Types of Handguns

The general types of handguns are listed below in their order of historical appearance. Each type can be classified into many subtypes. Some of these types can also be differently classified using the general distinction between muzzle-loading firearms (loading from the front of the barrel) and breech-loading firearms (loading from behind the barrel).

Single-shot pistols

Western European handgun, 1380. 18 cm-long and weighing 1.04 kg, it was fixed to a wooden pole to facilitate manipulation. Musée de l'Armée.Single-shot pistols are the theoretically simplest pistols. The earliest handguns were single-shot, muzzle-loading guns with ignition provided by inserting a smoldering match cord into a touch hole. As such, they were essentially nothing more than miniature cannons, small enough to be handheld.
Improvements followed in subsequent centuries, as various types of locks (ignition devices) were invented. In the matchlock, the separate match cord was affixed to a spring-loaded pivot which could be tripped by a trigger. In the wheellock, a mechanism analogous to that used in today's cigarette lighters replaced the smoldering match cord. In the 17th century, the flintlock, which strikes a flint against steel, appeared. (The flintlock, amazingly, remained state-of-the-art for some two hundred years.) In the 19th century, percussion caps were developed, followed shortly by modern integrated-primer cartridges, and hammers therefore traded their flint for firing pins.
Single-shot pistols are not completely things of the past, as they have continued to be built (for various reasons) throughout the breech-loading era. However, for most applications, the single-shot handgun has been replaced by revolvers and semi-automatic pistols.

Multi-barreled pistols

Not long after the very beginning of firearms, inventors began experimenting with multi-barreled weapons in the quest for the ability to fire more than one shot before needing to reload. Not surprisingly, all types of firearms were included in their efforts, from volley guns to analogously devised handguns. Before anyone developed a practical capability for delivering multiple loads to one barrel in quick succession (which is how repeat fire is usually accomplished today), they were aggregating multiple loaded barrels into one place.

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Bullet Designs

Bullet designs have to solve two primary problems. They must first form a seal with the gun's bore. The worse the seal, the more gas, generated by the rapid combustion of the propellant charge, leaks past the bullet, reducing the efficiency. The bullet must also engage the rifling without damaging the gun's bore. Bullets must have a surface which will form this seal without causing excessive friction. What happens to a bullet inside the bore is termed internal ballistics. A bullet must also be consistent with the next bullet so that shots may be fired precisely.
Once it leaves the barrel, it is governed by external ballistics. Here, the bullet's shape is important for aerodynamics, as is the rotation imparted by the rifling. Rotational forces stabilize the bullet gyroscopically as well as aerodynamically. Any asymmetry in the bullet is largely cancelled as it spins. With smooth-bore firearms, a spherical shape was optimum because no matter how it was oriented, it presented a uniform front. These unstable bullets tumbled erratically, but the aerodynamic shape changed little giving moderate accuracy. Generally, bullet shapes are a compromise between aerodynamics, interior ballistics necessities, and terminal ballistics requirements. Another method of stabilization is for the center of mass of the bullet to be as far forward as practical as in the minnie ball or the shuttlecock. This allows the bullet to fly front-forward by means of aerodynamics.
See Terminal ballistics and/or Stopping power for an overview of how bullet design affects what happens when a bullet hits something, and how this is affected by its design. What happens to the bullet is dictated as much by what it hits and how it hits, as by the bullet itself (just like how its interaction with air was critical in external ballistics). Bullets are generally designed to penetrate, deform, and/or break apart. For a given material and bullet, which of these happens is determined especially by the strike velocity.
Actual bullet shapes are many and varied, and an array of them can be found in any reloading manual that sells bullet moulds. RCBS, one of many makers, offers many different designs, starting with the basic round ball. With a mould, bullets can be made at home for reloading one's own ammunition, where local laws allow. Hand-casting, however, is only time- and cost-effective for solid lead bullets. Cast and jacketed bullets are also commercially available from numerous manufacturers for hand loading and are much more convenient than casting bullets from bulk lead.

Revolvers

A 1930s vintage Enfield revolver.With the development of the revolver in the 19th century, gunsmiths had finally achieved the goal of a practical capability for delivering multiple loads to one handgun barrel in quick succession. Revolvers feed ammunition via the rotation of a cartridge-filled cylinder, in which each cartridge is contained in its own ignition chamber, and is sequentially brought into alignment with the weapon's barrel by a mechanism linked to the weapon's trigger (double-action) or its hammer (single-action). These nominally cylindrical chambers, usually numbering between five and ten depending on the size of the revolver and the size of the cartridge being fired, are bored through the cylinder so that their axes are parallel to the cylinder's axis of rotation; thus, as the cylinder rotates, the chambers revolve about the cylinder's axis.
There is a hybrid form of the revolver, known as the automatic revolver, which combines the revolving chamber concept of the conventional revolver with the recoil-harnessing, self-cycling ability of the semi-automatic pistol.