Will there ever be a rifle caliber pistol?

[barnbwt]

Pistol sized pistol in a full-blown rifle chambering of the 223 class or higher. Seriously, the recoil would probably be enough to injure you (due to frequency if not amplitude). The blast wave would engulf your hand and burn your hairs. Even if there were some magical way it could be made strong enough, the grip would be at least 3" long, and the slide would travel about 4" or so. All this for marginally better performance, since rifle cartridges would be nearly as anemic as pistol rounds from pistol length barrels, only you'd get a ludicrous fireball in the process.

I'm not normally one for damning any type of gun as impractical, but this is even moreso than AR/AK pistols. The 30 Carbine AMT is probably the biggest you.could.possibly. make a pistol and have it be construed by anyone as a "pistol" rather than cut down rifle*

Yeah...that'll sell just like hotcakes (50BMG pistol)

The 5.7x28 really is more of a pistol round than a rifle round despite its design for the P90. Let me explain my reasoning;
1) P90 was designed as a PDW
2) PDW was defined as a stocked gun 'less than a rifle,' occupying a niche very similar to pistol caliber carbines (not SMGs)
3) With ammunition designed to be much more efficient (weight/volume) than most pistol cartridges like 9mm that are bulky due to their large calibers
4) And given select fire capability like that of SMGs simply because it is an easy and useful feature to add into guns designed in this modern era (lack of full-auto and low capacity were the primary failings of the original M1 in the PDW role)

The fact it was adapted to a pistol after the fact has no bearing on its being a pistol round (in my reasoning, at least). That said, FNH did an excellent job in developing the five-seven pistol that I enjoy shooting very much. If the PS90 were a bit more svelt (it's a very thick gun) I would own one, but instead I am left wanting

TCB

*meant in the obvious sense, not the illogical legal one

 

[Old 454]

The original Op stated he didn't trust a 44 mag to take down a bear.Wasn't there a polar bear taken with a 44 mag some time ago ?

Head over the the Freedom Arms Web site and look at there trophy section.

The Freedom Arms in .454 Casull has taken every thing you could hunt on the African continent. There is plenty O' Power in a 454, granted these were used by profesional hunters with well placed shots.

Really no need for a rifle round in a hand gun. If you need that kind of power use a rifle.

 

[idek]

What about like real rifle rounds. Like 223, 243.

http://ballisticsbytheinch.com/223rifle.html
Others have already alluded to this, but here is some data to back it up. Out of typical CC barrel lengths, you'd lose half the velocity or more (compared to .223 rifles). Auto pistol cartridges such as Sig .357 can just about match--or even surpass--those velocities with bullets 2 or 3 times heavier.
http://ballisticsbytheinch.com/357sig.html

 

[JN01]

How about an American Derringer in .45-70? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P34v983P2j4

 

[RC20]

I don't think the 5.7 counts, particularly considering that the OP mentions bear defense.

I have seen 3 Grizzly bear take downs with high capacity guns (and one I suspected was an exaggeration but done with a 45 ACP supposedly)

Two with 9mm and one with Russian 5.45.

Interesting theory that quantity is better than quality.

So far to few examples but its an interesting concept, massive trauma induced via multiple hits vs massive trauma with one hit.

I do carry the 9mm these days bear included though not like the trips of yesteryear where I was deep in the woods.

So I would not discount it, and the 5.7 would get you some great penetration.

 

[spanishjames]

Check out the Micro AK:

 

[silvermane_1]

have you folks forgot about the Taurus Raging 223? , yeah i know it's not a pistol per se, but it does shoot rifle rounds.

 

[Deja vu]

I own a BFR in 45-70. I think with handloading it could handle any bear on the globe.

 

[gyvel]

The late Clarence M. Bates made .45-70 revolvers for years. (He made other types of firearms as well; These are usually identifiable by his "CMB" mark.)

 

[got ammo?]

I don't know if this counts, but I once had an AMT automag II. chambered for 22 WMR, a well known rifle varmint round. The gun sucked. It would jam constantly on anything but Remington gold or Hornady V Max. accuracy was random, and I swear it was as loud as a .357 mag snub. The best thing about it was you could get a foot long lick of fire out of the muzzle when you fired it, which looked cool.
I think the rifle rounds should stay in rifles.

 

[Webleymkv]

Well, first of all you'd have to have a clear definition of the line between a rifle cartridge and handgun cartridge; as it currently stands, no clear definition exists. You see, you can't really define it by the platform its found in because both rifles and handguns have been made at one time or another in just about any cartridge you can think of. You can't really define it by power either because some of the more powerful cartridges commonly thought of as handgun cartridges are, from the right barrel length, more powerful than some of the less powerful cartridges commonly thought of as rifle cartridges. For example, a heavy-loaded .44 Magnum from a long-barrel revolver can fairly easily produce more muzzle energy than a run-of-the-mill .223 Remington from a short-barrel rifle.

Even if we just use common conceptions of rifle and handgun cartridges for our definition, we find that the design of rifle cartridge make them very inefficient for what a handgun is typically used for. Most rifle cartridges are designed for 16" or longer barrels. As such, they normally use rather slow-burning powders that will reach their optimum pressure, and thus produce their highest velocity, from a long barrel. When chambered in a handgun, a great deal of that powder will still be burning after the bullet has already left the barrel thus producing rather disappointing velocity unless a relatively long barrel (for a handgun at least) is used. This is why rifle-caliber handguns often have 8" or longer barrels with 10-12" barrels not being uncommon.

Secondly, the vast majority of rifle cartridge which produce significantly more power than handgun cartridges use much longer cases so as to allow for a larger charge of powder. This isn't usually an issue in a rifle because the magazine is usually housed outside the grip and thus less subject to space constraints. In a handgun, however, the length of the cartridge is often constrained to what will fit inside a magazine housed in the gun's grip. A handgun with a grip large enough to house most of the common rifle cartridges would have a grip much too large to fit most people's hands. The way around this is to house the ammunition outside the grip. When this is done with a magazine-fed handgun, the result is almost always a handgun so large that it isn't much more convenient or less cumbersome to carry than a compact rifle. The other option is to make a rifle-caliber revolver, single-shot, or multi-barrel handgun. While this does allow a somewhat more compact and conveniently-carried handgun that a rifle-caliber, magazine-fed handgun, they are still nearly always so large and heavy as to only be useful for target shooting and hunting.

Finally, a rifle has advantages besides raw power over a handgun. Because rifles generally have stocks and handguns typically don't (save for a few historical curiosities and heavily-regulated NFA weapons), rifles are almost always much easier to shoot accurately especially at long range. Simply put, a shoulder stock allows for a much more stable shooting platform than any non-shoulder stock contraption ever devised for a handgun. Even in the relatively few cases in which a handgun has been fitted with a stock, the result is a weapon so large and cumbersome that its advantage over a compact rifle is debatable. Also, due to their longer barrels, rifles typically have longer sight radii which make them much easier to shoot accurately. While optics such as a telescopic or holographic sight take sight radius largely out of the equation, mounting such a device on a handgun typically makes it so large and heavy that its usefulness is restricted to hunting and target shooting.

I think that the main thing you need to understand is what the role of a handgun is generally intended to be. By and large, a handgun is not intended to be a replacement for a rifle because no matter what cartridge you chamber it for, a handgun will always be a poor substitute for a rifle will. Instead, a handgun is, by and large, intended to be a weapon of convenience. Even though it is less powerful and more difficult to shoot well, a handgun's smaller size allows it to be useful in situations when a rifle, for all its virtues, is just to large to be practical. That's the tradeoff: power and ease of use for portability and convenience. With the exception of a few specialized handguns for hunting and/or long-range target shooting, chambering a rifle cartridge in a handgun almost always gives you a weapon which is too large and heavy to be as portable and convenient as a standard handgun but still too small to be as powerful and easy to use as a real rifle: the worst of both worlds and the best of neither.