Deagle
I was initially going to post about a dream where a Deagle-like gun (with a little bayonet, no less) figured as an item - but the dream was overall stupid, so I'll just nix that. I want to talk a little bit about this abomination. Actually, go watch this review by a satisfied owner first.
The Deagle is very popular. It has appeared in a whole mess of movies and games (that's only a partial list, believe you me: it neglects to mention Haruhi, for instance, albeit those Deagles were in BB gun version). If you've privy to societies like 4chan's /k/ and Opchan, you'll also know that the Deagle (especially in golden tigerstripe) has in-joke status.
Anyhow, let's take a look at this thing. It's a massive (~1.9 kg, close to double the bulk of the M1911), semiautomatic, magazine-fed gas-blowback handgun. It's chambered for huge fuck-off rounds, most of them designed for revolvers: the daintiest (and most reasonable) caliber it's chambered in is .357 Magnum, and the most redonkulous caliber for it is .50 AE (Action Express, not American Eagle as many idiots tend to call it after being tricked by the Magnum Research eagle logo). A casual look at listings brought up by AmmoEngine shows that .50 AE is sold for upwards of two smackers a pop. A pop! If your handgun round is more expensive than .454 Casull, you're doing it wrong.
Anyway, the gun was originally designed for the Israeli military; apparently this was just another tangle with the dubious manstopper concept; as can be seen from freak cases like this one, a human being can withstand a lot of punishment - over a hundred rounds' worth, indeed. The supposed "manstopper" effect is actually from psychological shock of impact. The key to actually taking out an enemy is shot placement, targeting vital organs... No such thing as hitpoints in real life.
To put it quite simply, the Deagle is a bastard middle child. On one side of the family, there are semiautomatic magazine-fed handguns which can rapidly fire many shots. Semiautomatics use mid-to-low calibers. They're slim and light, very practical. At only a century old, they're the younger kids on the block - the breadwinners, too; having worked out early reliability problems, every military and police force in the world issues semiautomatics, but only some police forces issue revolvers. On the other side of the family are revolvers. Old and venerable, they're a 19th century development - though the revolving chamber cluster idea goes back to at least the renaissance. Revolvers are mechanically simpler and don't normally use coil springs in their workings (coil springs are the bane of reliability, first things to go). Revolvers cannot have feed jams because there is no feeding mechanism - every round has its own chamber. They are also inherently more accurate due to having an immobile barrel (no inertial blowback to rattle the barrel - the whole gun recoils as one), though the accuracy advantage is infinitesimal at typical handgun engagement distances. Lastly, due to their robust simplicity, revolvers admit the full range of calibers - from the gargantuan 500 S&W to the tiny functional toy Swiss MiniGun.
The Deagle is stuck at one of the, so to say, Lagrangian points of practicality. It's a semiautomatic, but it's also ridiculously powerful, which means it's nigh impossible to shoot like a proper semiautomatic. It can only be realistically shot one burp at a time, re-acquiring the target after each; in effect, that makes it no quicker than a revolver. Its magazine is huge since the rounds are huge, which widens the grip (not good). Despite that bulk, the magazine only holds between seven and nine rounds. Revolvers usually have six, with some having seven or eight. That magazine advantage is meager at best, as you can see. Worst of all, it's massive. More massive and less concealable than a comparable revolver. So there you have it: a semiautomatic that tries to be a revolver. Now, let's see a quote.
Bullet Tooth Tony: So, you are obviously the big dick. The men on the side of ya are your balls. Now there are two types of balls. There are big brave balls, and there are little mincey faggot balls.
Vinny: These are your last words, so make them a prayer.
Bullet Tooth Tony: Now, dicks have drive and clarity of vision, but they are not clever. They smell pussy and they want a piece of the action. And you thought you smelled some good old pussy, and have brought your two little mincey faggot balls along for a good old time. But you've got your parties muddled up. There's no pussy here, just a dose that'll make you wish you were born a woman. Like a prick, you are having second thoughts. You are shrinking, and your two little balls are shrinking with you. And the fact that you've got "Replica" written down the side of your guns...
[Zoom in on the side of Sol's gun, which indeed has "REPLICA" etched on the side; zoom out, as they sneak peeks at the sides of their guns]
Bullet Tooth Tony: And the fact that I've got "Desert Eagle point five O"...
[Withdraws his gun and puts it on the table]
Bullet Tooth Tony: Written down the side of mine...
[They look, zoom in on the side of his gun, which indeed has "DESERT EAGLE .50" etched on the side]
Bullet Tooth Tony: Should precipitate your balls into shrinking, along with your presence. Now... Fuck off!
That's from the movie Snatch. Why does the media go hawg wild over this absurd monstrosity? Well, that's easy. It's fuckhuge. It's the Hummer of handguns. The feeble-minded, easily impressionable, puerile atavists of our world love nothing more than shiny things, huge things, and dangerous things. The Deagle is ALL THREE. So now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
The Deagle is very popular. It has appeared in a whole mess of movies and games (that's only a partial list, believe you me: it neglects to mention Haruhi, for instance, albeit those Deagles were in BB gun version). If you've privy to societies like 4chan's /k/ and Opchan, you'll also know that the Deagle (especially in golden tigerstripe) has in-joke status.
Anyhow, let's take a look at this thing. It's a massive (~1.9 kg, close to double the bulk of the M1911), semiautomatic, magazine-fed gas-blowback handgun. It's chambered for huge fuck-off rounds, most of them designed for revolvers: the daintiest (and most reasonable) caliber it's chambered in is .357 Magnum, and the most redonkulous caliber for it is .50 AE (Action Express, not American Eagle as many idiots tend to call it after being tricked by the Magnum Research eagle logo). A casual look at listings brought up by AmmoEngine shows that .50 AE is sold for upwards of two smackers a pop. A pop! If your handgun round is more expensive than .454 Casull, you're doing it wrong.
Anyway, the gun was originally designed for the Israeli military; apparently this was just another tangle with the dubious manstopper concept; as can be seen from freak cases like this one, a human being can withstand a lot of punishment - over a hundred rounds' worth, indeed. The supposed "manstopper" effect is actually from psychological shock of impact. The key to actually taking out an enemy is shot placement, targeting vital organs... No such thing as hitpoints in real life.
To put it quite simply, the Deagle is a bastard middle child. On one side of the family, there are semiautomatic magazine-fed handguns which can rapidly fire many shots. Semiautomatics use mid-to-low calibers. They're slim and light, very practical. At only a century old, they're the younger kids on the block - the breadwinners, too; having worked out early reliability problems, every military and police force in the world issues semiautomatics, but only some police forces issue revolvers. On the other side of the family are revolvers. Old and venerable, they're a 19th century development - though the revolving chamber cluster idea goes back to at least the renaissance. Revolvers are mechanically simpler and don't normally use coil springs in their workings (coil springs are the bane of reliability, first things to go). Revolvers cannot have feed jams because there is no feeding mechanism - every round has its own chamber. They are also inherently more accurate due to having an immobile barrel (no inertial blowback to rattle the barrel - the whole gun recoils as one), though the accuracy advantage is infinitesimal at typical handgun engagement distances. Lastly, due to their robust simplicity, revolvers admit the full range of calibers - from the gargantuan 500 S&W to the tiny functional toy Swiss MiniGun.
The Deagle is stuck at one of the, so to say, Lagrangian points of practicality. It's a semiautomatic, but it's also ridiculously powerful, which means it's nigh impossible to shoot like a proper semiautomatic. It can only be realistically shot one burp at a time, re-acquiring the target after each; in effect, that makes it no quicker than a revolver. Its magazine is huge since the rounds are huge, which widens the grip (not good). Despite that bulk, the magazine only holds between seven and nine rounds. Revolvers usually have six, with some having seven or eight. That magazine advantage is meager at best, as you can see. Worst of all, it's massive. More massive and less concealable than a comparable revolver. So there you have it: a semiautomatic that tries to be a revolver. Now, let's see a quote.
Bullet Tooth Tony: So, you are obviously the big dick. The men on the side of ya are your balls. Now there are two types of balls. There are big brave balls, and there are little mincey faggot balls.
Vinny: These are your last words, so make them a prayer.
Bullet Tooth Tony: Now, dicks have drive and clarity of vision, but they are not clever. They smell pussy and they want a piece of the action. And you thought you smelled some good old pussy, and have brought your two little mincey faggot balls along for a good old time. But you've got your parties muddled up. There's no pussy here, just a dose that'll make you wish you were born a woman. Like a prick, you are having second thoughts. You are shrinking, and your two little balls are shrinking with you. And the fact that you've got "Replica" written down the side of your guns...
[Zoom in on the side of Sol's gun, which indeed has "REPLICA" etched on the side; zoom out, as they sneak peeks at the sides of their guns]
Bullet Tooth Tony: And the fact that I've got "Desert Eagle point five O"...
[Withdraws his gun and puts it on the table]
Bullet Tooth Tony: Written down the side of mine...
[They look, zoom in on the side of his gun, which indeed has "DESERT EAGLE .50" etched on the side]
Bullet Tooth Tony: Should precipitate your balls into shrinking, along with your presence. Now... Fuck off!
That's from the movie Snatch. Why does the media go hawg wild over this absurd monstrosity? Well, that's easy. It's fuckhuge. It's the Hummer of handguns. The feeble-minded, easily impressionable, puerile atavists of our world love nothing more than shiny things, huge things, and dangerous things. The Deagle is ALL THREE. So now you know, and knowing is half the battle.