Is it possible to keep your name for centuries? To accomplish a feat so that grateful descendants erect a monument? Or get on the pages of history? But the monuments are being destroyed, and history is being rewritten. So is there really no such opportunity? It turns out there are, even a few. The first is to become a hero of folklore, such as Ilya Muromets, Ivan Susanin or Chapaev. The second opportunity is for your proper name to become a household name, such as a cardan (named after the inventor Gerolamo Cardano) or Kalash (in honor of Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov). So, American inventor Samuel Colt was able to take advantage of these two possibilities. His name fell into the American proverb, which in a free translation reads as follows: "God created people different, and Colonel Colt equalized the chances." In addition, the revolver system was named after him, and most of the names of this pistol are written with a small letter and without quotes. But before talking about the invention of the American gunsmith, we will carry out a small educational program about calibers and systems of hand melee weapons - pistols.
What is a caliber?
Currently, there are several standards for designating the caliber of weapons, so there are often situations when they try to compare 45 caliber and 16 (while the 45th for some reason turns out to be less) or 5.45 and 3 lines (5.45 is less here). In most European countries, including Russia, caliber measurement is carried out in the metric system. Measurement is made in millimeters by barrel diameter. Accordingly, for rifled weapons, the diameter of the cartridge will be slightly larger (to the depth of the rifling). In the USA, Great Britain and some other countries, mainly members of the British Commonwealth, caliber measurements are carried out in fractions of an inch, moreover, in the USA in hundredths and in the United Kingdom in thousandths. Therefore, 45 US caliber is equal to 450 Britain and 11.43 Russia. Smooth-bore hunting rifles stand apart in this row. Their caliber means the number of round bullets that can be cast from one pound of lead. Accordingly, the smaller the diameter of the barrel, the more bullets will be obtained. There is also another standard for measuring caliber, which TV is currently almost never used. These are the lines. One line contains one tenth of an inch, respectively, in the Mosin rifle of the 1893 model, the famous three-ruler, caliber 3x2.54 = 7.62 millimeters. Now let's move on to the design of hand melee weapons.
Systems
There are two main schemes: pistol and revolving. Both of them have their advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage of modern pistols is the speed and ease of reloading, the possibility of automatic firing (for some models, for example, the Stechkin gun). The advantage of revolvers is high reliability, there is no need to send a cartridge into the barrel after reloading and there is no automatic extraction of cartridges, which in some cases is good from the point of view of secrecy, for example, when working with special units.
45 caliber: self-defense pistol
In 1911, in the North American United States (the United States was then called), probably the most famous pistol in the world was adopted. We are talking about the "Colt M1911", which has 45 caliber. This semi-automatic pistol was recognized as the best weapon for self-defense due to the high stopping action of the bullet. Its production with numerous upgrades lasted until 1982. He was in service with the US Army until 1985, and is still popular among private owners. In total, about three million pistols of this model were produced. These pistols, except for the USA, were in service with the army of Great Britain and the USSR (Lend-Lease), Norway, France, Nicaragua and El Salvador. In Estonia and Haiti, they are still in service today.
Revolver - Colt 45 caliber
The Colt weapons company in 1872 presented its revolver model under a unitary pistol cartridge. This year was not chosen by chance, because it was then that the patent for the revolving drum with through cameras, previously owned by the competitor Smith and Wesson, expired. The following year, 1873, a new model of a revolver was presented, which was adopted by the US Army. For 20 years, the American armed forces purchased about 37,000 copies of this weapon. The army revolver had 45 calibres, the civilian 44. For a long 60 years, the release of the army version was discontinued, but in the early 50s, mainly due to the US film industry and the popularity of westerns, the demand for the Colt-1873 model grew so much that in 1956 year their release was resumed and continues with small interruptions so far.
Colt ammunition
In 1905, the world's most popular pistol ammunition appeared, having 45 caliber. The cartridge is called 45 ACP, it was developed by the Frankford arsenal. This ammunition quickly became successful due to the very effective stopping action of the bullet. It was under this cartridge that such well-known armaments as the Colt M1911 pistol and the Thompson submachine gun were designed. Although this ammunition has a number of drawbacks (due to the low initial velocity and the large weight of the bullet, its flight path is far from gentle), its popularity has not yet declined. Moreover, new bullet samples were developed for this cartridge, for example, expansive with controlled opening, which “unfolds” when it penetrates to the optimal depth in the victim’s body. So for a long time these legendary samples of the company "Colt" will delight fans of weapons.