the fastest handgun in the world ?

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a colt 1911 cycle rate is 600 rounds per minute.
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The cyclic rate is more than double that. I've fired a legal open bolt FA Mac 11 in .380 caliber...one of the old ones...and it burns'em up quick. The advertised cyclic rate is 1250 rpms. The 1911 in full auto is at least that fast.

i'm sure a lighter, faster bullet out of an auto will cycle much faster
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I seriously doubt if that would make any difference at all in a locked breech pistol.

And in a straight blowback, you could increase the slide velocity a little rearward by bumping up the pressure...but that has a limit unless you're into blowing cases. Velocity forward is limited by the spring rate. I suppose you could increase pressure to proof levels and up the spring rate...assuming that you can find a stouter spring for a given straight blowback design...but the increase in cyclic rate would be too small for the exercise to be of any practical consequence.
 
My vote goes to my Walther P99 QA, which stands for "Quick Action". I think all of my guns cycle and reset much faster than I'm able to control, aim and shoot well however.
 
I realize we're talking about semi-autos, but if you include full-autos, I think the little Trejo .22LR would rank pretty high. IIRC, its cyclic is around 1,400+/- RPM. :D

Back to the original question, as other said, pretty much anything is going to cycle faster than you can pull the trigger on a semi-auto.
 
A 1911 or Glock have pretty short trigger resets. Others may be faster, but those would be my GUESS based on my experience.

A shooter who knows what he is doing can shoot a DA revolver faster than a common shooter with most semi-autos.
 
Originally posted by two-gun-charlie:
Believe me buddy somewhere in the world there is somebody who knows this , and that is who I am looking for , or anyone who can take a calculated guess , that is why I am asking , so that I don't have to try and figure out something that someone else already knows ... that is what forums are all about right
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I don't believe you ... until you find that guy and post the research results for us to see.

Seriously though, I don't even see why anyone would have tried to answer that question for a semi-auto pistol.
 
i'd love to hear about the "modification" you have planned. are the laws such in the republic of south africa that you can legally modify a semi auto handgun in that way?
 
The cyclic rate is more than double that.
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Correct. The lowest figure I can find for a 1911 cyclic rate is 1100rpm.
...if you had the fastest trigger finger in the world which handgun would have no problem keeping up...
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No one has ever demonstrated the ability to run a typical semi-auto faster than it is capable of cycling despite claims to the contrary. The numbers are pretty conclusive, and until someone documents the ability to shoot splits (shot-to-shot intervals) that are shorter than 0.055 seconds, the cyclic rate of the pistol is not the limiting factor.
As fast as a 1911 is, I've seen video of both Jerry Miculek and Bob Munden shoot revolvers faster than their 1911's, both are (Munden was, he passed away within the last year) also very good with the 1911, but since they are so fast, they have to wait for the slide to cycle with the auto pistol.
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No human has ever documented the ability to shoot a DA revolver faster than a 1911 can cycle. The 1911 system is capable of cycling at a rate of well over 1000 rounds per minute. 18 or 19 rounds per second is about right from what I can determine. Other semi-auto pistols are similar--the Glock runs around 1100rpm and the Beretta 92 is higher at 1200-1300rpm.

Miculek is capable of shooting about 8 or 9 shots a second with a DA revolver. McGivern's record has him shooting 5 shots in 2/5 of a second which if you work it all out ends up being somewhere between 11 and 13 shots per second if you trust the very limited capability timing equipment he used. Both much slower than a typical semi-auto pistol can cycle.

Munden was probably capable of achieving a single split (two shot interval) that was shorter than a semi-auto could match by using a specialized fanning technique on a heavily modified single action revolver--not by actually pulling the trigger. My best estimate from watching slow motion videos was a split of about 0.03 or less. He was able to get 2 shots off so fast that the ear couldn't resolve the report into two sounds. However, his actual rate of fire for 5 or 6 shots was much slower since the fanning technique he used for the 2 shot demonstration wasn't adaptable to a longer string of fire than 2 shots.

Munden's feat does demonstrate that a revolver CAN theoretically cycle faster than an autopistol (assuming it's beefed up to take the abuse involved with violently starting and stopping the cylinder rotation that the feat requires. However, in practice it's not possible for a human trigger finger to drive a revolver mechanism fast enough to make it happen--at least no one has ever documented such an ability.
 
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"Jerry Miculek and Bob Munden do not use revolvers because they pull the trigger on semi's too fast.... Jerry's split times with a handgun are around .12 seconds, which is more than enough time for any semi automatic pistol to cycle."

Do we care about aimed fire? How long after the slide returns to battery does its momentum continue to affect the shooter's hand? My CZ52 noticeably jarred my hand downward after each shot; faster than my finger could pull, but slow enough to distract me. Replacing the worn/weak spring with a stonger Wolff model cycles the slide fast enough, that by the time I perceive recoil has "ended" there is no additional motion to counteract as the barrel is brought down. Revolvers are "faster" for the same reason; no moving parts between trigger pulls.

TCB
 
Thanks RC and Sheepdog , I want this information because I am planning a little "modification" and I need to buy a pistol that will be able to cycle really, really fast
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Dude--- you're aware this is a public forum, right? You may be about 30 years too late for the wrong "modification".
 
barnbwt said:
"Jerry Miculek and Bob Munden do not use revolvers because they pull the trigger on semi's too fast.... Jerry's split times with a handgun are around .12 seconds, which is more than enough time for any semi automatic pistol to cycle."

Do we care about aimed fire? How long after the slide returns to battery does its momentum continue to affect the shooter's hand? My CZ52 noticeably jarred my hand downward after each shot; faster than my finger could pull, but slow enough to distract me. Replacing the worn/weak spring with a stonger Wolff model cycles the slide fast enough, that by the time I perceive recoil has "ended" there is no additional motion to counteract as the barrel is brought down. Revolvers are "faster" for the same reason; no moving parts between trigger pulls.

TCB
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Aimed fire? When these guys shoot that fast they aren't "aiming". They are point shooting at a target close enough that their natural recoil control allows then to pull the trigger as fast as they physically can and still be on target. The fact that they hit the target is great, but even if they were okay with missing they wouldn't be any faster. I have shot with Jerry, and that is what he said. His daughter, Lena, said the same thing about his shooting.
 
I think that a short barreled blow-back would be fastest, all other things being equal.

My CZ 83 is very fast.
And it's very controllable because it's a relatively heavy .380 pistol with a full grip.
 
the thompson sub machine gun is a blowback design, fires the 45 acp cartridge and has a cycle rate of 600 - 750 rounds per minute.

pphs41 russian sub machine gun - 900 rpm
m3a1 grease gun - 350 - 450 rpm
m2 50 cal. machine gun - 400 to 550 rpm
browning automatic rifle - 450/650 rpm select fire

source: koreanwaronline.com

can't find the source for the 600 rpm cycle rate on the colt 1911, yet. i'll let you know when i find it. in the mean time, johnksa and tuner, i'd appreciate it if you both would list your source(s) for your claims.

murf
 
pphs41 russian sub machine gun - 900 rpm
m3a1 grease gun - 350 - 450 rpm
m2 50 cal. machine gun - 400 to 550 rpm
browning automatic rifle - 450/650 rpm select fire
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All of the guns you list are automatic rifles, crew-served weapons or submachineguns, not locked breech pistols. Furthermore, an extremely high cyclic rate is generally considered undesirable so most of those designs have features built in especially to keep the cyclic rate fairly low.

Source for the Glock cyclic rate is the armorers course materials for the G18 which is a full auto version of the 17 for all practical purposes.

Source for the Beretta 92 cyclic rate is based on the 93R cyclic rate. The 93R is basically a full-auto 92 but is actually suppoed to have a cyclic rate retarder to drop the cyclic rate a little.

Source for the 1911 is various. I've poked around over the years and read a lot on the topic. One of the best ways to determine it is to find people who have had a timer on one when it accidentally went full auto.

This thread is an example of that:
http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22967
One source mentions timer data from 1911 that went full-auto citing splits in the 0.05 to 0.06 range (1200 to 1000rpm) . A number of other shooters on the thread confirm that number.

Here's a description of a full-auto 1911 variant that had a cyclic rate of 1000rpm--the weight of the compensator would have slowed the rate of fire somewhat which makes a 1100 rpm rate credible for an unmodified 1911.
http://www.guns.com/2012/09/26/lebman-1911-machine-pistol/
 
johnksa,

found some more info on wikipedia (i know, don't laugh). the h&k vp70 - 2200 rpm (3 round bursts), glock 18 - 1100 to 1200 rpm, beretta 93r - 1100 rpm (3 round bursts), c96 mauser (model 711 and 712) - 1000 rpm, mac 10 - 1145 rpm (45acp).

also, the early thompsons would fire at 2200 rpm.

still doesn't change the fact that the colt 1911 as tested bu army ordinance had a cycle rate of 600 rpm. i'll find the reference one of these days.

interesting stuff. if you want the wiki info look under "machine pistol".

murf
 
Murf, I guess you must be assuming that I don't have any experience with full auto weapons or 1911s going sideways and burst firing after a botched trigger job.

At one time, I worked for a Class 3 dealer and had the opportunity to fire a good many full auto arms...including a few Uzis that actually did have a 600 rpm cyclic rate.

I never had occasion to measure the cyclic rate of a malfunctioning 1911 that goes burp...but I've fired .45 Mac 10s that are advertised at 1075 rpms...and a 1911 is noticeably faster.

And if you'd ever had one take off on you, you'd have known.
 
I've seen jerry run faster than 600 rpm in a 1911. It is much faster than that.

The 93R is basically a full-auto 92 but is actually suppoed to have a cyclic rate retarder to drop the cyclic rate a little
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The 93 is an interesting little beast. Instead of just having the hammer follow and strike immediately after the slide returns to battery, it actually waits to drop the hammer. The slide fully returns to battery with the hammer back and then the hammer flies.. was interesting to see in slow motion.
 
Bump Fire

Someone in this thread mentioned "Bump Fire" on a 1911. I've tried to shoot like McCulik (spelling?) and can fire several rounds a second with reasonable accuracy at 7 yards. However, I do not remotely approach McCulick's speed. Someone explain how you bump fire a 1911?
 
A Master Class USPSA shooter told me once upon a time that the slide on a 1911 reciprocates in 4/100s of a second. For comparison most of the semiauto shotguns on the market today cycle in 12-13/100s of a second. I have never heard of someone fire two rounds and having "split times" or time between shots of 4/100s of a second, due to the reaction time involved when tripping the second shot after the first.

For comparison most world class fast draw competitors can draw, fire, and hit with a single action revolver in around .200 of a second or 20/100s of a second.

To answer the OPs question, I would say the 1911 has the fastest cyclic rate, but I have yet to see an in depth study of the cyclic rates of other handguns using high speed photography or any other high tech measuring devices. If somebody knows of one, please let us know. That would be a great read :).

Just my .02,
LeonCarr
 
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To answer the OPs question, I would say the 1911 has the fastest cyclic rate, but I have yet to see an in depth study of the cyclic rates of other handguns using high speed photography or any other high tech measuring devices.
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The 9mm H&K VP70 was a blowback operated pistol that sported an 18-round magazine. It was, for all practical purposes, a machine pistol. Attaching the shoulder stock provided 3-round bursts at a blazing (advertised) 2,000 rpms. Having fired one, I can believe that figure. It was some kinda fast. You could buy the VP70 legally just like any other semi-auto pistol. Add the shoulder stock, and you had to ante up the cost+the 200-dollar stamp.
 
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