How Much Do You Know About Pistols?

We won’t bore you with semantics. Handguns and pistols are essentially the same thing. They are small sidearms that can be fired using one or both hands.

Revolvers have multiple chambers but just one barrel. After firing one cartridge, the chambers spin (revolve) to provide a fresh cartridge for the shooter.

Revolvers often carry six cartridges. They are "six-shooters." Bon Jovi knows all about six-shooters.

Colt made a revolver officially named the Single Action Army. But in the days of the Wild West, it was often referred to as the "Peacemaker."

The very first pistols were primitive devices. They were single-shot firearms with basic functionality.

Want a faster pistol? Just add more barrels. In the early days, some pistols had multiple barrels — as many as eight — which made the firing rate faster, but increased the weapon’s heft.

Gun makers began making revolvers in the 19th century. By the end of the 1800s, revolvers were exceedingly popular, used both in war and in self-defense.

The cylinder is the spinning part of a revolver. Be sure to flick the cylinder menacingly before you step into any Old West gunfight.

The Webley is a famous revolver of the late 19th century. It was most popular in the United Kingdom, and many variants of the weapon made it into the trenches of WWI.

Apache revolvers include multiple weapons — they can fire bullets and they may double as knives, too. They’re often linked to early 20th-century gangsters in France.

Apache revolvers were like the Swiss Army knives of sidearms. But they had no real sights, so it was nearly impossible to accurately aim at a target more than a few feet distant.

Blowback-style semi-automatics harness recoil energy to eject spent cartridges and load fresh rounds. This system greatly accelerates the weapon’s firing rate.

The Colt Paterson was the first mass-produced revolver. It was a five-shot weapon produced in both .28 and .36 caliber varieties.

Harmonica pistols appeared in the mid-19th century. They used sliding magazines that looked a little like harmonicas, thus the name.

In the 1970s, Heckler & Kock unveils the P11, an underwater handgun. These stubby-looking pistols fire darts using an electronic system.

Water makes it very difficult for pistols to fire projectiles with any real accuracy or distance. The P11 shoots steel darts and has a range of between 40 and 50 feet, in other words, uncomfortably close if you’re trying to kill an attacking shark.

You never know when your return trip will go awry and you wind up in the Siberian wilderness facing off with wolves and bears. That’s why Soviet spacecraft are equipped with pistols.

The TP-82 had three barrels so that it could fire cartridges and also shotgun shells. And the stock? It included a fold-out machete. We are not making that up.

The Smith & Wesson was unveiled in 1857, and it was the first revolver to find success with rimfire cartridges. It was just the first of many famous guns made by this company.

Lawrence’s pistol misfired, so he drew a second pistol ... which also misfired. Jackson then took his cane and beat the would-be assassin. Lawrence was mentally deranged and spent the rest of his life in an asylum.

Top-break revolvers have a hinged design that, once opened, allows the shooter to dump all spent cartridges at once. This design makes for much faster shooting.

Glock had no real firearm engineering experience, and he was reportedly worried about one of his test guns exploding and ruining his right hand. So for experiments, he used his left hand.

On a semi-auto pistol, you usually pull the slide to load the first round. Then, thanks to gun’s mechanics, subsequent rounds are loaded after each shot that’s fired.

In the ‘70s, Clint Eastwood was "Dirty Harry" in a series of popular action films. He played a cop who loved his Model 29, which he used to intimidate the bad guys.

It’s true, semi-automatic pistols fire one round for every time you pull the trigger. But they’ll typically fire just as fast as you can pull the trigger, making them very effective weapons.

The Model 29 is a big, beefy gun that fires .44 Magnum cartridges. The largest versions sport a barrel that’s more than 10 inches long.

Guiteau was angry that Garfield wouldn’t hire him on as part of the administration. So he decided to settle the matter by killing Garfield with a British Bulldog revolver.

Guiteau clearly had ego issues. He purposely bought a really nice-looking ivory-handled .442 Webley caliber British Bulldog revolver because he figured that it would be handsome in a museum exhibit about the president's assassination.

Many semi-auto pistols have a half-cocked position, and the gun won’t fire from this position. With a flick of the thumb, though, the weapon is ready to shoot.

In 2017, the U.S. Army announced that it has selected the Sig Sauer P320 as its next-generation sidearm. The 9mm semi-automatic will be replacing the popular Beretta M9.