Hand Cannon: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

It's big. It's bulky. It's heavy, [[Awesome Yet Impractical|impractical]], and loud. It looks really, really cool. Sometimes, [[Bling Bling Bang|it has a nickel finish, or better yet, gold.]] It may even [[I Call It Vera|have a name.]] It's the [[Hand Cannon]].

 

 

Often, the character's hands are barely big enough to support the weapon. In particularly [[Egregious]] cases they're fired [[Firing One-Handed|one-handed]] or even [[Guns Akimbo|dual-wielded]] -- try this in [[Real Life]] and you'll end up with a broken wrist/nose and [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy|a bullet going nowhere near where it's supposed to.]]

* ''[[Kurohime]]'' features the title character's weapon, Senryuu (which grows even bigger as the series continues, and can transform into a gatling revolver, a sniper rifle, a shotgun/cannon, and something vaguely semblant of a minigun) and Onimaru's gun.

* In ''[[Ghost in The Shell]]'' Togusa uses a truly impressive looking .44 magnum auto-revolver. But he's frequently told to finally get rid of this flimsy thing and upgrade to something with [[More Dakka|real firepower]].

* ''[[Castle in The Sky]]'' has something akin to this, an the one-shot weapons that Dola's pirate gang uses seem to also be capable of loading stink bombs as well as the normal bullet/explosive rounds. Near the end, the [[Big Bad]] actually calls the one Patsu carries a "cannon you can hardly lift".

* Parodied [[Trope Overdosed|(and what isn't?)]] in ''[[The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'', where [[The Chew Toy|Mikuru]] is made to [[Dual Wield]] airsoft Desert Eagles for the student film. In her hands the guns are comically oversized, which is only made worse by the absurd extended barrels.

* In one issue of ''[[ABC Warriors]]'', workcrew on a massive terraforming operation on Mars have been going missing. The woman in charge carries a massive hand cannon with three chambers, but only three rounds. It is capable of killing anything it hits. She is eventually killed by hundreds of Martian animals after using up her three rounds.

* In ''[[Batman (Comic Book)|Detective Comics]] #841'', the Mad Hatter uses a revolver that is actually fairly normal... if you don't take into account its four foot long barrel; It's easily mistaken for a walking cane.

 

 

'''Rooster Cogburn:''' Well, this'll sure get the job done if you can find a fence post to rest it on while you take aim. }}

** ''[[The Cowboys (Film)|The Cowboys]]'' had [[John Wayne]] telling the boys he had for cowhands to put their guns in a wagon. Cue the smallest boy extracting the largest gun from his belt.

{{quote| '''Buscemi''': The stranger... he ''bolts'' out of his bar-stool like you wouldn't believe, he grabs his case and he dives right in the middle of the room with it! Just dives right in! Now, I don't know what he does on that floor, but he's up in two shakes, his suitcase is wide open, and he's pulled God knows what out of it, but it's the biggest hand cannon I've ever ''fucking seen!''}}

* In the [[Vigilante Man]] flick, ''[[Death Sentence]]'', Kevin Bacon needs to buy some guns for his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] so he goes to a black market gun dealer (played by John Goodman). John Goodman then proceeds to use this sales pitch when refering to a [[Revolvers Are Just Better|Colt Python]], a [[Cool Guns|Colt M1911]], and a [[Rare Guns|Desert Eagle]] respectively:

* The oversized bolt pistols and SMGs of ''[[Warhammer 40000]]''. .75 caliber rocket-assisted rounds. Don't forget the plasma pistols too. The space marine version even moreso, since it's designed for people who are at least eight feet tall and would require a tripod for a human to wield.

** [[Dark Heresy]] has a pistol that is actually named Hand Cannon. While not the most powerful sidearm in the game by any standard, it is fairly effective (especially when loaded with armor-piercing rounds) and its low price makes it attractive to players who can't afford a bolt pistol (there are plasma pistols and Inferno pistols as well, but they're so rare and expensive they only exist in the game to taunt you).

* ''[[Cyberpunk]]'''s weaponry supplements have many examples of this, as they're intended for use by and against cyber-enhanced combatants. One of the most memorable is the 'Hellbringer,' a 3-round .666 caliber magnum revolver. There's also the Colt AMT, an eight-shot revolver that fires very large bullets. The caliber is not specified but it causes very high damage in-game.

** Characters who have full body cybernetic conversions or are wearing powered armour can also carry firearms such as "assault rifles" chambered in .50 BMG or 14.5x114 RUS, as well as a 4 gauge autoshotgun and a 10 gauge, 6-barrel gatling shotgun with a back-mounted ammo hopper.

* Pretty much every revolver in ''[[Borderlands (Video Game)|Borderlands]]'' counts as this.

* The [http://www.bungie.net/projects/halo3/content.aspx?link=h3pistol M6 series of pistols] in ''[[Halo]]'' is chambered for 12.7x40mm (necked-down .50 BMG) high explosive armor piercing rounds.Seems like overkill at first, perhaps, but against the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Covenant]], it might just be justified.

* In the Telltale seasons, ''[[Sam and Max]]'' have a huge revolver and Luger, respectively. This is probably to compensate for the fact that they weren't allowed guns in the TV show and "left them at the cleaners" in ''Hit the Road''. Successfully complete the ''Hit the Road'' game however, and you get to watch Sam and Max amuse themselves by unloading on a carnival's BB gun shooting gallery with them.

** [[Older Than They Think|In fact, they've had them since]] [[Adaptation Displacement|the comics.]]

{{quote| '''Duke:''' Say hello to my little friend...}}

* The ''[[Star Wars]]: Empire at War'' [[Expansion Pack]], ''Forces of Corruption'', features Tyber Zann, leader of the corrupt fraction, who has a handgun that can blow away a whole squad of infantry.

* ''[[Arcanum of Steamworks and Magick Obscura]]'' has a weapon that the player can construct from parts called the [[Hand Cannon]]. It's a wooden grip, a trigger, and what looks to be at least an inch-wide barrel.

* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'', Meryl stated that she picked up a [[Small Girl, Big Gun|Desert Eagle]] with the long barrel over the only fractionally more reasonable .45 SOCOM that Snake himself uses. Snake [[Lampshade Hanging|remarked]] that "It's an awfully big gun for a girl," and offered to trade guns. In ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4]]'', Liquid Ocelot has a .45-75 hand rifle that needs reloading after one shot, but when obtained as a [[Infinity+1 Sword|bonus weapon for completing an emblem challenge]], it one shots most PMC [[Mooks]]. Same on multiplayer.

* The Culverin weapon in ''[[Final Fantasy XI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XI]]'', which actually looks more like a modern-day shotgun ingame, is unique in that it does not accept regular ammunition of any sort, instead opting for ''cannon shells'' that are significantly less efficient inventory-wise.

* Vincent Valentine's Cerberus in ''[[Final Fantasy VII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VII]]: [[Dirge of Cerberus]]'' is a gigantic, aggressively ridiculously designed revolver with three cylinders, three hammers linked to one trigger and three barrels. Even with the normal barrel the weapon is the size of his own leg, and it can be fitted with an even sillier three-foot "sniper" barrel. His [[Infinity+1 Sword|InfinityPlusOneGun]] is the Death Penalty. In his earlier appearance in ''Final Fantasy VII'', it looked like [http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/3/3b/FF7_Death_penalty.jpg this], which is not quite a Hand Cannon. Come ''Dirge of Cerberus'', and it looks like [http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/b/bf/DoC_Death_Penalty_Artwork.png this].

* Noel Vermillion in ''[[Blaz Blue]]'' [[Small Girl, Big Gun|wields 2 guns the length or her arms.]] Though this is hardly the most [[BFS|absurdly oversized weapon]] in the game.

* The strongest handgun in ''[[The Godfather (Video Game)|The Godfather]]: The Game'' is a "magnum" that already rivals the shotgun for power at both their first levels. You can upgrade it. Have fun. The sequel takes it to ridiculous lengths: You start with .357, upgrade to .44, then hit .50 and a [[Bribing Your Way to Victory|real cash-purchased extra]] gives you '''.700'''.

* The Cougar Magnum in ''[[Golden Eye 1997 (Video Game)|GoldenEye]]'' (which can even shoot through walls), and its ''[[Perfect Dark]]'' counterpart, the DY 357. Both sound like cannons, too.

* Carnby's revolver in ''[[Alone in The Dark]]: The New Nightmare''.

* ''[[Scarface the World Is Yours (Video Game)|Scarface the World Is Yours]]'' has the ol' Desert Eagle as its strongest handgun, which [[One-Hit Kill|One Hit Kills]] most mooks.

* ''[[S 4 League]] '' gives us [[Revolvers Are Just Better|The Revolver]]. A giant handgun that uses ''shotgun 12-gauge ammo''.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* Very early hand-guns really were, literal, "hand-cannons", merely reduced-size versions of early artillery weapons, with the same one-piece cast barrel-and-stock, and touch-hole ignition.

** Even later when they used matchlocks (1600s or so) most weapons were at least .50 cal, often closer to .75 cal, since modern round sizes fired with black powder wouldn't go through armor.

* Later, there was the "howdah pistol", a double-rifle elephant gun with the barrel and stock reduced in size to make it holdable, if not sensibly fireable, in one hand. It was said that the sensible way to employ one, should a tiger leap up your elephant toward the howdah in which you were standing, was to hand the giant double-barreled pistol to the tiger and allow him to fire it.

* Magnum Research, designers of the infamous Desert Eagle, also manufacture the "[http://www.magnumresearch.com/BFR.asp BFR]." They claim this stands for "Biggest, Finest Revolver," [[BFG|but I think we all know what it really stands for]].

* There's also a .700 Nitro Express round, currently languishing unloved; it's only a matter of time before a handgun is designed around it.

* The Maadi-Griffin .50 pistol and the Thunder .50 pistol: handguns designed to use the .50 BMG cartridge, one of the most powerful ''rifle'' cartridges in current use. For comparison, the muzzle energy of the .50 BMG round is typically around ten times that of the NATO 5.56mm round used in most modern assault rifles.

** For the purpose of illustrating scale, [http://www.nodakoutdoors.com/forums/userpix/8724_DSCF3008_1.jpg here's a picture of one with a 20 dollar bill].

* The four-pound Colt Walker and Dragoon models were outrageously oversized to their smaller cousins brought into production a few years later.

* The Le Mat Revolver, in addition to a nine-chambered cylinder and a regular barrel, has a central shotgun barrel, fired by a special pivoting striker, hence the name "Grapeshot Revolver". The largest ammunition it can use is .44 and one 16ga round. As you can imagine, this is a ''very'' big pistol.

* Any [[LEGO]] handgun. The revolver, which is the smallest, is the size of a minifig's arm.

[[Category:Bigger Is Better]]

[[Category:Hand Cannon]]