Which gun?

I'm trying to write a near-future urban fantasy where one of the characters has a pistol in one hand and a magic spell in another. The thing is, I don't know what pistol to use. I'm using a real-world gun because the character is an aficianado, or whatever it is. Here's a list: -Mauser C96 -Luger -Browning Hi-Power -Nagant M1885 -Auto Mag -Desert Eagle with a 'reduced recoil' enchantment

Technobabble attachment or not, if you give them a desert eagle no one will take them seriously.

See also this page

edited 3rd Jun '12 4:51:40 AM by CleverPun

Only gun in that list I'd carry into a fight is the Browning Hi-Power. The rest are more cool than practical, in the modern age.

Find some gun owner friends and ask them what handgun they would wield one-handed. Chances are they own that handgun and it is probably not on your list.

Ask them if you can try it at a shooting range, so you will have a feel as to what it is like to fire that particular firearm.

^^ The Nagant revolver is more practical than the Browning Hi-Power (which is on an even more ludicrous level of Rare Gun) in some ways. For one it's a revolver which means it is low-maintenance, easy to use and inherently reliable. (The only thing that causes a misfire in a revolver is a bad bullet.) Plus it has a sealed chamber so it can be suppressed.

7.62x38 ammunition is not widespread however so that's the only real drawback.

What's his personality? In accordance with The Law of Conservation of Detail, little details like this are best used to flesh out a character. For instance, someone who lugs around a gigantic Hand Cannon is likely to have a different approach to problem-solving compared to someone who prefers his weaponry to be small and concelable, and likewise if he prefers unflashy but reliable gear.

Not every gun nut has the same favourite gun, just like not every movie buff has the same favourite movie. Which sort of weapon fits your character?

edited 3rd Jun '12 3:46:41 PM by Iaculus

Clones of the Hi-Power, or close conceptual relatives, are pretty much a dime a dozen.

I think the C96 is actually in production in small numbers in the US, because replicas are popular with enthusiasts and considering some of the places it was built (warlord-era China) it's hard to prove provenance.

However considering the shortage of modern or reasonably modern automatics on that list I'm in general skeptical.

edited 3rd Jun '12 5:28:15 PM by Night

I have little to no real experience with guns, but the people who I've seen quoted who do tend to say that their preferred combat handguns are 1911-pattern, either original or various clones. Granted, that's not exactly rare, but rare is not necessarily equal to good in combat.

^ Well the 1911 thing is mostly because it's possibly the best semi-auto pistol ever made. Cheap (by military standards), reliable, durable, hell of a hitter and the fact is has seen 100+ years of military service are all positive remarks on that gun. They can't be faulted for liking the most successful military pistol in history.

Major Tom, the Browning Hi-Power being rare — where do you get that from? It's still sold new in the US! There's a dealer that stocks them only two miles away from me, in fact.

It's still the service sidearm of the British Army, Canadian Army, Australian Army and many others, and according to FN Herstal they have produced over a million of them.

Glock. Pistol of choice for police forces around the world. One US organisation - FBI maybe - kept changing the rules for their competition to try and get a US gun to win. No matter how they defined the rules Glock kept winning.

You'll want a 9mm no matter what - 12 in the mag and one in the spout.

tbh, the FBI, and a lot of other people, went SIG a long time ago.

For that matter, .40 S&W is a pretty common law enforcement caliber in the US; it's not all 9mm Para.

.40 cal is getting increasingly common since 9mm is gaining a reputation for poor stopping power against violent and armed criminals (and terrorists/enemy soldiers).

Have most of you guys actually used guns ever?

What does "12 in the mag one in the spout mean?" Are you saying that every single 9mm pistol has a magazine capacity of 12+1?

The Beretta 92, what we call the M9 at work, has a magazine capacity of 15 rounds.

The Glock 17 takes 17 rounds.

The Browning Hi-Power can hold 13 rounds.

Those are just three extremely common examples. And I hate to agree with Major Tom, especially when he says things like "The Browning Hi-Power is a Rare Gun" and then refuses to explain why he'd say something so absurd, he's right in saying that the 9 is starting to fall out of favor. However, a bullet is still a bullet, and if it's a good expanding round, it will kill your ass just as dead.

Seriously, guys, you can find all this shit on Wikipedia.

To answer the OP, there are many reasons for a specific character to use a certain gun. He could be ex-military or former law enforcement, and might use the gun he was trained with in the service, or he might buy something totally different for a change of pace. He could be a big, strong dude who likes to be intimidating and carries a huge revolver in .44 Magnum or even bigger. She could be a slender young lady who isn't a fan of sharp recoil but still wants to make sure she can kill a motherfucker, so she packs a .40 S&W with a steel frame to tame the recoil with weight. She's a European who hates America and refuses to touch US-made firearms, so she only buys European guns. And so on. Pick the gun you think your character would use for whatever reason. People choose guns the way they choose cars - a lot of it is personal preference and it could be as simple as preferring the interchangeable backstraps of the Beretta Px4 to those on the Smith & Wesson M&P. The reason for choosing the handgun doesn't need to be practical or make sense. A guy might carry a chromed-up Colt Single-Action Army with a Meprolight red-dot sight mounted on it, for the same reason he might buy a souped-up '82 GTO with an above-hood blower.

And when you describe the gun, it's fine to name the manufacturer and/or model when the weapon is first scene. Anybody who knows guns will appreciate it, those who don't but would like to can look it up, and readers who don't care can just keep moving through the story. Don't sperg out about it too much, you can leave out stuff like caliber and the exact type of round used unless you feel it adds something to the story. Maybe if the hero shoots a motherfucker you want to make sure the reader knows he's using expensive expanding bullets and there's a hole in the back of the motherfucker's skull the size of a grapefruit. Or you want the reader to know that the heroine is the kind of gal who will manage to get her hands on an out-of-production Automag and then have it re-chambered for something silly like .50 Beowulf or 6.8mm SPC. Only do any of that if it means something, don't just list off specs of the gun like a D20 Modern gun sourcebook.

edited 5th Jun '12 6:16:23 PM by Martello

There's also the "penis extension" factor. Some guys want a big gun because, we'll... let's just say its the same reason they drive $50,000 sports cars, have tropy girlfriends, and wear a hairpiece.

Yes sir. If I can find it in stock I should be +1 Mosin-Nagant rifle (91/30 model so old Soviet surplus probably never fired and coated in cosmoline) by the end of the week. (Big 5 is having a periodic sale and among the items listed are genuine Mosin-Nagant rifles for 120 bucks.)

edited 5th Jun '12 7:58:29 PM by MajorTom

I was an avid rifle shooter when I was younger, but there's a lack of ranges suitable to the task here (at least that are open to civilians) and, well, it's 3000 miles to the family land in the Shenandoah area.

Now I mostly do pistols. I actually own a M1911 which dates back to at least Vietnam and was my father's, and a couple of years back I splurged on a USP. (Though it's really nice, I'm still not sure it was a good idea.)

I don't think I have much to add to Martello's post there, really.

Firearm preference is just like anything else in accessories; understand and flesh out your character's background, do some real-world research, and it should be fairly obvious. Most of the time, the choice should not be the author's taste, it should be your character's.

If you really, really want something, it IS possible to design a character around an accessory, but it's harder to do that and not make the Author Appeal way too "pornographic". There's a certain sense of self-gratification on the author's part in a text that's a bit offputting to the audience, that leaves them feeling like they've intruded in a personal wank fantasy.

What Morven says. There's nothing worse than reading an entire paragraph describing in detail about a gun's mechanics when it doesn't do much to the plot. I confess to have done this in a few stories a due to mainly Author Appeal. It seemed like a good idea at the time...

My advice is just mention generally how that particular firearm interacts with the user, the Mauser reloads through the top through a stripper clip(unless it is a different model C-96) and a Luger has a complex mechanism while a D Eagle is monstrously heavy.

edited 7th Jun '12 4:10:09 PM by Exterminatus

My handgun of choice for characters, assuming modern day or recent history (80s and 90s), is the Beretta 92-FS. I've never fired one or taken one apart, so I'm not exactly knowledgeable enough about its working parts to go into Author Appeal detail. I mainly just picked it for its John Woo appeal.

edited 8th Jun '12 12:56:24 PM by TwoGunAngel

It's a solid gun, but it's a little large and heavy for shooting 9 mil. I'd go for the newer Beretta, the Px4 Storm. I own one in .40 S&W, best pistol I've ever shot.

Someone mentioned the c96; to my knowledge, it is not in production anymore and there is no replica available (much to the disappointment of many gun buffs). The reason; the gun's complicated action (and the fact that the front part is all one piece) would be massively expensive to duplicate today. Granted, they could do one of the cheap Chinese variants easily enough (those were held together by pins instead of Mauser's Awesome, but Impractical lockwork design), but AFAIK there is no modern c96 clone available.

Also, the gun would be a poor choice in a modern setting; it's heavy, awkward, mechanically complex and has a slow reload time. It certainly looks cool though.

the 1895 revolver. Yes, it's the only revolver that can be fitted with a silencer, which has substantial cool appeal. Also I've seen videos of silenced versions being fired, and they are super-quiet; no semi-auto action cycling sounds to give the game away, there's a reason the NKVD loved the things so much. However, it has an SAA-style loading gate instead of a swing-out cylinder (long reload time) and the ammo is expensive and rare. If cool factor's your game I'd take that over the c96, as it has unique features that a quirky user might well want to take advantage of.

My choice would be an H&K P 7 M 8, but those are getting rarer as Heckler & Koch stopped producing them a few years back. I think Martello's spiel about guns would be your best advice thus far, OP.

edited 9th Jun '12 4:50:50 PM by drunkscriblerian

I personally would use a Colt M1911 if I had to go one-handed. And if enchantments are available, "Improve Aim" or "Clear Jams" on this gun.

I hope to God, if you go with any revolver, there's a "Speed Reload" enchant available, he'll need it.

When you say things like that it terrifies me that you think it's a good idea to write based on tabletop gaming rules.

It's not.