Cool Guns/Handguns/Machine Pistols

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Beretta 93R

A machine pistol variant of the Beretta 92 designed in the 1970s; it saw some use with security forces, but Beretta ceased production during the 1990s. The R stands for "Raffica," Italian for "burst." The 93R is an extensive modification; the pistol is single-action only with selective fire, able to fire in semi-auto or in 1,100 RPM 3-round bursts. It has a muzzle brake, fold-down foregrip, optional shoulder stock, and a 20-round magazine, though it could still use the standard 15-round magazines of the 92. In movies, a 93R will frequently be played by a modified 92 with a fullauto drop-in sear; the classic sign of a converted 92 is a slide-mounted decocking safety instead of the frame-mounted slide stop of the real weapon. Usually ends up being someone's Weapon of Choice if it turns up, since it combines the popular look of a Beretta with More Dakka.

  • Perhaps the most famous use is by RoboCop; the modification, nicknamed the "Auto 9," includes a large side-ported compensator and oversized rear sight. The Auto 9 prop was also used in the City Hunter movie, and in Sin City. The MagSec 4 weapon in Perfect Dark is also a copy of the Auto 9.
  • The 1980's Heroes-R-Us group Able Team used a customised version with silencer, tritium dot sights and steel-core bullets for extra penetration.
  • The male cop in the Hong Kong Les Yay action movie Naked Killer used one of these.
  • The Big Bad played by John Travolta used one in Broken Arrow.
  • Also used in Eraser.
  • This weapon becomes the first weapon used in Square Enix's Parasite Eve 2, where ironically it can be quite powerful if you abuse the critical hit mechanism.
  • Noir ("Intoccabile"). Sicilian hitman Domenic uses one against Kirika.
  • Nikita uses one on a target range when she's being trained as an assassin. She states that she's used one before, but "never on paper."
  • Claire's basic handgun in Resident Evil: Code Veronica. When you first get it, it's single-shot only and holds just 15 rounds. After you get an upgrade kit, it's capable of three-round burst fire and its ammo capacity is increased to 20.
  • A weapon in Jagged Alliance 2. It's almost identical to the 92F, but capable of burst fire.
  • Weapon of Choice for Melvin in The Big Hit.
  • 'John Doe', the ex-CIA assassin who trained Pinocchio, is shown using one in Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino.
  • The "Joker FP9 Burst Pistol" in All Points Bulletin is a crossover between Beretta 92 and 93R, fitted with a compensator, extended magazine and firing three-round bursts.
  • Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. A female secretary uses one to assassinate Imakurusu to prevent him talking to Section 9.
  • Bionic Woman (2007 remake). In the final episode Jaime Sommers gets shot at by a guy on a bike wielding one of these -- with full auto sound effects instead of three-round burst.
  • Bucho the Big Bad from Desperado carries one of these until the Dark Action Girl borrows it to go hunt El Mariachi.

Škorpion

Škorpion vz. 61

The Škorpion is a Czechoslovakian machine pistol used by officers, security forces, and armoured vehicle personnel; not to mention Eastern-bloc supplied terrorists. Four chamberings exist; the vz. 61 in .32 ACP, the vz. 68 in 9x19mm Parabellum, the vz. 82 in 9x18mm Makarov, and the vz. 83 in .380 ACP. The Škorpion's small size and calibre makes it generally the weakest submachine gun in any videogame it appears in, but this also makes it popular on the screen for the same reasons as the micro-Uzi -- it's a compact bundle of full-auto Dakka.

  • The Matrix. Neo fires a pair with barrel shrouds Guns Akimbo during the slow motion shootout in the lobby, complete with falling slow-motion (rifle) cartridges. Also used by one of the Merovingian's henchmen in The Matrix Revolutions.
  • Battlestar Galactica. Starbuck wields them Guns Akimbo in "Resistance". Chief Tyrol has one on New Caprica as well.
  • A silenced version is used by the "little friend" assassin in the spoof Mafia!
  • Used by a fake motorcycle cop for an attempted assassination in the Steven Seagal movie Exit Wounds.
  • Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino. Pinnochio selects two of these from his Wall of Weapons for his upcoming mission with Franca and Franco; the latter using one of them against Triela.
  • Carried by several of the terrorists who invade the Chinese embassy in Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig.
  • NCIS. A mook uses one against CIA agent Trent Kort in the opening shootout in "Dead Reckoning".
  • Used in the Bugs episode "Buried Treasure".
  • Milan Sova in XXX.
  • Lazlo Soot in Smokin Aces (with custom two-tone finish)
  • The terrorists in Executive Decision.
  • Agent 86 in the 2008 Get Smart movie.
  • Members of the Joker's gang in The Dark Knight.
  • Risberg in The Black Madonna.
  • Many of Arnold Gundars' (Malcolm McDowell) men in the I Spy movie.
  • Bodyguards in Ronin.
  • Nyssa (Leonor Varela) in Blade II.
  • Leonardo DiCaprio as agent Roger Ferris in Body of Lies.
  • Seen in Golden Eye 1997, Perfect Dark, Resident Evil 5 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, though not really a Cool Gun in any of these. It's probably most remembered by gamers as GoldenEye and Perfect Dark's Klobb (or KLO1313 if you prefer).
  • An easy-to-miss vz. 61 appears in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater; useful in a later sequence because it has an attached laser sight. A vz. 83 shows up in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, where it's distinctly less useful, being overshadowed by the P90.
  • Used alongside various Glock pistols as a standard sidearm for ZAFT personnel in Gundam Seed.
  • In the Doctor Who episode Revelation of the Daleks the assassin Orcini uses one to blow up a Dalek.
  • In the Matthew Reilly book Scarecrow a team of Russian soldiers (and occasional bounty hunters) are named after this weapon due to their extensive use of them.
  • Sidearm of the Georgian officers in the first Splinter Cell.
  • Jill Valentine's signature weapons in her battlesuit from Resident Evil 5 and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 are a pair of these dual wielded.
  • Usable in Call of Duty Black Ops
  • Purchasable in 7.62 High Calibre, and suitable as a back-up weapon. It's slightly more powerful than the comparable Mini/Micro-Uzi and MP5K, as well as accepting a suppressor, but it's less accurate.

Ingram MAC-10 / MAC-11

MAC-10

Developed as a "room-broom" for house-clearing in the riot-torn 1960's, the MAC-10's small size and high rate-of-fire made it difficult to control, thus it never really took off with military and law enforcement. Such considerations did not hamper its use by criminals both on and off the silver screen; the fact that it was relatively cheap to buy made it particularly popular in low-income areas with attendant high crime rates. Like its fellow "ghetto gun" the Intratec TEC-9, the original semiautomatic version of the MAC-10 fired from an open bolt, making it very easy to convert to automatic fire. Two main versions exist; the MAC-10 is chambered in .45 ACP while the MAC-11 is chambered in .380 ACP; the latter version having an increased rate of fire and being even harder to control. Versions of both chambered in 9mm Parabellum also exist (in the case of the MAC-11, the receiver is elongated to accommodate the larger round). A movie MAC will often be fitted with the distinctive suppressor; in both models, this is longer than the weapon itself.

  • Cool Calibers: Though most popularly known for being chambered in the powerful .45 ACP round, the 9mm version of the MAC-10 is actually more common, both on film and in real life. Why? The recoil is lower as is the rate of fire (only slightly, but still noticeable), the magazine is shorter (making it easier to conceal, carry and maneuver), the ammo is cheaper and weighs less, and it is easier for movie armorers to adapt 9mm weapons to blank-fire than heavier chamberings like the .45.
  • John Wayne in the 1974 cop show McQ popularised this weapon.
  • Chuck Norris in the New Old West movie Lone Wolf McQuade.
  • V. Mercenary Ham Tyler brandished a MAC-10 against alien invaders. Becomes the standard weapon of La Résistance in the TV series.
  • Moonraker. Jaws is seen firing one with a barrel-extension rather than the standard silencer, as he chases James Bond in a speedboat.
  • True Lies. A MAC-10 is dropped by Helen Tasker and rolls down a flight of stairs, firing randomly as it does, and actually kills her assailants while missing her completely.
  • Dux's mooks in Noir which has crudely taped torchlight on them which sorts of defeats their (stealth) purpose, and later Christian Gare.
  • Snake Plissken uses a MAC-10 with a suppressor (that, surprisingly realistically, stopped working well towards the end of the film, since it was likely a wipe/wet system instead of one with a baffle system) throughout the movie Escape from New York.
  • Various drug soldiers in Scarface.
  • Wielded by the Heroes-R-Us unit led by Ken Wahl in The Soldier (1982).
  • Used for the assassination in the opening scene of Commando (1985).
  • Pulp Fiction. Vincent leaves one of these with a suppressor on the kitchen counter at Butch's apartment when he goes to the toilet. It's the last mistake he ever makes.
  • Used by Agent Sands during his CMOA in Once Upon a Time In Mexico, the scene was extra awesome due to the fact that Sands was blind, and unlike the above examples, he had the MAC-10 set to single shot rather than full auto.
  • The MAC-10 is usable in Far Cry 2 as the lower-tier secondary slot SMG.
  • The MAC is pretty popular in gangsta rap lyrics due to its image as a gangland weapon.
  • The main character of Shikabane Hime dual wields MAC-11s.
  • In The Abyss, a MAC-10 is used by one of the Navy SEALS.
  • Available in the second chapter of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, along with its massive silencer.
  • In Resident Evil 2, either character can use a MAC-11, with a barrel extender that they fire from the hip.
  • In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Tommy can use a MAC-10.
  • A MAC-10 is available in Left 4 Dead 2, with flashlight zip-tied to the silencer.
  • MAC-10s appear in Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, used frequently by criminals. DLC makes a suppressed version available in Fragile Alliance, the game's multiplayer mode.
  • Alex Mason carries a MAC-11 with an attached red dot sight in the final mission of Call of Duty: Black Ops, and the weapon is also available in multiplayer.
  • Used in Night of the Comet: the protagonists test them out and comment on its user-friendliness ("The MAC-10 submachine gun was practically made for housewives!"); its tendency to jam then bites them.

"That's the problem with these things. Daddy would have gotten us Uzis."

    • Made no difference to the car.
  • Minor Batman villain The General uses a MAC-10 (stolen from a National Guard armory) to slaughter two guards and the leader of the gang he'd joined, making him the new leader of said gang. these are neither his first nor his last murders.
  • Used in Counter-Strike as the cheapest SMG available for the Terrorist team.
  • Available in 7.62 High Calibre, but generally not worth it: lack of balance means spraying will be inaccurate, and the gun suffers from an inherent lack of accuracy as well.
  • Used by the assassins in Three Days of the Condor.
  • The ZMG from Golden Eye 1997 is often erroneously believed to be an Uzi, but it's actually a MAC-10.

Intratec TEC-9/TEC-DC9/AB-10

TEC-DC9

Probably among the most infamous guns in America, the TEC-9 was originally developed by the Swedish company Interdynamic AB in a quest to build a simple and inexpensive submachine gun. Since Sweden, a wealthy, industrialized country where law enforcement carries much fancier weapons, is a poor market for a cheap SMG, they established an American subsidiary called Intratec to sell semi-auto versions of the gun in the lucrative American civilian market. Gun enthusiasts paid it little attention, as it was inaccurate, unreliable and too big to be carried comfortably. However, the gun had several things going in its favor, namely its low price, its 32-round magazine capacity, its menacing appearance (it was originally designed as a submachine gun, after all) and, most importantly, its open-bolt design, which made it (relatively) easy to convert back to full-auto with only a few modifications. All of these factors made it very popular among criminals and spree killers in The Eighties and The Nineties, earning it a reputation as the "gangsta gun" -- something that was eventually noticed by the ATF. Intratec was forced to redesign the gun twice to comply with gun control laws; the first redesign, the TEC-DC 9, made it so that it couldn't be converted to full-auto, and the second, the AB-10, was done to comply with the Assault Weapons Ban. Intratec never came out and said so, but "AB" is generally believed to stand for "After Ban". As the Assault Weapons Ban largely targeted cosmic features deemed "scary-looking", such as barrel shrouds, the AB-10 was functionally unchanged from the TEC-DC 9.

Film

  • In one scene in Last Action Hero, a few bad guys armed with these are in the house and Slater entered from the ceiling and used their own guns to kill them.
  • In the climax of the heist film The Town, James "Jem" Coughlin uses a TEC-9 with two magazines jungle-taped together in a running shootout with FBI agent Adam Frawley and several Boston police officers.

Live-Action TV

  • The Law and Order episode "Mushrooms" features a TEC-9 as the murder weapon.

Music

  • Name-dropped in a long, long list of Gangsta Rap songs, which helped contribute to its reputation.

Video Games

Mini-Uzi

See Uzi


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