[natural marksman]

Hey all

I play a lot of computer games, which is where I get the names of guns so I can look them up and research them in my own time.

I got a game which is set in the 60's, with some old guns and one of these is the MK22 pistol. I can't find very much info on this gun. Wikipedia has let me down for the first time :( Even on a google image search there are hardly any decent pictures of one.

The gun is (or was back then in 1964) a prototype pistol for the US Navy. I'm pretty sure Smith and Wesson is the designer but I know little more about it.

If there are any former military dudes out there, or anyone who'd have any info or pictures of this gun (preferably large pic's, but I'm not picky), I'd apppreciate your input.

Andrew

[SDC]

Kind-of, sort-of; the US Navy wanted a silenced pistol that would allow their combat swimmer/SEAL teams to quietly dispose of sentries or guard dogs (hence the "Hush-puppy" nickname), but they didn't have anything off the shelf available, so they purchased a number of Smith & Wesson M39 pistols and modified them into what they wanted themselves. These pistols were adopted as the "Mk 22 Mod 0", and were issued with suppressors and a set of chamber plugs and endcaps to prevent water from getting into the chamber, barrel, and suppressor before the pistol needed to be used (the chamber end plug was basically a plastic 9mm cartridge with a rubber O-ring forward of the extractor groove, and the suppressor end plug was basically a plastic cap pressed into the muzzle, that could be fired through). To stop excessive action noise, these pistols had action locks fitted, allowing a user to keep the slide motionless by pressing down on the rear of the lock (this meant that the pistol could be fired as a single-shot, without the "clack"-"clack" of the slide working back and forth). Here's a picture of one of the earliest Mk 22s:

http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p22/StaceyC123/Mk22Mod0001.jpg

[RX-178]

I'm betting it's Metal Gear Solid 3.

The Mk22 was represented as being a 'tranquilizer gun' in the game.

The role of 'real gun' was left to the 1911, which essentially carried over to Metal Gear Solid 4, with a Springfield Operator replacing the 9mm USP (which itself had replaced a Mk23 SOCOM) as Snake's handgun of choice.

:D

[Famaldehide Face]

Now THAT is a nice pistol!!!!!!!!!!!.

[natural marksman]

Yes, the tranquilizer gun from MGS3...my favourite game!

I though the slide locking mechanism was just another part of the game that made you have to make more tactical decisions and not be reckless. I didn't know the actual gun had one.

The suppressor deteriorates a little each time you fire, so it doesn't last forever. You have to keep finding more suppressors during the game.

And besides, why would you need a slide locking mechanism? The gun is recoil-operated right? If the suppressor was heavy enough, it would provide the barrel with more inertia and effectively do the same job - although the weight of the suppressor would ruin the balance of the gun...

If that was the case, taking off the suppressor would make the gun semi-automatic again. That would be much more convienient wouldn't you say?

Thanks for the picutre, it's awesome!

Andrew

[SDC]

The slide lock was added because the primary use for this pistol was intended to be single shots only, ie. "taking out" a single sentry or guard dog, without alerting anyone else in the area. With most reasonably-effective suppressors, the sound of the gun operating makes as much or more noise than the sound of the actual shot, so having the pistol suppressed doesn't do you any good if this loud, foreign "clack-clack" sound brings everyone else within 60 yards running to see what the heck is going on. So, this set-up let them fire one shot when necessary, then they could slowly and quietly rack the slide by hand again without attracting attention. Yes, if they didn't care about silence anymore, they could just spin the suppressor off, and that would leave the pistol operating as S&W designed it to.