.
  • Quincy Archer of Survival of the Fittest fell in love with this gun from playing the above game, so naturally it was assigned to his hated enemy, Warren Pace. Quincy himself got stuck with boxing gloves.
  • The Spy from Team Fortress 2 uses one as his default weapon, with ivory grips and a six-inch barrel.
  • Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead (2010) has a Python as his gun of choice.

     Colt Single Action Army 
"This is the greatest hand gun ever made: The Colt Single Action Army. Six bullets. More than enough to kill anything that moves."
Revolver Ocelot, Metal Gear Solid

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/images_79.jpeg

The Single Action Army, also known as the Peacemaker or Equalizer (officially the Colt Model of 1873, or "US Pistol, Caliber .45 M1873" if you're referring to an Army-issue gun, though it's almost never called that), is Colt's original .45 revolver—in .45 Colt (though in civilian use, the .44-40 version, known as the "Frontier Six-Shooter", was more popular since it allowed a cowboy to have a revolver and a lever-action rifle - most commonly the Winchester Model 1873 - that fired the same ammo). Developed in 1873, the Single Action Army eventually became the standard amongst gun-toting citizens of The Wild West for its reliability and high performance. Even after the West ceased to be "wild", the SAA remained popular and Colt continued to produce them up until the outbreak of World War II focused all of their attention on military contracts, and resumed in 1956 because the growing popularity of Westerns resulted in significant new demand. Its internal workings are similar to those of Colt's earlier revolvers, like the 1872 Open-Top, 1860 Army, and 1851 Navy, but the SAA uses a stronger frame with a thick top strap more akin to the 1858 Remington revolver, and it was designed from the ground up to use metallic cartridges instead of being converted from cap & ball configuration. Aside from .45 Colt, the SAA has been chambered for .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .22 LR, .44 Special and .45 ACP.note 

As its name suggests, this gun is single-action only, which (in a revolver) meant the hammer had to be manually cocked for every shot. Typically in real life it would only be loaded with five rounds ("load one, skip one, load four", as single-action shooters put it) since the SAA's hammer has the potential to "bounce" when jostled; with nothing between the hammer and firing pin, this has the potential to set off a cartridge (some modern reproductions fix this flaw; the most faithful ones intentionally do not, nor do the current-production Colts); this is usually not shown in fictional depictions. Known among shooters for its "four-click" cocking, with the clicks being said to spell out "C-O-L-T".

It is the archetypal "fixed frame" revolver, loaded and unloaded a single round at a time. Cartridges would be inserted into the cylinder chambers by opening a loading gate with one's thumb, and spent casings would be unloaded by opening the loading gate again and pulling on the ejector rod beneath the barrel to push out each casing. It should be noted that the loading gate and ejector rod are on the right side of the gun; a left-handed shooter could easily load and unload the gun by opening the loading gate with his left thumb and pulling the ejector rod with his right hand, but a right-handed shooter must transfer the gun to their non-dominant hand first. It's frequently rumored that this is because Samuel Colt, being left-handed, designed the gun that way out of personal preference; in reality, Colt had been dead for a decade when the SAA entered production, and it was actually William Mason and Charles Richards who designed it for left-handed use, because it was considered good practice to design a gun where the most important components for un- and reloading cartridges were operated by the user's dominant hand (nobody wants to have unintentional discharges or mangled fingers during a reload cycle) and, historically, pistols were far more common among mounted cavalry, who used them left-handed (their right hands would hold the reins of their horses or a saber). Regardless, the SAA was copied blindly for an entire generation of revolvers afterwards, regardless of their intended market, so for a long while many shooters would continue the traditions of flintlocks and other ball-and-powder firearms, loading multiple guns ahead of time and switching between them as ammunition was expended.

The SAA is made primarily in three barrel lengths: 7.5 inch "Cavalry Model" (the original cavalry-issue length and also popular with civilians for target shooting), 5.5 inch "Artillery Model" (originally issued as a personal defense weapon to artillery troops, with most cavalry-issue pistols eventually converted to this length) and 4.75 inch "Quick Draw Model" (exclusively for civilian sales, and popular among many gunfighters because its shorter barrel clears the holster faster to allow a quicker draw). In 1894, the famous "Bisley" variant, with a slightly bent-forward grip, slightly more curved trigger, and a slightly bent-down hammer spurnote , was introduced for target shooting at the Bisley, England firing range... but most of them were actually bought for self-defense, as the modifications allowed for quicker shooting as well as easier aiming.


  • Cool Action: Fan firing. Since the SAA is single action, holding the trigger while manually operating the hammer with the palm of the other hand lets the user fire the weapon quickly. A gunslinger will often use this trick to deal with a group of goons. Not good for accurate shooting or for the long-term "health" of the gun; Don't Try This at Home.
    • Competition shooters who run SA As through rapid-fire courses will utilize a two-hand grip, holding the trigger down with the strong hand and cycling the hammer with the thumb of the support hand. This allows each "fanned" shot to be aimed.
    • For some reason, Hollywood doesn't get what the ejector rod on the side of the barrel is for. Actors will typically open the loading gate, turn the barrel up, and shake the pistol until the spent case falls out. It's faster, smoother, and safer to push it out with the ejector rod.
  • General Patton famously owned one with ivory grips and silver casting (definitely not pearl grips), alongside a Smith & Wesson Model 27 .357 Magnum (his ivory-handled Colt was originally part of a matching set, but by the time of World War II he'd given one of them to a friend), and a GI M1911, of which he was also quite fond. And usually also a Colt M1903 pocket pistol or two hidden away; Patton believed in always being armed.
  • The Buntline Special, allegedly wielded by famous lawman Wyatt Earp and showing up in many Westerns with Earp as a major character (i.e. Tombstone). Sadly, though, he more than likely used a Smith & Wesson top-break at the O.K. Corral, and the story of the Buntline Special is at least partially fictional. But a long-barreled (exactly how long is unknown, as the gun is lost to history and Colt's records for custom orders in that era are spotty) SAA with detachable shoulder stock was among the guns Earp used in his career, and his wife Josie referred to an extra-long revolver as being one of his favorite guns.
    • Most of the characters in Tombstone use Peacemakers; notably Doc Holliday dual wields one along with a .38 Colt Lightning.
  • And speaking of the Buntline, Marty Robbins got the inspiration for his song "Big Iron" upon seeing a big-framed customer at Andy Anderson's Fast Draw Holster shop, who was fast-drawing a reproduction of the said revolver.
  • As of 2011, the Colt Peacemaker is the "official gun" of Arizona.
  • Featured heavily in most Westerns, even if they're set prior to 1873. Expect a cowboy to carry at least one and often two or more around with him.
  • Captain Richard Jenko carries a nickel Single Action Army with pearl grips as his sidearm in 21 Jump Street.
  • Available in the Blue Sun mod for 7.62 High Caliber from an early point in the game, in several barrel lengths and either in .45 Long Colt or .357 Magnum. Considering that the game is Gun Porn and they need to compete with Uzis and Glocks from the start, carrying one is more for the cool factor than their practicality.
  • Appaloosa is probably the only Hollywood Western in history in which anyone reloads the SAA properly. Marshall Virgil Cole points his weapon in a safe direction and ejects his spent brass properly after he and Deputy Everett Hitch shoot and kill three mooks in a saloon.
    Virgil Cole: I warned 'em.
  • Back to the Future Part III had a scene where a Colt dealer gave Marty a Single Action Army (using the "Peacemaker" name) and he promptly demonstrated his videogame-learned Improbable Aiming Skills. Doc has a nickel-plated SAA with pearl grips that he attempts to defend himself with against the Libyans in the first film, only to discover he's forgotten to load it.
  • Battlefield 1 adds an ivory-gripped Colt Single Action Army with a black finish and skull engraving on the back in the In the Name of the Tsar DLC as a well-hidden secret weapon, with a number of very complex steps needed to unlock it. The player character flips it around while idle and running with it, and fans the hammer when hip-firing.
  • A long barrel SAA appears in the Louisiana chapter of BloodRayne as the "Cole44."
  • In Burning Water, Diana Tregarde says that her current personal gun is a Colt .45.
  • In Cowboy Bebop, Cowboy Andy carries a pair of SAA's as part of his cowboy motif. Also featured in the Show Within a Show "Big Shots" on various occasions.
  • Roland Deschain's revolvers (and by extension, those of Cort, Cuthbert, Alain and the other gunslingers of Gilead) in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series are clearly based off the Colt. Justified; after all, Roland is The Gunslinger.
  • Doc McCoy in the Desperados video games carries a Buntline version. He can attach a stock and a telescopic sight to it which along with high-quality bullets (which are always very limited in quantity) turn it into a sniper rifle that outclasses actual rifles in the game.
  • A custom Peacemaker with a 2-1/2" barrel and no front sight is used by Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross in The Expendables.
  • Two variations on the SAA, the "Peacemaker" and "Buntline" appear in Final Fantasy VII as weapons for Vincent.
  • The Man With No Name famously carried a Single Action Army with a silver snake on the grips in A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, which was a recycled prop from Rawhide. Several other characters use Single Action Army models as well. Colonel Mortimer has a preference for the Buntline Special.
  • Being a Western, most characters in The Hateful Eight use them. But it's notable for showing Major Marquis Warren calmly and properly reloading his guns during The Summation.
  • In The Magnificent Seven (1960), all of the Seven use Colt SA As, usually Artillery models. Calvera uses the Quickdraw model while Vin also carries the Cavalry model. Several of the townspeople also use Colt SA As in training. The 2016 remake has Sam and Vasquez using nickel-plated Artillery models, while Josh, Billy and Bartholomew Bogue use regular ones.
  • Scaramanga uses a gold-plated SAA with ivory grips in The Man with the Golden Gun. In the movie, he's switched to a custom single-shot pistol that breaks down into innocuous items like a cigarette lighter, pen, cufflink and cigarette case, but in reference to the novel he uses a gold-plated SAA to shoot the cork off a wine bottle during one scene.
  • Weapon of choice for Revolver Ocelot in the Metal Gear Solid games. In the third game, we find out Big Boss introduced Ocelot to it by pointing out his shooting technique (letting his arm ride with the recoil rather than resisting it) would be better suited with a revolver than an automatic, whereupon he quickly ends up with overall four of the things; he first uses a heavily engraved nickel-plated one for their second confrontation, before switching to three blued versions, which he uses on a few occasions for an odd version of Russian roulette where he juggles three guns with one bullet between them (and also pulls the trigger while firing them at someone else rather than himself). He ends up dropping one off the side of a cliff at the end of a motorcycle chase and, if you pick the unloaded gun on the right for the final confrontation, lets Snake keep one of the other two as a New Game Plus reward. Owing to some of Ocelot's tricks showed off in the game, you can ricochet its bullets off of walls to hit people and twirl it around your finger in first-person.
  • The similar Ruger New Vaquero was added to PAYDAY 2 as the Peacemaker .45 with The Butcher's Western Pack DLC. Being a single-action revolver with a loading gate, it's slow to fire (even with the player characters fanning the hammer after every shot) and especially to reload, but it makes up for it with the highest base damage of any of the handguns, shared with the Mateba in .357 Magnum added in another DLC, competing against that with higher stability for faster follow-up shots and higher concealment potential in return for the slower reload and no compatibility with gadgets (its only attachment options are different barrel lengths, custom grips and a shoulder stock).
  • Persona 5: Makoto Niijima uses revolvers as her long range weapon. These include a number of SAA variants, such as the Colt Single Action Army "Peacemaker", and a U.S. Colt Cavalry. Each has exactly 6 shots and considerably more stopping power than the Protagonist's various standard automatic handguns.
  • In one frame of the Puella Magi Madoka Magica manga, Homura is seen with one, in contrast to the usual Beretta 92 or Desert Eagle she's portrayed with.
  • In Rainbow Six, the M1873 (spelled "M-1873") is carried by Foster Hunnicutt, the head of security for the Horizon Corporation's Kansas compound. It is chambered in .44-40, and its man-stopping qualities are aptly demonstrated when Popov, who has just learned of Horizon's genocide plan from Hunnicutt himself, takes the gun to pretend to practice shooting, and murders Hunnicutt with one shot to the heart. The bullet demolishes the organ as if it was tissue paper.
  • It's featured in Red Dead Redemption as the Cattlemen Revolver. Somehow, it's the weakest pistol in the game. Red Dead Redemption II fixes this by making it a Jack of All Stats.
  • Red Dead Revolver features multiple variations on the SAA, each with a different made-up name.
  • Claire in Resident Evil 2 can get her grubby mitts on one with a cowboy biker themed outfit, and yes she does use fan firing. It is incorrectly chambered in 9mm and reloads quickly with a swing-out cylinder as if it was a double action revolver.
  • In Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, samurai cowgirl Gemini Sunrise carries one on her belt, but unlike her katana it never actually gets used for anything.
  • In The Six Shooter, Britt's gun is a grey steel Peacemaker with mother-of-pearl grips which is distinctive enough that he has been able to prove his identity to strangers just by showing them the gun.
  • Tex Willer and his friends use this, as befitting for a Western. This is notable only because, contrary to most users, they specifically use the version in .45 Colt and not the .44-40 version that would use the same ammo of their Winchesters.
  • Being that Westworld takes place in a high-tech Wild West theme park, there are a whole lot of SA As on display. Notably, gunslinger Teddy Flood uses an Artillery Model, while the one Dolores acquires later on is a Cavalry Model.
  • In both the comic book and the TV series, Wynonna Earp wields a chromed and etched Buntline Special, called 'Peacemaker'. This gun was originally wielded by Wyatt Earp and can kill anything supernatural and send demonic entities back to Hell.
  • Appears as a usable weapon for Makoto in Persona 5, called the Peacekeeper.
  • In Guns, Girls and Gambling, The Cowboy is packing a pair of Colt Single Action Army revolvers in a fast draw rig and lethally accurate with either hand.

     Colt Walker 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/walker_89.jpgHope you got a horse to carry these.The definitive BFG of the 19th century. Notable for its exceptional size — it weighed 4.5 pounds — and power: No pistol delivered more muzzle energy until the invention of the .357 magnum cartridge nearly a hundred years later.

Samuel Colt himself designed this monster in 1846, working with Texas Ranger Samuel Walker. Walker was an admirer of Colt's early revolvers but wanted something with greater close-range power. He wanted a gun that could reliably kill men and horses with a single shot. Walker would end up dead in the Mexican-American War less than a year later, wielding two of his eponymous pistols at the time.

Even in its day, the Walker was recognized as unwieldy and problematic. Besides its great size and weight, it was prone to destructive malfunction. The cylinder's large chambers could easily be overloaded with black powder by an inexperienced user, leading to explosive and injurious misfires.

The Walker was an important evolutionary design, though; Colt refined it and shrunk it down to create the Colt Dragoon and then the iconic Single Action Army (see above).

The Walker also counts as a rare gun; only 1,100 were made. On-screen, Colt Dragoons often serve as stand-ins for the bigger, rarer pistol.
Comic Books
  • The Colt Walker is the weapon of choice for the Saint of Killers in Preacher. As he gains the title he gets a new pair, which are forged from the sword of the previous Saint in hellfire. The resulting weapons never miss, apparently never run out of ammunition, can shoot through anything (like, say, the armor of an M1 Abrams tank) and kill just about anything in the entire creation. Including God.

Films — Live-Action

  • Josey Wales carries a pair of them (along with two smaller pistols).
  • Mentioned in Unforgiven. Part of the real story of the death of "Two Gun" Corcoran mentions that he carried one of these weapons and it exploded on him, allowing English Bob to finish him off.
  • In The Last Stand The Dragon uses this gun for no good reason, other than Rule of Cool.
  • In the original True Grit, this is the gun Mattie Ross used, incorrectly called a Dragoon. The remake however, gives her an actual Dragoon.

Literature

  • Pops up in the Destroyermen series, as the sidearm of Captain Samuel Anson, a spy who helps captured US Navy aviators Fred Reynolds and Kari-Faask escape from the Holy Dominion. Reynolds initially figures him to be from the Empire of the New Britain Isles, based on his rather British-like accent. Turns out that he's actually from the previously-unknown New United States, founded by the Sailors and Marines aboard a US fleet bound for Veracruz that crossed into the altEarth during the Mexican-American War, and have been at war with the Dominion ever since. They are evidently mass-producing it for standard-issue. Considering some of the beasties found in this world, it makes perfect sense to carry such a Hand Cannon for your sidearm.

Video Games

  • Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood gives one to Ray as one of his starting weapons.
  • This is Maggie Ponzi's weapon in Girls' Frontline, fitting her Cowgirl aesthetic. Erma comments on how antique-looking the gun is and later uses it to execute an unconscious Tareus at the climax of Longitudinal Strain event.
  • Top-tier revolver in the Half-Life 2 total-conversion mod Fistful of Frags, its immense power - it's nearly always a One-Hit Kill - balanced by a painfully long reloading animation.

     M 1917 revolver 
"Used by the US Armed Forces during the First World War to supplement the standard M1911, it saw continued service in Vietnam by both South Vietnamese and US forces, primarily by "Tunnel Rat" units."
Description, Rising Storm 2: Vietnamhttps://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_836.jpeg
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_566.jpegTop: Smith & Wesson M1917, Bottom: Colt M1917

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, the primary service pistol of the Army was the semiautomatic Colt M1911. Unfortunately, there weren't enough 1911s to equip all forces. In response, the military asked Colt and Smith & Wesson to adapt their famous civilian revolver designs to the 1911's .45 ACP cartridge as a supplement, thereby addressing the shortage without the time and money it would take to retool their wheelgun assembly lines for the 1911. Colt adapted their M1909 .45 Colt New Service revolvers, while Smith & Wesson adapted their .44 Hand Ejector revolvers, resulting in two different pistols, both with the same designation. The Smith & Wesson version of the M1917 can be differentiated by its supported ejector rod, rounded half-circle front sight, and a different release latch, while the Colt version has an unsupported ejector rod and bladed front sight. Colt's variation must be loaded with moon or half-moon clips (which also allow multiple rounds to be loaded at once); Smith & Wesson's was designed to be able to hold the rimless cartridge without use of a moon clip, though the ejector rod cannot eject the casings once it comes time to reload if they're not attached to a clip since it will have nothing to interface with. As an alternative, the weapon could also use .45 Auto Rim rounds, a rimmed cartridge designed specifically for .45 ACP revolvers. After World War I, many M1917s found their way into the civilian market. The weapon continued to see service well into World War II in the hands of military police and beyond, with American 'tunnel rats' making use of them during The Vietnam War.

While Colt abandoned the .45 ACP revolver concept after WWI in favor of just making enough M1911s to equip the military with pistols in that cartridge, Smith & Wesson continued to develop the design throughout the second half of the 20th century, resulting in the Smith & Wesson Models 22 and 25. These were discontinued in 1963 & 1991, respectively. The major .45 ACP revolvers S&W continued to produced were the Models 325 and 625, the scandium and stainless steel variants of the Model 25, however both of these models have been discontinued, the 325 sometime in the 2010s and the 625 as of 2021. The weapon has a reputation as a Game-Breaker in speed shooting sports, as the moon clips led to much faster reloading than a traditional speedloader: legendary speedshooter Jerry Miculek used a customized Model 625 in 1999 to achieve a world record in revolver shooting by firing 12 shots in less than 3 seconds. Smith & Wesson continues to manufacture the Model 25 as part of its "Classics" product line, although this one is chambered only in .45 Colt.


  • The Smith & Wesson version appears in the Louisiana chapter of BloodRayne under the ever-so-slightly altered moniker of "W&S M1917 Pistol."
  • A Colt M1917 is used by "Dum Dum" Dugan in Captain America: The First Avenger.
  • The Smith & Wesson M1917 is a usable weapon in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.
  • Smith & Wesson's version appears in Day of Infamy as a sidearm for the US Army faction, a slower but cheaper alternative to the M1911, along with a Secondary Fire mode of cocking the hammer before shooting and the option to equip half-moon clips as a speedloader. Notably, the ability to carry .45 Auto rounds without a clip is properly presented, as the reload animation normally consists of the player character shaking the casings out, compared to using the ejector rod if it's equipped with a moon clip.
  • A customized Smith & Wesson M1917 with "sweetheart grips"note  is carried and used by Wardaddy in Fury (2014) as his preferred sidearm. Notably, he forces it into Norman's hands at one point to pressure him into executing a German prisoner.
  • In Goldfinger, Pussy Galore holds Bond up with a Model 22 on a plane. Bond correctly identifies the weapon as a "Smith & Wesson .45" and says a bullet from it would pass through him and put a hole in the plane, which is probably correct.
  • The Smith & Wesson M1917 is one of Park Do-won's weapons in The Good, The Bad, The Weird, though he only actually uses it twice.
  • In a flashback in Hacksaw Ridge, Desmond's drunken father tries to attack him with a Smith & Wesson M1917. As Desmond's father is also a WWI veteran, it's very likely the revolver was his sidearm.
  • A few are used by American officers in The Lost Battalion.
  • The Smith & Wesson M1917 appears as a usable weapon in Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, and is the choice weapon for Corpsman Jim Sullivan during the Makin Island Raid and Battle of Tarawa.
  • Colt M1917s are used by Beni Gabor, Mr. Daniels (who uses two), and the prison warden in The Mummy (1999).
  • Indiana Jones' sidearm in the opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark is a Smith & Wesson M1917, which he surrenders to Belloq at the end of that scene. He later obtains another one (actually the same prop) when he packs his suitcase before heading to Europe, but never uses it, instead opting for the slightly older Smith & Wesson Mk II Hand Ejector in .455 Eley and a Browning Hi-Power.
  • The Smith & Wesson version is usable by the Americans and South Vietnamese in Rising Storm 2: Vietnam. Uniquely for a video game, the weapon's Double-Action/Single-Action mechanism is accurately simulated, allowing the player to press the fire-mode key to thumb back the hammer for a faster and more accurate first shot. It's equipped with half-moon clips, and reloads will only dump one or both of them if they're completely empty, rather uniquely averting One Bullet Clips even for this game - you simply can't reload until you've fired at least three shots.
  • The Smith & Wesson M1917 is a usable weapon in Sniper Elite III with the "Hunter" DLC pack.
  • The default sidearm in in the Doom Game Mod Ashes 2063 is a Model 625, generically referred to as a ".45 Revolver". It's more powerful than the Glock, typically killing regular enemies in one shot, though you can carry much less .45 ammo than 9mm in return.

     Modèle 1892 revolver 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mle_1892_revolver.jpg

A French revolver primarily chambered in 8x27mm SR, though 7.62x38R Nagant and .22 LR variants also exist, the Modèle 1892, also known as the Mle 1892, Lebel revolver and St. Etienne 8mm, was originally designed by Manufacture d'armes de Saint-Étienne (MAS) as a commissioned officer's personal sidearm and was the standard issue sidearm of French military officers in the first World War, but ended up seeing use by the French Army, Navy and Gendarmerie as a whole, as well as other countries like Algeria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany (where ones captured by the Nazis were reissued as the Revolver 637 (f)), Spain, Vietnam and Yugoslavia, with more than 350,000 being manufactured between 1892 and 1924. It can be fired in either single-action or double-action, holds six rounds of 8mm, and the cylinder swings out to the right on a separate frame for manual reloading. The left sideplate of the frame can also be swung back on a hinge to give access to the gun's internal parts for oiling or cleaning, and the parts are individually numbered to indicate the order in which they can be disassembled.

While underpowered compared to other military revolvers at the time (the 8mm round being comparable to the .32 ACP round), it was an accurate, mechanically tight and very well finished revolver, and so it stayed in use with the French military throughout both World Wars even after they were officially replaced by semi-automatic handguns in 1935 and with the French police all the way up to the mid-1960s, with many of them also being brought to the United States as souvenirs. Recently, it also gained some infamy for being used in the 2018 Strasbourg attack.


  • Peter can find and use one in his chapter of Eternal Darkness, where it is simply called the Revolver.
  • Appears in the The Saboteur as the .44 Pistol, where it has a long target barrel and, as the name implies, is rechambered in .44, though it still shares ammo with other pistols in the game. Sean mistakenly refers to it as an American weapon.
  • Appears in Verdun and Tannenburg, where it appears on a table in the main menu in the former and was first usable in the Horrors of War expansion, originally being called the MAS M1892 Lebel Revolver before being renamed into the Revolver de 8mm modèle 1892, and was added to the latter in the May 2018 Romanian update. It has good accuracy and is quick to top off.
  • Kirika and Altena start using them in Noir from episode 21 onwards, the former taking it from a Knight of Paris after losing her Beretta 34.
  • German spies are seen carrying them in Wonder Woman (2017).
  • Claude Ravache uses one to commit suicide in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and other anarchists are seen using it too. Dr. John Watson picks it up to confront them, and continues using it when he and Holmes infiltrate the the Meinhard factory.
  • Dr. John Watson again uses one in Without a Clue along with "Sherlock Holmes" (Reginald Kincaid), the latter at one point spilling the bullets out while holding it upside down.
  • Cassidy gives them to the Lafayette Escadrille pilots in Flyboys as last-ditch suicide weapons. Blaine Rawlings notably uses it during his dogfight with the Black Falcon.
  • James Franco prominently carries one in This Is the End, with him pointing out this is the revolver he kept after acting in the above film, and Danny McBride and Jonah Hill also handle it. McBride at one point tries to fire the revolver at the rest of the group thinking it would kill them, but it turns out to be a blank firing gun, which Franco notes.
  • Jeanne uses one in Last Tango in Paris, inherited from her father.
  • Julien Maillat uses one to save Jeanne from rapists in Weekend at Dunkirk, and it's also seen in the hands of a French officer.
  • Fernand, Sifredi and some criminals use them in Borsalino, with François Capella taking one after disarming an enemy.
  • Detective Nick Carter, Commissioner Ledvina and Professor Albín Boček use them in Adele Hasn't Had Her Dinner Yet, with the weapon featuring on the film's poster.
  • D'Hevrais, Lukan and Mitya Gridnev use them during training in The Turkish Gambit, and General Ganetsky fires on in the night scene. It is anachronistic for the setting.
  • Renée finds one that belonged to Victor Meynard's father in Wild Target, and tries to use it against him. Tony takes it from her, and it's seen in Hector Dremyan's hands in the final scene.
  • FLN guerrillas prominently use them in The Battle of Algiers to assassinate gendearmes.
  • Captain Miklos Cherno uses one as his sidearm in the Mission: Impossible episode "The Spy".
  • Prince Ali Yusef and Bob Rawlinson use them in Poirot when revolutionaries storm the royal palace.
  • Cole Matthews uses one in Endeavour when robbing a bank in the episode "Coda", and gives it to his brother Peter to try to kill Morse.

     Nagant M 1895 
The Nagant Revolver fires a gas seal cartridge, giving it a small boost to muzzle velocity, and making it one of the few revolvers that can be effectively suppressed.
Description, Battlefield 1

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/images_354.jpeg

A seven-shot, gas-seal revolver in 7.62x38mmR designed and produced by Belgian industrialist Léon Nagant for the Russian Empire, it acquired fame and glory in the wars of the Empire and the Soviet Union afterwards. Nearly unique for a Victorian Age revolver for the vast majority were double-action (the few single-action models were converted afterwards), it used specially designed fully-enclosed cartridges, which, when fired, helped seal the gap between the chamber and barrel. So ubiquitous that during the Russian Civil War and the 1920s, in Russian language nagan was the colloquial word for "pistol". People said it was so reliable that it could be dropped in the mud, bashed on concrete, rusted to the core, and chewed by a furious bear and it would still fire without a problem. Its reliability is especially impressive given that the Nagant is significantly more complex internally than it needed to be.

It was replaced as a general issue weapon by the TT automatic pistol in the 1930's, although it was still a common weapon for paramilitary forces such as the NKVD and was a popular weapon with civilians. Some of them are still in use for security purposes in modern Russia, usually 2 to 4 times older than men who carry them. Today, surplus Nagants are among the most inexpensive handguns that can be bought in the United States, but the same cannot be said of their unique ammunition.

Also, due to its design the Nagant M1895 was the only revolver which could use a sound suppressor effectively (anyone who knows about revolver designs knows that due to a gap between the front end of the cylinder and the rear end of the barrel, normally a revolver is unaffected by a sound suppressor; more detailed information on The Other Wiki). The NKVD and KGB noticed this, and since the action of a revolver is quieter than a semi-automatic, this made it well-suited to assassination. Due to this aspect as well, the Nagant has a very violent history of use. Several Nagants were used to execute the Russian royal family in 1917 alongside other handguns, prominent Soviet leader Sergey Kirov was killed by a civilian-owned Nagant and during the infamous Katyn massacre of 1940, Nagants were initially used until the NKVD executioners switched to using .25 Walther pistols, as the revolver's recoil was beginning to hurt their hands.

The M1895 was actually the last in a long line of Léon Nagant's revolver designs, with the earlier models lacking the gas-seal mechanism having been adopted by the armies of Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Serbia, Brazil, Poland and Greece. The gas-seal was actually invented by by Nagant's rival Henri Pieper, for his own more obscure Pieper M1893 revolver and revolving carbine that were primarily used by the Mexican government. The very complex internal workings of the M1895 Nagant are at least in part to avoid infringement on Pieper's patent.

A carbine version of the Nagant, for legal purposes, is still manufactured for Russian collectors. A number of unrelated modern Russian rifles and shotguns have an action based on the Nagant (or at least inspired by it), as revolving actions are easier to obtain in Russia than other repeaters.


  • Chances are, if this is a movie set during World War One, the Russian revolution or the Russian Civil War, almost every officer, commissar and NKVD member will be carrying one. If it's set in WW2, expect the revolver to show up briefly among all the Tokarevs present.
  • In the 2008 version of The 39 Steps, Scudder carries one.
  • Appears in the In the Name of the Tsar DLC for Battlefield 1. It is interesting for having a unique empty reload where the player replaces the entire cylinder in a swift motion.
  • Several WWII video games, including Call of Duty: Finest Hour and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.
  • Makes an appearance as the sidearm of the British International Brigade member in Garth Ennis' Condors. Although he draws it at the beginning, he soon reveals it to be empty. Sergeant Linney also carries one in combat as well. At the end of the story, the Irish fascist, who is revealed to have bullets for the gun, loads it and waits in vain for his fellow storytellers to ambush him.
  • Commissars in Enemy at the Gates.
  • Appears as a 2-star T-Doll in Girls' Frontline. Befitting her firearm's age, she talks as if she's an old lady, calling the player and other T-dolls children. She also gets a unique suppressor as her exclusive equipment, befitting the Nagant's most famous aspect.
  • Rip Hunter's gun in Legends of Tomorrow is a modified M1895 Airsoft replica.
  • Occasionally pops up in Men of War in the hands of Russian officers and tank crewmen. Elite units like the Spetsnaz or Red Guard carry ones fitted with sound suppressors.
  • In the final story of Nikolai Dante, Vladimir challenges Nikolai to a game of Russian Roulette with one. In spite of the fact that the strip takes place in the 27th century, the gun is still very much functional as Vlad uses it to commit suicide, losing the game. It's implied that he intended to lose once he placed the seed of doubt in Nikolai's ability to be Tsar. Vlad mentions that it's been in his family for generations.
  • Appears as the "R-1895" in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds exclusive to the region of Erangel, with the ability to utilise a suppressor for pistols. Due to the game's ammo mechanics, it is somehow able to use the same generic "7.62mm" ammunition as the AKM, SKS and sniper rifles.
  • This revolver serves as the starting sidearm for the Russian troops in Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. It can also unlock a suppressor to be used.
  • Lt. Rozanov (Alan Atkin) is armed with a Nagant M1895 in the film The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming.
  • In Sherlock Holmes (2009), the revolver Holmes is experimenting with a silencer on is anachronistically a Nagant M1895.
  • The "L'Etranger" revolver in Team Fortress 2 is a heavily customized Nagant with pearl grips and engravings. Unlike the real Nagant, which holds seven bullets and must be loaded one round at a time via a loading gate, the L'Etranger has a swing-out cylinder and holds six bullets, like the Spy's other revolvers.
  • A suppressed Nagant appears in the second Vietcong game as an available sidearm. Interestingly, it's modeled with a suppressor which encapsulates the entire barrel - even having sights on the suppressor itself - rather than simply attaching to the muzzle.
  • Hell Let Loose has this weapon as the standard-issue sidearm for the majority of Soviet player loadouts, from rifleman to tank crews and even snipers having access to it.

     Ruger Blackhawk 
"These are Ruger Blackhawks, .357 Magnum. And I can see why you like 'em. Modern, but they still have that old fashioned down-home design you go for."
Mabel, addressing Jonah Hex

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boothroyd.jpeg

So along came The Western, and it was good. Suddenly, there was a spike in demand for "cowboy" style single-action revolvers in the style of the Colt SAA. There was one minor problem; Colt wasn't making them at that point, and neither was anybody else. Colt had retired production of all non-military/police revolvers during World War II and never switched back afterward; what Colt sold to civilians post-war were the same revolvers they sold to police, as they assumed nobody would want the obsolete SAA anymore. Along came Bill Ruger, maker of .22LR target pistols and all-purpose gun genius. In 1955, having tested the waters with the .22 "Single Six" model, he then offered what was essentially a modernized SAA. Simplifying the lockwork, and using modern coil springs as opposed to Colt-style flat leaf springs, the Blackhawk was strong enough to support the mighty .357 and .44 Magnum calibers, and its success caused Colt to start offering the SAA again. Certain Blackhawks are designed to have their cylinders swapped out to fire 9x19mm or .45 ACP rather than magnum loads.

A lawsuit involving a negligent discharge (with a stolen gun, although the jury wasn't informed of that fact) led to the "transfer bar," making the Blackhawk the first single action revolver that could be safely carried with all six cylinders loaded note  (and ugly "billboard" warning labeling on all Ruger weapons from that point forward; as a result "pre-warning" Rugers from 1976 and earlier command a slight premium from collectors). The .44 Magnum variant was actually offered before the Smith & Wesson Model 29 (allegedly, Ruger got their hands on some spent casings from S&W's testing of the Model 29 and were able to rush the .44 Magnum version to market as a result), and many argue that the single action "spin" grip makes a better platform for the cartridge.


  • One is carried by Chaka in Black Lagoon.
  • The ".357 Magnum Revolver" in Fallout: New Vegas is a cross between the Ruger New Vaquero (a more modern design based on the Super Blackhawk) and an original SAA.
  • Was an available handgun option in Ghost Recon: Phantoms until it shut down in 2016. It was incorrectly labeled the "Redhawk" which is a completely separate, double-action revolver.
  • A 4-star T-Doll in Girls' Frontline, misidentified as the original SAA. As such, she's presented as a cowgirl, complete with a bull whip in her MOD 3 upgrade, who's obsessed with cola.
  • GoldenEye (1997) has the Cougar Magnum, which was in beta called both the Ruger Magnum and the Blackhawk.
  • Mickey Rourke in Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man learned to shoot with a Ruger. It is why he is such a poor shot (until the script demands otherwise).
  • When he travels into the present day, Jonah Hex purchases two .357 Ruger Blackhawks from a female gun shop owner as a replacement for his customized Colt Single Action Army revolvers.
  • James Bond in Licence Renewed brings an unofficial .44 Ruger Blackhawk with him on his assignment as a sidearm.
  • In Resident Evil 2 (Remake), the Blackhawk replaces the Colt SAA from the original game in Claire's B Scenario playthrough, called the "Quickdraw Army" and minus the cowboy outfit. This time, it is portrayed more accurately to real life, with it being chambered for .45 ACP and the reload is painfully slow since Claire must manually eject each fired casing and then reload the cylinder one round at a time. She still fan fires it, though, which allows it to shoot much faster than her starting double action revolver.
  • Shadowrun has the basically similar Ruger Warhawk, its most powerful revolver.
  • Detective John Hartigan in Sin City, as well as several other characters.
  • Carried by Agent Cory Lambert in Wind River, drawing heavily on the movie's New Old West setting.

     Ruger GP 100 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gp100.jpeg

The Ruger company's flagship revolver. First released in 1985, the Ruger GP 100 is one of the more affordable .357 Magnum duty-size revolvers (meaning, with a minimum 6-shot cylinder and 3" barrel or longer) available on the market, giving it a reputation as "the working man's .357." As a successor to the Security-Six line, the GP 100 is essentially a bigger, beefier version of that gun, with a much sturdier frame designed to easily take full-power .357 Magnum loads all day long as well as modular handgrips for greater customization.

The GP 100's wide variety of models contribute to its versatility, coming in 2.5", 3", 4.2"note , 5", and 6" barrels, and is also manufactured in a variety of calibers. Besides the .357 Magnum/.38 Special it was originally meant for, as of 2010 it also comes in .327 Federal Magnumnote , and in December 2015 a 10-shot version in .22 Long Rifle for plinking, light game hunting, and training purposes was released. Exactly one year later in December 2016, Ruger announced the release of an additional chambering in .44 Special (a 5-shot due to the size of the .44 cartridge). This was followed up with yet another release in April 2018 of a 10mm Auto version, taking advantage of the big revival of that cartridge.

In January 2018, Ruger released a seven-shot version of the GP 100 in .357 Magnum, ostensibly to compete with Smith & Wessons's 7-shot Model 686+. The 686+ may have come out 22 years earlier in 1996, but it's never too late to start.

In April 2019, an 8-shot Super GP100 meant for the professional competition circuit was released, utilizing the Redhawk's frame and the Super Redhawk's action/clockwork for a light trigger. With these characteristics, it's fair to wonder why this firearm was released under the GP 100 brand instead of as a Redhawk variant. The Super GP 100 became available in 9mm in December 2019.


  • In Arrow, Robert Queen uses a GP 100 to commit suicide in the pilot episode to give Oliver a better chance to survive. Much later in Season 5, another GP 100 is used again for suicide by Prometheus, being a dark callback to the series' beginning.
  • Breaking Bad's first two episodes involve Walter White getting threatened with a GP 100, specifically a stainless steel KGP-161 model number with a 6" barrel, adjustable sights, and a full barrel shroud.
  • Call of Juarez: The Cartel features the GP 100 and names it as such. The in-game model is a 3" barrel with Lett grips.
  • Sara in Falling Skies acquires a Ruger GP 100 with a 3" barrel and Lett grips in the Season 4 finale, and is still carrying it when Season 5 begins.
  • This is Inspector Tequila's trusty sidearm in Hard Boiled, using the blued 4" barrel version.
  • In Justified Season 5, DEA Agent Miller uses a 3-inch stainless steel GP 100, and clearly identifies it as such.
  • Shows up every now and then in Police Procedural shows, such as Law & Order, CSI: Miami, and NCIS. The GP 100 was also a frequent sight in the French police TV series Julie Lescaut.
  • The Miz uses a blued GP 100 in the third film of The Marine series.
  • Deveraux in The November Man uses a stainless GP 100 for a game of Russian Roulette.
  • The booby trap in Saw II is rigged up with a 6" stainless steel GP 100.
  • Tango & Cash has Detective Cash using the stainless railed version with a laser sight.
  • Undercover Blues gives it to Morty.

     Ruger Redhawk 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/redhawk_6.jpg

The Big Guy in Ruger's revolver lineup. The Redhawk was designed in 1979 as their first big-bore double-action revolver, designed to handle powerful revolver loads that start with a ".4": namely, the .44 Magnum. It is essentially a scaled-up Security-Six with a heavily reinforced frame, making it capable of taking very hot custom handloads. The Redhawk was actually the most powerful handgun in the world at the time of its release due to the fact that it could safely fire these super cartridges, something no other revolver could do without risk of injuring the shooter (yes, even the built-like-a-tank Smith & Wesson Model 29).

The Redhawk's cartridge options expanded as the years went by to include other powerful loads like the .41 Magnum and .45 Colt, as well as a dual caliber option for .45 ACP/.45 Colt. A .357 Magnum version of the Redhawk was briefly produced from 1984-1985 before production quickly endednote , while the .41 Magnum lasted from 1984-1991. Most of the remaining Redhawk models were gradually discontinued until by 2007, the Redhawk was only being produced in its original .44 Magnum caliber. It wasn't until 2015 when Ruger started bringing back some of the older calibers note 

In 1987, the Super Redhawk was introduced. Based off of the GP 100 frame instead of the Security-Six, the Super Redhawk, like the Super Blackhawk, is meant for the serious handgun hunter, with long barrels ranging from 6.5 to 9.5 inches and the extra real estate on the gun allowing for the mounting of scopes. The Super Redhawk is chambered for the .44 Magnum but expanded to include much more powerful calibers, specifically the .454 Casull and .480 Ruger. A 10mm Auto version was also released in November 2017.

Due to its ability to handle very powerful pistol calibers, the Redhawk is a popular option for bear defense in the American wilderness. In fact, the revolver is so popular in Alaska that in 2005, a special 2.5" snubnose version of the Super Redhawk was put into production for that market, called the Super Redhawk Alaskan.


  • Bobby in 2 Guns uses 7.5" Redhawk during a confrontation with Stig.
  • A Super Redhawk Alaskan is briefly used by Taylor Lautner in Abduction.
  • Alliance of Valiant Arms features the Super Redhawk as an unlockable weapon called "SRH."
  • Urara Takachiho from Aria the Scarlet Ammo AA uses a Super Redhawk chambered in .454 Casull as her weapon of choice.
  • A Super Redhawk is Dingo's main weapon in Expelled from Paradise.
  • Faster gives us one of the most extensive uses of a Super Redhawk Alaskan in .454 Casull in a movie, used by Dwayne Johnson.
  • A Redhawk with a 7.5" barrel is one of the more common options in Jurassic Park: Trespasser. It's noticeably stronger than the Desert Eagle despite firing the same cartridge (presumably due to the barrel length, if not simply because the developers thought "revolver = best"), able to take down raptors from Tribes A and B with a single headshot, though in turn it holds two fewer shots than the Deagle, and its longer barrel makes it more awkward to use against those that get close enough to start chewing on your face.
  • A memorable instance in Men in Black when Bug Edgar confronts a tow truck driver, the driver pulls out a Super Redhawk thinking it'll scare him off. It doesn't.
  • In Uwe Boll's Postal film, the eponymous Postal Dude uses a Redhawk throughout the movie.
  • The Rageaholic claims to own a Redhawk.
  • Frank in The Transporter uses a snubnose Redhawk that is easily mistaken as a Super Redhawk Alaskan. It's not; the film was released in 2002, three years before the Alaskan went into production, making it a heavily customized and cut-down standard Redhawk or Super Redhawk instead.
  • Burt hands Melvin a Redhawk in Tremors.
  • Colonel Stryker in X-Men Origins: Wolverine uses a 7.5" Redhawk loaded with adamantium bullets against Wolverine.
  • Shito in Zombie Loan uses a Super Redhawk with a 9.5" barrel throughout the series.

     Ruger SP 101 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/images_1_56.jpeg

A compact, stainless-steel revolver introduced in 1989, another successor to the old Security-Six model. As with most revolvers in the Ruger line, the gun is famously durable, its solid frame easily handling heavier .357 magnum loads while soaking up recoil, and can also be chambered in .38 Special. While it is heavier than other revolvers of similar size (weighing between 25-30 oz., compared to the aluminum-framed Smith & Wesson 642 at 15 ounces), it makes up for it in controllability. Like its big brother the GP 100, the SP 101 comes in a variety of calibers: the aforementioned .357 Magnum/.38 Special, a dedicated .38 Special +P version, .327 Federal Magnum, .22 Long Rifle, and 9mm Luger, with barrel length options in 2.25", 3", or 4.2".


     Smith & Wesson Model 3 Schofield 
A true gun of the old American West. The No. 3 is a classic top-break single action revolver and saw action during WW1 in various forces.
Description, Battlefield 1

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wyattblam.jpeg

The Pepsi to the Colt SAA's Coke, the Schofield was one of the first "top-break" revolvers (allowing the entire cylinder to be loaded in a short amount of time, at the cost of structural integrity); rolled out in 1870 for the US Army. Due to the fact that its unique .45 Schofield cartridge (despite being specifically told by the Army to chamber it in .45 Colt, they designed it for a unique cartridge that was about five millimeters shorter than .45 Colt), could be loaded in the SAA and not vice versa, large numbers of Schofields were pulled from military service and sold on the civilian market, while Colt's offerings remained in military service and were fed both ammo types more or less interchangeably. Since it was faster to load and less expensive than the SAA (some things never change), it was very popular with cops and robbers alike in the Wild West. Often underrepresented in period Westerns, due to the Peacemaker's iconic status. Related models like the Model 3 "Russian" (so named because it was bought in large numbers by the Tsar's army; its .44 Russian cartridge was the basis of the .44 Special, which in turn was the basis of the legendary .44 Magnum) were also popular, and built in much larger numbers by S&W because they didn't have to pay any royalties to Major Schofield as with the other Model 3 subtypes. The Schofield cartridge was also in some ways an inspiration for the later, now-famous .45 ACP handgun cartridge, as one of the reasons for its existence was to copy the performance of the .45 Schofield in an automatic handgun.


  • Appears in 3:10 to Yuma (2007). Ben Wade's psychotic right-hand man Charlie Prince wears a pair of No. 3s in a Wild Bill Hickock-style twist-draw rig. He never uses any other guns, but gets plenty of use out of these, as he commits dozens of murders over the course of the movie, including several apparently just because he can.
  • This is the weapon used to kill the title character in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
  • Appears in Battlefield 1 as the No. 3, perhaps due to its use by the Russian Army.
  • Appears in the Louisiana chapter of BloodRayne as the "W&S Double-action Pistol."
  • Patrick Galloway carries one in Clive Barker's Undying.
  • Rafe Covington uses a Schofield along with his Colt 1868 Open-Top and his custom Winchester '76 Centennial rifle in Crossfire Trail.
  • The eponymous Dead Man's Gun is a black enameled Smith & Wesson Schofield with gold chased engraving and ivory grips. Shame that it's cursed.
  • A pair of these are the main firearms of Sixgun Johnny Rhythm from Dead Winter. Neatly contrasting Black Monday Blues Glock 22s.
  • Appears in Gun when Cole arrives in Dodge City. Jenny gives it to him, telling him that it was Ned's. Cole replies that Ned never really cared for sixguns, preferring rifles instead. It makes a good replacement for Cole's starting Colt Navy, boasting higher stats, though it is quickly eclipsed by later sidearms.
  • Shows up in Hitman: Blood Money in the sticks in the hands of several wedding guests in "Till Death Do Us Part".
  • Doc Scratch keeps one as his sidearm in Homestuck. He later gives it to Spades Slick.
  • The Russian Model of the No. 3 was added to PAYDAY 2 with the Gunslinger weapons pack as the Frenchman Model 87.
  • Given to the player in Red Dead Redemption by Langdon Ricketts. It also appears in Red Dead Redemption II, where it's available in gunshops from the beginning. Dutch carries a customised pair of them as his weapons of choice.
  • The basic handgun in the original Serious Sam is a Schofield, modified with a swing-out cylinder and Bottomless Magazines thanks to a "Techno-Magical Ammunition Replenisher" that automatically refills the chambers after spent cartridges are cleared out. Sam can also use them two at a time when he finds a second one.
  • Owen Wilson's character in Shanghai Noon.
  • John Wayne's character in The Shootist.
  • Virgil Earp (Sam Elliot) in Tombstone.
  • In Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood borrows one from the appropriately named Schofield Kid, and uses it in the final shootout.
  • In Girls und Panzer Das Finale OVA Daikon Wars!, Jane of the Oarai Agricultural Science Department uses a paintball gun modelled after the Schofield revolver.

     Smith & Wesson Model 10/K-Frame 
Tried and true by the boys in blue. This American pistol is the most common police service revolver in the world.
Description, Jagged Alliance 2

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sw10_5110.jpg

A .38 Specialnote  revolver produced by Smith & Wesson, and an early example of the "swing-out" cylinder used in virtually all modern double-action revolvers. For most of the 20th Century, this weapon, along with Colt's revolvers (its main rival), was practically synonymous with "police gun," replacing older .32 caliber revolvers and reigning supreme until the rise of the double-stack auto. If you see a police officer with a revolver in pretty much any media, it will be this one. Some police departments still use them today, and even the military has used them from time to time to arm sentries, as opposed to a heavier automatic. Smith & Wesson later standardized the M&P frame as the "K" frame, building blued and stainless steel .38 Special and .357 Magnum revolvers on it. During World War II, it was widely used by the British, Commonwealth and US militaries (mainly for rear-line duty, but also for pilots, aircrew and sailors), and dubbed the "Victory Model". Victory Model revolvers can be easily identified by the "V" prefix on the serial number and a frame marked "UNITED STATES PROPERTY," "U.S. PROPERTY" or "U.S. NAVY."note 


  • As stated above, police characters in a work set before 1985 or so will generally be using this or a Colt revolver. The Hong Kong police will also be using these in media appearances, due to it being their standard service pistol. Some notable non-police examples are:
  • Officer Tom Hanson in 21 Jump Street carries a Model 10 as his patrol sidearm in the pilot episode. Once he goes undercover, he exchanges it for a Model 60.
  • The Model 10 is the most common handgun used by the various mafia families in 91 Days.
  • Hannibal Smith in The A-Team.
  • The Model 19 is featured as the sidearm for the MACV faction in Battlefield Vietnam, featuring a lower capacity and fire rate with higher recoil than the M1911 used by allies or TT-33 by enemies, but competes with noticeably higher power, able to kill enemies in one shot to the head.
  • The standard sidearm of Dr. No's guards in the book and the film. In the novel, Bond gets his hands on one and dispatches three guards with it near the end. In Die Another Day, when Bond goes to Cuba to find Zao, his local contact gives him a Model 10.
  • In conjunction with the MAC-10, Snake Plissken carries a Model 67, a stainless steel version of the Model 15 in Escape from New York, which seems to never need reloading and comes with a scope. Maggie makes use of it at various points in the film, with Snake giving it to her to make her Last Stand against the Duke. Hauk is briefly seen doing a brass check on a Model 10 snubnose before he meets Snake as well.
  • Michael Corleone in The Godfather. His bodyguard also uses one to commit an assassination while dressed as a cop.
  • One of the title character's guards in Goldfinger fires one at Bond during the car chase.
  • In Insurgency, the S&W Model 10 was added in a 2015 update aptly as a Insurgent weapon. Similar to the Makarov PM, it cost 0 supply points and can be equipped with different types of ammo and/or a speed loader.
  • The Model 10 is referred to as the .38 S&W, and the starting pistol for most mercenaries in Jagged Alliance and Deadly Games. It is the starting pistol for mercenaries that're hired from MERC and bought from Bobby Ray's in Jagged Alliance 2. Back in Action replaced it with a Model 36 revolver. The first game and Deadly Games also gives you the Model 13 revolver, using the more potent .357 Magnum rounds.
  • A Model 10 appears during one case in L.A. Noire but is unusable by the player.
  • Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon franchise carries a .357 Magnum Model 19.
  • Daiskue Jigen from Lupin III has the Model 19 as his weapon of choice. Often referred to as his "Magnum".
  • One of three available guns in the FPS Receiver, which is much simpler to use than the others owing to being the only revolver.
  • In the So Bad, It's Good slasher flick Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, Ricky disarms a rent-a-cop of his Model 15 and promptly goes on a rampage with it. The gun is used in the infamous "Garbage Day" killing.
  • Jonathan and Nancy use a Model 10 extensively in their fight against the Demogorgon in season 1 of Stranger Things.
  • Mentioned by Tim O'Brien in The Things They Carried as one of the weapons that his platoon occasionally used in Vietnam.
  • A female gang member in The Warriors.
  • Model 19s with rubber grips are the sidearm of the guards in Squid Game, though the Front Man erroneously calls it a Model 60.

     Smith & Wesson Model 27 
The R8 Revolver delivers a highly accurate and powerful round at the expense of a lengthy trigger-pull. Firing rapidly by fanning the hammer may be the best option when point-blank stopping power is required.
Description, Counter-Strike: Global Offensivehttps://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_920.jpeg
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/images_1_19.jpeghttps://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_1_47.jpegTop: S&W Model 27, Middle: Model 327, Bottom: M&P R8

Pretty much the older brother of the famous Model 29 Revolver. Originally known as the "Smith and Wesson Registered Magnum", the firearm was introduced in the year 1935. Before the .44 Magnum came around, this was the most powerful handgun in the world being chambered in the potent .357 Magnum round. It was the first revolver ever designed to accept the then-new cartridge. Despite being an expensive firearm that was released during the Great Depression, the revolver was a hot seller among law enforcement. The Model 28 model, known as the "Highway Patrolman" was introduced later was much like the Model 27 in action and still just as reliable, but it was more of an economic gun that was less expensive than the Model 27. 1989 saw the introduction of the Model 627, where gun is made of stainless steel. Earlier models had a six round capacity while later models by Performance Center allowed an eight round capacity.

The Model 327 revolver was introduced into the market in 2003, based around the earlier models with a scandium frame. The weapon is a snub-nosed revolver that initially had wooden grips, while later iterations gave the revolver synthetic grips. Like the 627, it has a eight round cylinder chambered for .38 Special or .357 Magnum. The Military & Police R8 variant, which has a longer barrel, was introduced to the police market in 2006, alongside the TRR 8 for competitive use, this time from Smith and Wesson's Performance Center. This quickly became one of the most recognizable variants of the Model 27. Notably, it is one of the few revolvers that was given a rail that can be used to attach accessories, and is often sold with a sight rail as well. In 2008, the 327 was one of the models included in the short-lived Night Guard line of scandium framed, snub-nosed revolvers. The Models 27 is available under Smith and Wesson's Classics line, and the Model 627 and 327 are still sold to this day.


  • Battlefield Hardline has the M&P R8 as one of the revolvers you can have, having the highest capacity.
  • The XRK .357 blueprint given to those who bought the digital version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) greatly resembles an M&P R8, though it's only chambered for six rounds.
  • The Registered Magnum shows up in Call of Duty: World at War as the only revolver in the game and exclusive to the multiplayer. Despite the capacity of six rounds, it's the most powerful handgun you can get.
  • The M&P R8 Revolver can be purchased in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive as the token revolver, added with the Winter 2015 update. For a time, it was unfairly powerful before it was eventually nerfed; as of now, it's still the most powerful handgun in the game, beating even the Deagle (to the point that it's the only handgun that can kill in a single shot to the torso if the target isn't wearing armor), but it has a slower rate of fire even when fanning the hammer with its Secondary Fire, and it's only more accurate than other guns with primary fire, which has a noticeable delay (during which the player slows down a bit) as the hammer slowly pulls back before actually firing. It's also surprisingly tricked out for a Counter-Strike weapon, featuring an underbarrel rail mounted underneath the existing underbarrel rail that goes unused unless you have a Stat Trak skin to keep track of your kills with the gun. Also notable for, despite all the spinning and other things you shouldn't do with a revolver in reality, the reload animation includes properly pushing the cylinder back into position rather than flicking it closed.
  • The M&P R8 revolver is the sidearm for Frank Castle when he appeared in Daredevil. He also duct taped a 327 Night Guard into Matt's hand at one point.
  • American agents are armed with the Model 27 when the Doctor paid a visit to the White House during the Nixon era in Doctor Who.
  • Wade from Fargo has a Model 28 revolver.
  • The M&P R8 debuted in Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades on the 2016 Meatmas Update. Unlike the other revolvers, this model is a left-handed variant where the cylinder swings out to the right.
  • Turns up in L.A. Noire as the murder weapon in the first case the player takes on during the Patrol tutorial. It's nickel plated and has pearl grips, marking it as a specially ordered firearm, making its owner easier to track down.
  • The most powerful handgun you can get your hands on in Mafia, the Model 27 also appears in the sequel.
  • The Registered Magnum with ivory grips was one of General Patton's personal weapons, and it shows up in Patton. As in real life, Patton gets seriously offended when a reporter suggests he might have such trashy tastes as to carry a pearl-gripped sidearm.
  • In The Raid Redemption, a thug armed with a 327 attempts to shoot Rama at the end of the first hallway fight, and Rama shoots him in the face with it for his troubles. Unfortunately, the guy only loaded it with one round so Rama tosses it aside afterward. Another 327, nickel-plated this time, shows up near the end of the movie and is used by Lt. Wahyu. Oddly, this one runs dry after only shooting six rounds, which may have been the filmmakers playing to audience expectations that all revolvers are six-shooters.
  • The M&P R8 is shown to be Maggie's sidearm in The Walking Dead in the fifth and sixth seasons. But it was later replaced with a Model 686 snubnose.
  • Luther was shown wielding a Model 28 in The Warriors to gun down Cyrus, thus kickstarting the plot.

     Smith & Wesson Model 29 
"I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?"
Detective Harry Callahan, Dirty Harry

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/feelingluckyyet.jpeg

The Dirty Harry gun. The iconic speech Clint Eastwood gives in that film on the benefits of heads, and the blowing clean off thereof, cemented this revolver and its .44 Magnum round as the Memetic Badass of the gun world note  and started the action movie arms race that ended with such ridiculous Hand Cannons as Charles Bronson's .475 Wildey Magnum in Death Wish 3. Large-bore revolvers are still the first choice in the field of personal artillery (since the modern choice is typically a Smith & Wesson Model 500), one major legacy is that almost every revolver in a videogame will also be a Magnum. The Model 29 was built on the same frame as the .357 Model 27 "Registered Magnum"; this would later be standardized as the "N" frame. Notably, the actual revolver used in the film is exhibit 86 at the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, VA.

The Dirty Harry films gave a massive case of The Red Stapler effect to what had then been a fairly niche weapon, and Model 29's became popular enough that there was trouble keeping up with demand. In a case of Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, many people who got a Model 29 due to the films found out the hard way that shooting a .44 Magnum is no joke for inexperienced shooters, and many ended up being resold as used or spending peaceful lives in gun safes. Beyond popular media, the Model 29 was primarily intended as a hunting sidearm for large and dangerous game like bears. It also found a small following with some US police (primarily in rural areas) who wanted to carry serious firepower without needing to carry a shotgun or rifle.

The Model 29 is still in production as part of S&W's "Classics" line and as the 629note , and it is also offered in custom variants as part of S&W's Performance Center line, such as the "V-Comp" (with a weighted compensator) and "Stealth Hunter" models.


  • 48 Hrs. had Jack Cates carry one as his preferred sidearm until Ganz takes it from him and he has to borrow a 1911 for most of the film. Ganz even taunts him that he has his gun. He's forced to hand his .44 in when he's suspended in the second film, he switches to a Model 629, a stainless steel variant, which he keeps in the back of his car.
  • Harry Dresden favours one for the first twelve books of his series, befitting a detective with a conscious pulp-noir aesthetic (and yes, he references the classic speech). More practically, he's also a Wizard who's Walking Tech Bane and prone to dealing with monsters that require as much stopping power as he can muster and at close range, accuracy isn't a problem. It also serves as a handy club in a pinch, especially against things that don't like Cold Iron. The problems of a revolver - loading (he doesn't even have a speed-loader) and a limited number of shots - are touched on, along with the fact that newer and more reliable pistols don't jam on him.
  • Added in the Blue Sun mod for 7.62 High Caliber, both in a standard version with an 8 inch barrel and in an utterly ridiculous version with a barrel going on 12 inches that can't even fit in a holster or ready pocket (which some submachine guns can do).
  • Billy Rosewood upgrades to one midway through Beverly Hills Cop II after a shootout at a nightclub, reasoning that he needed more firepower. Axel responds that they need to talk.
  • The 629 is Dutch's main weapon throughout Black Lagoon.
  • Umibozu's sidearm in City Hunter, and always fired one-handed. Justified by the simple fact Umibozu is gigantic with a strength to match, so he can easily deal with its power while having hands too big for anything smaller.
  • Funboy, in The Crow (1994), uses a stainless steel model 629. Due to a combination of a blank cartridge and a squib-loaded bullet lodged in the barrel, this is most likely the weapon that killed Brandon Lee.
  • Snake Plissken uses a pair of heavily modified S&W 629s (the S&W Performance Center take on the Model 29) as his personal sidearms in Escape from L.A.. The 629 is an all stainless mod of the 29 with compensators, weighted barrels and an accessory rail to which Snake had mounted Aimpoint red dot scopes.
  • One of the best guns added in Fallout 2, complete with reference to above quote in the inventory description. Shows up in Fallout Tactics as well. Also present in Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas as the .44 Magnum Revolver; in a Shout-Out to The Road Warrior (mentioned below) it has a scope in the former and can be modded with one in the latter.
    • And shows up yet again in Fallout 4, it also gains a spotlight because one was used by a mysterious figure Conrad Kellogg to kill the Player Character's spouse. It can now be modded even more extensively.
  • The Model 629 with the barrel of the "Stealth Hunter" model from S&W's Performance Center appears as simply the .44 Magnum in Far Cry 3 and 4. In the former game it's essentially the first half's equivalent to the later Desert Eagle, not able to take a suppressor like the 6P9 because it's a revolver, and having a smaller capacity, but it's powerful enough to kill any pirate short of a Heavy in a single shot, and can also get an extended barrel to make it more accurate; it also gets a Signature variant, the "Cannon", which features the longer barrel and a tube reflex sight the normal version can't get alongside even higher power. In the latter, it's held over to the second half of the game, with various nerfs (such as no longer getting the long barrel option except by way of the "Cannon") that make one wonder why. It returns in Far Cry 5 in several variants now, the basic model being a regular Model 29 in both 4- and 6-inch barrel versions (with a Pre-Order Bonus granting a "Steel & Ivory" version of the latter with shiny nickel and gold plating everywhere), and the 629 returning as higher-level variants, one with a custom barrel and muzzle brake as the new "Sixer" and one with a more proper Stealth Hunter barrel returning as the "Cannon".
  • The Firm. Private eye Eddie Lomax keeps one in a holster under the table, kneecapping one of the hitmen who come to kill him. Not that it does him much good.
  • In the TV series Hunter (in the later seasons) Rick Hunter used a stainless steel version with a short barrel. So did his partner Dee Dee McCall in seasons 5-6, in an elevation from the sublime to the ridiculous (Dee Dee had previously used a .32 calibre PPK).
  • At the end of "Joining the Gang" arc from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, it is shown that Polpo kills himself with a Model 29, which Giorno turned into a banana as a means of retaliation for disregarding innocent bystanders, particularly the old school janitor that was killed by his Stand, Black Sabbath, during his initiation test.
  • Added to Killing Floor with the Twisted Christmas 2011 update, including an obligatory Dirty Harry Shout-Out in one of the achievements related to it.
  • James Bond uses this revolver as part of rescuing Solitaire and his confrontation with Baron Samedi in Live and Let Die.
  • Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. The Lord Humungous carried one with a scope attached. Apart from Max's Sawed-Off Shotgun, it's the only other firearm in the film.
  • Dick Justice, eponymous star of the Show Within a Show featured throughout Max Payne 2 uses a Model 29 as his signature weapon.
  • Mike in webcomic Paradigm Shift.
  • Added to PAYDAY 2 in a free update alongside a Mexican heister, Sangres, as the "Castigo .44". It doesn't get as many attachment options as some of the other revolvers, and its base accuracy is on the lower end, but its damage is tied with the Peacemaker and Matever as the strongest handgun in the game, it has naturally high concealment, and it's also the first revolver that can be wielded Guns Akimbo. It can also be fitted with an incredibly rare heavy "Devil" barrel from Kokusai to increase its accuracy.
  • The gun's first appearance was in the hands of Lee Marvin in Point Blank (1967).
  • Tackleberry, in Police Academy, carries a Model 627 (given to him by his mother).
  • Red Heat. When Danko is forced to turn in his 9.2mm Podbyrin, he is given a Model 29 by Ridžić, who references Dirty Harry. Danko is unimpressed, even asking who Dirty Harry is. Even after he uses it to kill the Big Bad, he still notes that he prefers the Russian pistol.
  • Sin City: Being a Dirty Harry Expy, John Hartigan carries one at the start of That Yellow Bastard as his main sidearm. After his death, Nancy somehow manages to get hold of it and uses it to kill Senator Roark. Strangely, it appears to be missing the ejector rod shroud, resembling a Model 10, when Nancy has it.
  • Peacock from Skullgirls uses this as one of her main weapons. However, given her limited Reality Warper powers, she has modded it to shoot unusually large ammo (like, among other things, bowling balls) and to flick out swords like a giant switchblade.
  • In State of Decay, the Model 29 is a somewhat commonly found weapon of its class using the correct yet rare .44 calibre ammo.
  • Taxi Driver: Travis Bickle also used one, with 8-3/8 inch barrel (compared to Dirty Harry's six-incher). The guy selling it to him notes that it's too big to be practical, which plays out in how Travis only shoots half of a guy's hand off with it in the finale, while actually killing people with the three smaller automatics and revolver he buys along with it.
  • A 629 Classic with custom wood grips is Victor Sullivan's preferred weapon across the Uncharted series. In the games where the player can find it as well, it's referred to as the "Wes-44".
  • XxX has the NSA issue Xander Cage a heavily customised Performance Centre 629 fitted with a red dot sight, a wide muzzle brake and some sort of jagged rail or weight under the barrel. He's also issued with a variety of unique ammunition to go with it such as non lethal darts and explosive rounds. How, as a secret agent, he's supposed to keep the damn thing concealed is anyone's guess. The same model briefly shows up in xXx: State of the Union, Agent Shavers using it when the NSA compound is raided and Darius carrying one when he breaks into the xXx HQ.

     Smith & Wesson Model 36/J-Frame 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/36sw_016482.jpg

Smith and Wesson’s answer to the Colt Detective Special. One of the first revolvers designed after the Second World War, the Model 36 was a snubnose revolver introduced in 1950, better known to many as the “Chief’s Special”. It was designed for off-duty officers and plainclothesmen, and a popular gun for conceal carry. Chambered in .38 Special with a five round capacity, it was an improvement of the earlier Model 30 I-Frame using the .32 S&W Long round. It was the first revolver that is part of the “J” Frame series, characterized for their compact size.

The Model 36 had received many variations over the decades. The earliest variant was the Model 37 Airweight, where the carbon steel frame was replaced with aluminum, making for a very light gun to weild, later models would have an Airweight variant. Then there was the 38/49 Bodyguard and Model 40 Centennial models, which has a “camel back” that conceals the hammer to prevent snagging. The Bodyguard’s hammer is shrouded, so it can still be used as a single action. While the M&P Bodyguard and Centennial hammers are enclosed entirely, making it double action only. Finally, the Model 60 with a stainless steel frame, with later models chambered for .357 Magnum rounds. While primarily chambered for five .38 caliber rounds, there are a few models that are chambered for six .32 caliber (in S&W Long or .32 H&R Magnum) or eight .22LR rounds.

The Model 36 was also the basis for the Nambu Model 60, a five-shot Japanese revolver produced from 1960 until 1999 and still used to this day by police; it can be told apart from the Model 36 and other variants by its distinctive Bakelite grip with a flared-out portion at the bottom to accommodate the user's pinky and a lanyard loop behind that extension.


  • A Smith and Wesson Bodyguard was used by South Vietnamese General Nguyễn Ngọc to execute the Viet Cong prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém during the Tet Offensive. The latter whom was accused of the assassination of a South Vietnamese Colonel and his family. The moment before the execution has been immortalized in this photo.
  • Biff Tannen in the Alternate 1985 from Back to the Future Part II is in possession of a Model 60, using it in an attempt to eliminate Marty. He also admitted to using that same gun to murder George McFly as well. Word of God would go on record to say that 1985-A!Lorraine would kill 1985-A!Biff with that same gun too.
  • The Nambu Model 60 is the de facto sidearm used by any Japanese law enforcement in Case Closed. The Model 36 is also FBI agent Jodie Sterling's weapon of choice.
  • Cruelty Squad has a Nambu Model 60 as the "New Safety M62", using a ".38 Suspicious round" that makes it surprisingly powerful. It's frequently used by police officers from the Cult of Order, and its description notes that it's been in service with police for over a hundred years.
  • James Bond was issued a Smith and Wesson Centennial Airweight in tandem with his Walther PPK in Dr. No, in scenarios if more firepower is needed. The gun was left out in the film adaptation.
  • A Chief's Special was the revolver Arthur Fleck carries around in Joker (2019). Used when defending himself from the Wall Street Three, and shooting Murray Franklin in the head on live TV.
  • Anne can find John Hammond’s personal revolver in Jurassic Park: Trespasser, which is a Model 40 “Ladies Model” revolver. It fires six shots like the other revolvers despite being modeled to hold five. The gun is surprisingly the most powerful handgun in the game.
  • One of the pistols Cate can use in No One Lives Forever would be the Model 37 Airweight, which can fire a variety of different ammunition. It's the most powerful pistol compared to the Luger and Walther P38, but cannot be fitted with a suppressor.
  • Small-time crook Yolanda has a Model 40 Centennial revolver at the cafe robbery in Pulp Fiction. Her partner and lover Ringo has the .32 caliber Model 30 as his sidearm.
  • Claire Redfield would start her campaign with a Bodyguard revolver in Resident Evil 2 (Remake), rather than a Browning Hi-Power. It can be upgraded to use a speedloader and .357 Magnum rounds.
  • The Nambu Model 60 is frequently shown to be used by police in the Yakuza series.

     Taurus Judge 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_2_1.jpeg

A Brazilian double action, five-shot revolver capable of shooting either .45 Long Colt or .410 bore shotgun shells. The name actually started as a Fan Nickname, after several circuit judges in Miami started carrying the pistol for self-defense. Although popular, it tends to get the same negative rap as the Desert Eagle (bought by people who know nothing about guns) due to its inaccuracy (the cylinders are too long for the .45 cartridge, and the rifling inhibits shot patterning... though it's sufficiently accurate for the very-close-range self-defense that it's designed for), the usual misconception that one doesn't have to "aim" anything firing shotshells, and the low performance of .410 hunting rounds in a self-defense setting, though there's an increasing number of .410 shells designed specifically for self-defense use.

There's also the "Raging Judge Magnum", which is based on the Taurus Raging Bull frame and allows it to load and fire .454 Casull (it's to .45 Colt what .357 Magnum is to .38 Special) alongside its normal .45 Colt and .410. Ordinary Judge revolvers have cylinders designed specifically to keep people from sticking .454 Casull in them (the chambers are long enough, to fit .410 shells, that this otherwise would be possible), because they're nowhere near strong enough to handle the higher-pressure round. The most recent iteration is the Circuit Judge revolving rifle, which is exactly what it sounds like: a Judge frame with a stock and a much longer barrel. No word on whether a "Circuit Judge Magnum" with .454 Casull capability will be made.


  • Jack Bauer carries one in 24.
  • The Taurus 4510PLYFS appears in Battlefield Hardline as the .410 Jury, unlocked for both sides with Mechanic Assignment 2.
  • Continuing the proud tradition of Call of Duty villains carrying massive pistols, Raul Menendez from Call of Duty: Black Ops II carries a Raging Judge. It fires 28 gauge shotguns shells, indicating that it is a 2011 variant that was planned and ultimately scrapped (due to US firearm regulations that prevent the sale of either short-barrled shotguns or handguns larger than .50 caliber). In-game, it's called the "Executioner". Also available with a long barrel (one of only two guns in the game to change its model with that attachment, in fact, the other being the singleplayer-only "Olympia" shotgun) and, despite being a revolver, a suppressor.
  • The Judge appears in Days Gone as The Mayor, where it is the weapon of choice of Colonel Garret, the leader of the Deschutes County Militia. It can be unlocked for use after the completion of the "Law And Disorder" Storyline.
  • Featured in Kane & Lynch: Dog Days.
  • Both Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise in Knight and Day.
  • Mark Wahlberg carries one in the film version of Max Payne.
  • A Taurus 4510PLYFS, a "pocket-sized" variant of the Judge, shows up in PAYDAY 2 as "The Judge", firing shotshells; despite the real gun's negative reputation in regards to the .410 shell's power, the Judge in this game is among the strongest shotguns in the game. Also, like in Black Ops II, its status as a revolver does nothing to hinder it from utilizing a suppressor - in fact, next to the Locomotive 12G, it's probably the community's favorite shotgun in the game, for being able to take one of those suppressors and still be both highly-concealable and hard-hitting.
  • The Taurus 4510PLYFS appears as another one of Alibi and Maestro's sidearms in Rainbow Six Siege with the "Operation Para Bellum" update, called the "Bailiff 410" in-game, and is equipped with a reflex sight by default.
  • Pyrina a.k.a. Chikage Hizaki carries one in Triage X to fire .410 incendiary shells.
  • Detective Sebastian uses a Taurus Judge as his sidearm in Underworld: Awakening. Oddly, he is able to fire seven rounds from it without reloading.

     Taurus Raging Bull 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_267.jpeg

A Brazilian large caliber revolver primarily used for hunting big game like cape buffalo and African elephants. The Raging Bull can fire in either single-action or double-action, and comes with a ported barrel and a distinctive red (or yellow on some versions) rubber strip on the back of the grip to cushion the shooter's hand and lower perceived recoil. It differs from other large-caliber revolvers with front cylinder latches by requiring it to be manually operated, rather than actuated by a second latch behind the cylinder similarly to lower-caliber revolvers; it's simpler and cheaper to produce for the same strength, but requires using the non-shooting hand to open the cylinder. The Raging Bull comes in a huge variety of calibers from .218 Bee to .500 S&W Magnum,note  but the most common calibers are .44 Magnum and .454 Casull, since as of 2007 every variant except for those two has been discontinued.

Like many of Taurus's firearms, the Raging Bull has something of a mixed reputation among shooters. Not so much from flaws in the design itself (which is generally agreed to be good enough for what it is), but more due to Taurus's notoriously spotty quality control and poor customer service over recent years, which led to Taurus being hit with a $39 million class-action lawsuit in 2015.


  • The ".44 Magnum" in Battlefield 3, 4, and Hardline is a Taurus Model 44. In BF 3's campaign, one is Solomon's preferred weapon when Blackburn confronts him. It also appears in Battlefield 2042, this time called the M44, equipped by default with a Smith and Wesson Stealth Hunter-esque long barrel and powered rail mounted on top, and firing in single-action instead of double-action like the previous games.
  • Appears in Call of Duty: Ghosts as the .44 Magnum, though the markings indicate it is actually chambered in .454 Casull. It is Rorke's weapon of choice and fires in double-action in campaign, and in single-action in multiplayer and Extinction.
  • Appears as the Magnum in Dead Island with wooden grips. Like the Smith & Wesson Model 15, it incorrectly shares ammo with the other handguns.
  • Bruce Willis as a Cowboy Cop has a Raging Bull in the music video for Gorillaz's "Stylo", using it to open fire on Murdoc's escape car.
  • Appears in the Half-Life mod The Specialists under the Raging Bull name. It's easily the most powerful handgun along with the G2 Contender as it can kill with one shot, but requires superb accuracy, and has massive recoil and low ammo capacity to offset its effectiveness.
  • Half-Life 2 game mod Firearms Source features the Raging Bull as the lone revolver, chambered in .454 Casull. The reload animation has the user manually ejecting all spent cartridges and loads the new ones in, only using the extractor if all five rounds are used up.
  • Appears in Hitman: Blood Money and Hitman: Absolution, being called the Bull .480 in Blood Money and the Aries Charging Ram in Absolution. In both games, it is the most powerful handgun in the game, being able to penetrate thin barriers and even multiple enemies with a single shot, but having a very slow rate of fire. In Absolution, a unique black-and-white variant of the Raging Bull called "The Absolver" is also the signature weapon of Lasandra Dixon, the leader of the Saints.
  • The "Holdt R4 Pitbulls" Rico always has on hand in Just Cause (also available in Just Cause 2 with the "Rico's Signature Gun" DLC) are very vaguely based on the Raging Bull, modified with pearl grips, an attachment at the rear of the frame that hides the hammer, and a tiny unusable M203.
  • Dan Smith's starting gun in Killer7 is a Model 44, named in other sources as the "Handsome Devil". Later on he upgrades to the "Demon Gun", a version with a second barrel, and near the end of the game Garcian gets to switch out his automatic handgun for a much stronger, gold-plated version of the Model 44.
  • Appears in PAYDAY: The Heist and PAYDAY 2 as the Bronco .44. It is the most powerful handgun in the first game and among the top tier in the second (only three other revolvers deal higher damage, and even then only very slightly more), though it fires slowly, holds less ammo and has a longer reload time. As of Update 13 in Payday 2, street cops can also use this weapon, canonizing a glitch in an earlier update where cops dealt much more damage than they were supposed to; they're the only street cop variant to still spawn on higher difficulties, where police are otherwise entirely replaced by heavily-armored FBI and then ZEAL Team operatives, because of their absurd damage output.
  • A snub-nosed Raging Bull appears in The Purge as James Sandin's personal weapon before he gives it to Charlie when he is sent to hide in the basement.
  • Appears in the Rainbow Six: Vegas series as one of the handguns unlocked with Assault points. It has the highest power of the handguns in game and is the only revolver in the game, but has high recoil and obviously the lowest capacity. The reload animation also has Keller/Bishop either close the cylinder properly when there are still rounds left in it, or has them spinning the cylinder and closing it with a flick of their hand when reloaded from empty. It is also frequently used by enemies with shields.
  • Appears with wooden grips as the .44 Umbrella Magnum in Resident Evil 0. It is used by Billy to kill the Leech Queen, and is unlockable by completing the Leech Hunter mission with 90-99 leech charms collected.
  • Appears in Soldier of Fortune: Payback as the .454. It is the most powerful handgun in the game and extremely accurate, and has unrealistically low recoil.
  • The Raging Bull appears in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception as the Tau Sniper, with a scope fitted and the muzzle ports moved to the sides of the barrel. It is strangely the weakest revolver in the game, with even the .357 Dan Wesson PPC (Mag 5 in-game) doing more damage.

     Webley revolvers 
Used extensively through the armies of the British Commonwealth from 1939 to 1945, the Webley Mk 4 revolver was a simple, no-frills combat revolver. Firing a smaller 0.38-inch round than the World War I–era Webley 0.455-inch pistol, the Mk 4 was lighter and easier to fire and required less training and practice to use. The Mk 4 is so popular it remains in service in various parts of the world to this day.
Description, Call of Duty: United Offensive

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/indysgun.jpeghttps://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/images_22.jpegTop: Webley Mk. VI, Bottom: Webley Mk. IV*

The Webley top-break self-extracting revolver. Used by British, British Empire and Commonwealth forces between 1887 and 1963 as well as civilians to this day. No, that's not a joke: in various marks, this gun was used from the Colonial wars of the Empire to manning guard posts on the Berlin Wall, with only minor modifications in form. Fired the infamous .455 Webley round, one of the most powerful ever used in top-break revolvers, for when .45 S&W just would not cut it early in its reign. However, many later models used the .38/200 as, after World War I, the British army decided that the revolver needed to keep up with the times, and that the .455 Webley cartridge and corresponding revolver required too much training on the part of the average soldier (a fresh draftee might flinch at firing such a powerful gun and then drop it out of fright), although many naïve solders at the time felt that the weapon had been nerfed. The first .38/200 revolvers adopted by the British military were actually a copy (the No.2 Mk 1) produced by the government arsenal at Enfield, with all the parts changed just enough to prevent interchangeability and allow them to deny Webley royalty payments by pretending it was an independent design. Despite how flagrantly obvious the patent infringement was, British courts ruled in the government's favor... but in a case of poetic justice, during World War II Enfield was unable to produce enough, so the military was forced to buy large numbers of the Webley Mk IV that they'd previously ripped off.

One of the most widely circulated and reliable revolvers of all time, and its iconic shape and long use means it will be found in pretty much any film, game or series involving British or Commonwealth troops from the Victorian period onwards. The most recent version, still in production today, is a version made in India for civilian sales; it's essentially a shrunk-down version of the .38 caliber model, chambered in the near-obsolete .32 S&W Long (as India's gun laws place severe restrictions on the calibers of guns that civilians can own). As of 2015, Webley have introduced an air-pistol variant of the Webley Mk. VI revolver, designed with the same blueprints and materials, to commemorate the model's centennial anniversary. British firearm company Anderson Wheeler introduced the Mark VII Revolver, claiming to being the successor to the Mk. VI in 2015. The Mk. VII can load up to seven .357 Magnum rounds, but it comes with a steep price tag of £6,500 (Approximately $10,000).note 

The Webley was also the basis for the Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver, one of the rare attempts at a semi-automatic revolver in 1901, designed by Lieutenant Colonel George Vincent Fosbery; see the Rare Guns page for that version.

* Cool Cartridge: The .455 Webley was a very potent cartridge back in the day, being the original "Manstopper". Especially the infamous Mk. III hollowpoint cartridge which never saw military use due to the Hague Convention's ban on hollowpoint bullets. It preformed well in the Thompson La Garde tests in the 1900s, which lead the US Army to adopt the newer .45 ACP. Because of how the Webley and ACP cartridges looked similar, whenever a Webley is imported into America, some folks would often "shave" the cylinder so that it can accept the slightly longer and more available .45 ACP cartridge.note  Many firearm experts strongly discouraged this practice because factory .45 ACP cartridges generate a higher pressure, and if you're unlucky, it can damage the cylinder and barrel. It also made it difficult to use its native .455 cartridge as the hammer may not be able to hit the primer that is moved ahead. Handloading the cartridges where the pressure is more controllable is seen as the best solution to fire a shaved revolver.

  • Cool Action: The distinctive top-break, which was actually a widely-used system at the time of the Webley's design. Pulling the barrel down 90 degrees with the off hand and having the spent casings automatically eject is undeniably cool-looking.
  • Cool Accessories: Three of them in fact. First is the Prichard bayonet, which attaches itself under the barrel and onto the revolver's hinge. It was never adopted by the Biritsh Army, but rather by private buyers. There was also a stock accessory that can turn the revolver into a carbine, which is also compatible with the Webley flare guns. And finally, the Prideaux Loader, while not the first speedloader ever designed, was one of the earliest successful models to be widely used and synonymous with the Webley.

  • J. R. R. Tolkien carried a Webley Mk VI during frontline service in World War I. It has been in the Imperial War Museum since 1996.
  • Also used in everything involving British or Commonwealth troops from World War I, World War II, or any other time period the writer feels like.
  • British non-commissioned officers in 1917 are armed with the Webley Mk. VI.
  • Available as the only pistol in Bioshock, with the Power to the People machines providing various mods such as increased damage or a larger ammo capacity; by the end of the game, a fully modified Webley becomes a glowing sci-fi beast that could easily weigh up to 5 or 6 pounds.
  • Carried by most of the main characters in Blackadder Goes Forth, since it's set in World War I. Edmund uses one to shoot Speckled Jim in "Corporal Punishment" leading to his trial.
  • Added in Call of Duty: United Offensive and Call of Duty 2 to replace the M1911 British forces were given as a sidearm in the original game. In multiplayer it isn't any more spectacular than any other sidearm, but it also appears in a single level of Co D 2's campaign, where it is near-consistently a One-Hit Kill but cannot replenish the random and rather limited pool of ammo it starts with. After an absence of over a decade as the series moved on to the present day and beyond, it finally returned as a possible starting weapon for Zombies mode with Black Ops 4, renamed the "Wellington" normally and the "King and Country" when Pack-a-Punched. Interestingly, the automatic extractor doesn't work outside of Black Ops 4, which in itself instead gives it an incorrect 8-round capacity (only .38 versions of the automatic Webley-Fosbery version could fit eight shots).
  • Father James, the protagonist of Calvary borrows one from Inspector Stanton. He prominently uses to it shoot up Brendan's bar before engaging in an offscreen Bar Brawl with him. Just before the final confrontation with Jack, he tosses it into the sea.
  • James M. Falsworth used a Webley MK VI during Captain America's rescue in Captain America: The First Avenger. It is expected given that he is a British paratrooper.
  • In darkSector, a Webley Mark IV is available as the "Hammer 1895;" it's introduced as a Magnum that, going by what it shares ammo with fires 7.62mm NATO(!).
  • In Day of Infamy, the Webley Mk IV chambered in .38 S&W appears as a sidearm option for the Commonwealth faction, along with the option to equip a speedloader. Unlike the negligible differences in anything except firing speed between the .45 M1911 and also-.45 M1917 for the US Army, the Webley is noticeably more powerful than the 9mm Hi-Power, consistently killing in one shot like a rifle, in return for about half the capacity. It's also properly depicted with its automatic extractor working, but that also means it averts One Bullet Clips and loses every unfired round in the chamber on a reload, despite being one of two guns in the game that could otherwise realistically play it straight.
  • James Quatermain always starts out with a pair of Webleys in Deadfall Adventures. They do average damage with a long reload, but make up for it with infinite ammunition. For some reason in the Digital Deluxe version, the reload animation has James replace the cylinder like with the Remington 1858 rather than using the speed-loader, even though they have the proper reloading animation in the regular version.
  • A Webley MK VI can be found in Far Cry 4 as one of the earliest options, incorrectly referred to as the Mk IV for no other reason than because it has that version's shorter barrel. However, this antiquated revolver can easily be outclassed by more modern weaponry. It also apparently is broken; either that or nobody has bothered to tell Ajay that the weapon is double-action (at the very least the modelers gave it its correct speedloader, rather than just copying the Model 629's one, and the animators let it have a working auto-extractor). There's also a Signature version called the "Sixer", which is unlocked for purchase simply by first visiting the gun store; it gets a reflex sight and minor boosts to every other stat except the rate of fire, but it otherwise falls to the same issue the standard version does of being quickly and easily outclassed.
    • It returns in Far Cry 6, this time correctly referred to as the MK VI and unlockable at rank 2, and is General Sanchez's weapon of choice. It is also used by FND officers and horse-mounted units when in vehicles or on horseback.
  • Kayneth Archibald of Fate Zero owns a customized Webley Mk. IV (shorter barrel and different grip) in spite of his stated hate of gun-using mages. Then again, he's also Crazy-Prepared, and by the time he actually uses it he's been stripped of his magical powers and is trying to frame Kiritsugu (the only gun user in the Holy Grail War, and the one who stripped him of his powers) for a murder, failing due to Kiritsugu using guns in different calibers.
  • Vito Corleone used this revolver to assassinate Don Fanucci during his younger days in The Godfather Part II.
  • Shows up rather frequently in the Indiana Jones franchise after the original film. The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles occasionally features it, particularly in "Spring Break Adventure", where both Indy and Remy Baudouin make use of the Mk. VI. In Temple of Doom, Chen threatens Indy with a nickel-plated, short-barreled Mk. III Commercial Contract variant in Club Obi Wan. Indy himself later takes on the .455 "WG" Army Model as his personal sidearm, using it in The Last Crusade and holding onto it into Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
  • It Happened Here (1966). The nurses in the fascist Immediate Action Organisation are taught how to use one as part of their training and indoctrination.
  • William Boone is armed with the Webley Mk. VI in the 1994 version of The Jungle Book during the search for the Lost City. His subordinate Wilkins uses it to threaten Mowgli when they first meet despite his reluctance earlier in the movie. Colonel Brydon and other British officers use the Mk. VI as well during the caravan ambush.
  • Available in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault: Spearhead when working with the British (though why you give up your M1911 is anyone's guess).
  • Available as a sidearm in RAID: World War II, sacrificing capacity for being the strongest of the three compared to the starting C96 and the later M1911.
  • The Webley MK III is the gun of choice for Sherlock Holmes.
  • Seen in the trailer for the film version of A Single Man, kept in a drawer.
  • Joe "Sky Captain" Sullivan carries a Webley Mk IV as his sidearm in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. True to actual fighter pilot practice, he keeps it holstered in his boot.
  • The last of the non-DLC sidearms unlockable in Sniper Elite III. Fittingly, it has the lowest capacity but the highest power.
  • In Tombstone Doc Holliday's girlfriend Kate carries a Webley British Bulldog.
  • English Bob in Unforgiven carries a .32 Webley Bulldog in a shoulder holster as a backup weapon.
  • The Webley Mk. VI is the revolver of choice for the British and Canadian troops in Verdun, serving as a middleman for the semi automatic pistols (more powerful and accurate rounds) and the other revolvers (able to be reloaded more quickly with a speedloader). The Trench Raiders have a bayonet attached to the revolver.
  • Used dramatically near the end of War Horse by Sergeant Fry, as he attempts to put down a wounded Joey.
  • Apparently, they are still widely in use in the far future in the Whoniverse, as they appear in the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Daughter", amongst other places.
    • And of course, Torchwood Three's Captain Jack Harkness uses a Webley Mk VI.
    • Wilfred Mott in The End of Time gives the Doctor his old service revolver to kill the Master with.
    • The Brigadier used a Webley revolver for his final Who appearance in Battlefield, even though he usually carried an issue 9mm Browning High Power. The fact that he was using custom silver bullets might have had something to do with it.
  • Damien uses a Mk IV Webley in The Wind That Shakes the Barley in conjunction with a Kar 98k as his sidearm of choice, most notably when he has to execute a traitor. British soldiers in the film carry the Mk VI as well.
  • The X-Files. Frank Black is handed one to commit ritual suicide in the Millennium (1996) crossover episode. He uses it to kill zombies instead.
  • The Webley-Fosbery revolver is used by Sean Connery in Zardoz. Other Webley variants were used by a few Exterminators towards the end of the movie.
  • Zulu, as one of many historical inaccuracies, features the Mark VI Webley because it looks a little bit like the far-harder-to-get Beaumont-Adams double-action percussion revolver actually used in the Zulu war.

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