Short guns I have known 3

This particular little piece epitomises my ideal hand gun, cheap to shoot, reliable, accurate to a fault, and fun. It is a Ruger MKII, as you can see, with a six inch heavy barrel, in stainless.

This is an old design, some one knows the release date, I don't, sometime in the forty's or fifty's, for the MKI. It's an updated classic. The heavy barrel is pretty much pointless, except to make it look cool and point better,(I seriously believe most guns are more accurate than most shooters). The stainless is for me because I'm a lazy bastard and don't enjoy cleaning guns.

It comes with two ten shot clips and adjustable sights.

This piece was developed when someone was on the bandwagon, with cheaper, not less quality. The round upper frame and bolt help manufacturing processes because drilling is less expensive and faster than milling. Some of the parts are stampings.
Those alone would keep the price down. It has a passing resemblance to the grease gun and the Sten.

The down side is it's sensitivity to ammo. This one will not fire a Remington round reliably. I have several thousand rounds of Remington .22, and of course wondered why that could be. A .22 is a .22, isn't it?

Actually, the answer would be "no", there are details. The minor differences in chamber diameter, the minor differences in swaging dies, the coating and type of bullet lube, can and sometimes will, add up to one or two thousandths of an inch of diameter. That means the additive error can cause the slide to fail to lock up.

The answer is Federal ammo. It has, so far, never failed to load as it should. It has a slightly smaller diameter, .002 if I remember correctly.

This pistol is the favorite of all the females in my house, light, simple, low to no recoil, and you can put ten rounds down range before the brass from the first stops rolling.

There are good arguments to promote the MkI and II as self defense weapons.
1) The only way to shoot good is to shoot a lot.
2) Can't shoot a lot if it's too expensive.
3) You won't practice if it hurts too much.
4) If you can hit what you shoot at, anything will work. If you can't hit the target nothing will work. Training and practice will help you under pressure. (see one through three)

Someone out there will snort something about bullet weight and velocity and retained energy and mag capacity. Well, all that is true, but if you need fifteen rounds to dissuade someone from stupidity, it ain't self defence, it's a fire fight! You need to go back to the range. If you get the chance.

A certain fact is if I put three rounds from this pistol in your chest, or one in your Adam's apple, the judge will only have me to listen to, unless your family shows up.

My paternal grandfather carried one of these and would shoot squirrels on the way home from work, so dinner would be fresh.