AHC: Manual-action pistol

Delta Force

Banned
The only bolt action pistols that exist are for target purposes. I'm not sure who would need accuracy over rapid fire for a pistol. I suppose a cut down rifle or a built up pistol (with a stock and long barrel) could be useful for artillery crews and combat engineers, but most soldiers would probably prefer a revolver.
 
There were Volcanic repeating pistols which used a traditional lever action in the 1850s. Maybe have the style gain popularity and be converted to true metallic cartridges the way the Volcanic rifles developed into the Henry.
 
It's tricky, because a manual-action pistol other than a conventional single-action would need two hands to operate. Until fairly recently (the 1950s, I think), long after double-action and semiautomatic pistols became standard, pistols were usually considered one-handed weapons.
 
Besides the old Volcanic repeater, the single shots like the top-break T-C Contender, and the sawed off rifles like the Remington XP-100, there was the Semmerling LM-4. The idea goes back to a type designed right around 1900, typified by the Schwarloze 1908, a "blow forward." That odd design semi-auto concept had a barrel that moved forward, the impetus being the bullet's as it was gripped by the rifling. Then the empty case was ejected and as the barrel returned backwards to battery by the recoil spring, a fresh cartridge was stripped from the magazine.
In the manually operated version developed, the shooter used the support hand pushed the slide/barrel forward. The empty case was held against the standing breech and flicked away when the case mouth was cleared by the rear of the barrel. Then the slide/slide barrel returned backwards to meet the standing breech.
The calibre was .45. It looked much like a typical semi-auto, except being more compact since there was no recoil mechanism. A quick web search says a few hundred were made.
Because the gun is so light and since there's no recoiling slide of a locked breech pistol or recoil spring, the gun was predictably rough to shoot from all accounts.
BTW: I think it's a hoot that The American Derringer Co, that owns the rights to the pistol, misspells the name at their website.

LM4.jpg
 
One thought that occurs to me is that it would be possible to silence a manual-action pistol more fully than other designs. The parts could fit more closely than a revolver, and obviously it would need neither gas nor recoil to chamber the next round (unlike an automatic). So there might be a role for it in some special-ops forces where stealth was at a premium. Would the challenge be met by having a few hundred in the inventories there?
 

Delta Force

Banned
One thought that occurs to me is that it would be possible to silence a manual-action pistol more fully than other designs. The parts could fit more closely than a revolver, and obviously it would need neither gas nor recoil to chamber the next round (unlike an automatic). So there might be a role for it in some special-ops forces where stealth was at a premium. Would the challenge be met by having a few hundred in the inventories there?

The Nagant M1895 could actually be equipped with a silencer because the cylinder moved forward when the gun was cocked and created a gas seal. There's no real advantage in having a bolt action pistol except for the increased accuracy and the ability to use larger cartridges.
 
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