Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns The Greatest Handgun Ever Made

Yeah, you can always count on an administrator to find a hardware solution to a software problem.

The Glock only mentality is just more dumbing down of America. Play to the lowest level, rather than trying to elevate the game. This is not a bash on Glocks, I think they're perfectly suited for military and police work. It's more a condemnation of the mindset that only a Glock will work because there's so much extra training needed with all other platforms. Like someone else already said, this conveninetly ignores a century of use with other platforms successfully, and plays to small anecdotal incidents making them the standard.

Perfectly stated.

Excellent post.

To answer your question of the greatest handgun ever made: the Smith & Wesson M&P/ Model 10.

Browning HiPower's and 1911's seem to rule here, along with the SAA. I like the CZ75's and I sleep with a Steyr M9A1. The K22 was mentioned earlier. I just got my first one, pre 57, and it is very nice.

The Greatest Handgun Ever Made


Hello Forum Friends
Well, That's Rather easy the Gun that changed the world the S&W Registered Magnum. The time was 1935 When Col. Douglas Wesson released his hand made creation the Registered Magnum. S&W was the first Gun Manufacturer to release a Magnum handgun and they did it in Grand style. Wesson selected the Finest gun smith's he had on Staff to cherry pick the parts and hand assemble these fine guns. It Opened a Huge door to law enforcement and hunters who wanted a Powerful round and gave the Police a side arm that they could contend with the Likes of Gangsters back then. Sadly the Registered Magnum would be changed over into a Production line revolver after World War II and later became known as the Most elaborate handgun ever offered by S&W as it was assigned the Model number 27 in 1957. Shown below is my First Year 1935 Registered Magnum. One of only 720 Made that very first year. Below it is it's Grandson a Pre-27 That shipped out of the factory In July 1955...It has been said that Fewer than 10% of the Pre-27's shipped out of the factory In Nickel finish. TheGeneral

They didn't come with oversized Target grips from the factory as either standard or optional, did they? Just askin'. Maybe you've got them on for shooting purposes?

Colt .45 ! Of course,what else...

Hello Cole
In 1954 S&W Offered Over sized Target stocks as an add on when Ordering their gun or option consumers could buy after they made their purchase. The Nickel Pre-27 shown came with them as well as it's Wide Target Trigger and Wide Target Hammer making it a Full Taret model, or more commonly Called 3-T's... TheGeneral.

Thanks General. I read through your other post too fast and was of the mind that the pre-27 was made in the 30's...which didn't make sense if I'd stopped and thought about it. The timeline you present now makes sense to me.

Hello Cole
In 1935 when S&W released the Registered Magnums you had a choice of Standard service stock, Magna stock or the very Rare Walter Roper stocks as far as wood went. Shown below is my 1935 .357 Registered Magnum, with all Three variations of the wood I speak of...I Guess the Original Registered Magnum could be called Pre-27's as well since they were the Grandfather to the later made Pre-27's and model stamped 27's made later yet...TheGeneral.

That's just combatants. If you take into account collateral deaths caused by disease, malnutrition, etc, that stemmed directly from the war's disruption of the Continent, the number is closer to 25 million. And if you include the 1918 influenza epidemic (which originated in the incredibly crowded and unsanitary conditions of the Western Front, most likely on the Allied side of the trenches), which killed an estimated 20 million more people worldwide, the number is closer to 45 million.

But let's not quibble. That 1910 Browning triggered a helluva mess.

Beautiful specimens, General...

I assumed they were all the same gun with different grips put on. His full collection of vintage S&W revolvers is amazing, though, for sure. I think I'd get an ulcer if I had so many beautiful pieces to take care of and secure. I'd be constantly worried about rust.

Kevin, I'll jump in here, if you don't mind.

First, I don't think a single-stack mag really precludes a pistol from the LE selection list, but it has significant disadvantages in protracted gunfights. Protracted gunfights are statistically uncommon in the USA, but they are by no means rare. As the medical aphorism goes, "statistics are cold comfort to the man with the disease"; likewise, it is little comfort to the cop in a protracted gunfight to know that he is experiencing a very uncommon adventure.

I have personal knowledge of (i.e., I know the cop(s) involved in the gunfight, have personally debriefed them, and have confirmed the circumstances with a second witness/source) of 5 gunfights in which the officer in question exhausted all the ammunition on his person within a matter of minutes. In all 5 cases the offender was using a superior firearm (rifle or high-cap pistol) and aggressively attacking the cop(s). In all 5 cases the officer used his handgun in a suppressive fire mode to allow him to either maneuver to a better defensive position, obtain a more powerful weapon (rifle or shotgun), or provide sufficient delay time for other officers to arrive on the scene to help finish the fight. You may recall I've alluded to a west coast deputy I know very well who exhausted his personal loadout of 96 rounds of .357 Magnum cartridges in not one, but TWO gunfights.

This is a particularly sticky problem for rural county deputies, who are much more likely to be a long way/time from backup if they get into a fight. We have seen situations where all that stands between a missing deputy ("shoot, shovel, and shut up", cue the banjo music) and a man who comes home at the end of his shift is having enough ammo to get to his patrol rifle in his squad car, and when backup is 30 minutes away, you've got to be prepared to fight the full fight with what you've got on your body when the flag goes up. My former county in Wisconsin recently switched (against my objections) from the Glock 23 to the SIG P220 single-stack pistol in .45 ACP, with no change to the number of magazines carried on the duty belt. This reduced the number of pistol rounds on the deputy's person from 43 to 22 rounds, which struck me as lunacy. As a member of our SWAT team I started carrying a double-stack mag pouch on my duty belt (36 rounds) and encouraged the other team members to follow suit. Most did, and today all but a few of the old guys carry 4 spare mags, and some carry more.

But I think the most persuasive argument for double-stack mags for LE/military use comes from a good friend who I can't name, but whose first name sounds a lot like Hank, and who is a civilian CQB trainer for some of our military's SF people. Hank comes from a background on another continent where there's been a lot of armed conflict over the past 30 years or so, and based on that experience he's got some pretty firm opinions on what sort of pistol a man should carry if he has any expectation of getting into a CQB fight for his life. Hank's view is that your pistol needs to be chambered in 45 ACP, period, and it should be a Glock, although he'll cut the SIG P250 and S&W M&P some slack, and he'll tolerate a reliable 1911. The higher capacity magazines are necessary in his view because when you get into the thick stuff, reloading should happen as infrequently as possible. A single-stack magazine gives you 1 or 2 engagements before you need to be thinking about a reload. A double-stack gives you 3 or 4 or 5 engagements before the same problem arises. The difference between those could be your life.

Sorry if this post is a bit rambling. It's Sunday morning, my coffee tastes good, and I'm in no hurry to get to my honey-do list...

That's one of the reasons I moved from waterlogged Wisconsin to west Texas, Hawk. You oughta think about buying some fine S&W guns and getting outta Florida your ownself!

That's an excellent list, with excellent reasons behind each one. My only quibble would be that the S&W Model 10 can't really be separated from the entire line of hand-ejector-spawned revolvers that S&W produced, and as such I'd broaden that selection to include all of its siblings and cousins, a truly impressive bunch!

And my only outright disagreement would be the Walther PP/PPK; I have owned and hated several specimens of that particular pistol.

I agree with you on both points.