Pistols

***"A handgun in a survivor's hands can mean the difference between life and death in any situation. Even a trained soldier needs it's backup when his main weapon fails.'"***

*Joel's Journal, Entry #4 "On Firearms"*

## Overview

Pistols in Deathwish are the most basic of firearms. They usually have low damage when compared to other types of firearms, and their smaller magazines, as a rule of thumb, makes them a last-resort firearm. However, at the same time, they are the most prevalent type of firearm, being easier to make, loot and maintain than any other type.

As a rule of thumb, with it's outliers here and there, pistols are very close to each other in what it refers to stats; a 9mm pistol, for example, will behave very similarly regardless of it's type. This is due to the design and functionality of the firearm being exactly what it is supposed to be: a personal defense weapon for those that do not have any other firearms.

In the zombie apocalypse of 7 Days to Die, you'll notice that most of the ammunition you'll find are chambered for pistols. Also, interchangeability between pistol parts is very high. There is always a good chance that the pistol parts you have can be used in a different pistol by just changing one of it's parts.

There are three subtypes of pistols: Semi-auto, Automatic and Burst Fire pistols.

* Semi-auto pistols function like the vanilla 7 Days to Die Pistol. Each left click shoots the gun. Some pistols have lower or higher rate of fire, meaning you can shoot more if you click fast in the latter case. Examples of semi-auto pistols: SIS P226, Crock 20, Alpha Noble.
* Automatic pistols are SMG-Pistol hybrids. enabling the player to hold the mouse click and let the gun fire. The usual low magazine size, higher recoil and lower damage output means they cannot outperform SMGs. Trigger-happy survivors may find automatic pistols to consume much more ammunition then semi-autos, for obvious reasons. However, auto pistols can take survivors out of dire situations with a well-timed spray to a zombie's face. Example of automatic pistol: the Czech 57.
* Burst-fire pistols are not hybrids, but an unique niche in Semi-auto pistols which require specific ammunition to be shot ("Trishots", or "Doubleshots"). For example, the Rook 334  shoots 2-shot bursts of 9mm ammunition. In order to load the gun, the player must craft 9mm Doubleshot ammunition to feed it. So, if a gun is carrying 9 shots in it's magazine, it actually means there are 18 bullets inside to be fired, and each shot consumes 2 bullets. This is done because the game mechanics do not allow ammunition consumption higher than 1. The obvious advantage is the extra firepower given by shooting more than one round per shot, sometimes even putting some burst pistols above in power when in comparison to higher calibers. Also, burst pistols are sturdy, and on a per round analysis outperforms both semi and automatic pistols. The downsides are the extra effort needed to craft their specific ammunition, the burst spread which disallows long-range shooting and overkill shots, which consume the extra ammunition that on a semi-auto wouldn't be wasted.

Pistols can be fed a wide variety of ammunition, ranging from .22LR to even 5.56mm, but most use small caliber bullets, like 9mm, 10mm or .45 ACP.

## Crafting

Every pistol is made out of four parts: Frame, Slide, Barrel and Miscellaneous Parts. All pistols, like nearly every other firearms, have interchangeable parts, which means that you can take, for example, the Slide of a firearm and use it in another different firearm. With the exception of the Miscellaneous Parts, which are proprietary and need to be looted, all the other parts can be either removed from other pistols or crafted if the player loots a Gunsmithing - Pistols book.

Example: If a survivor has an Iron Slide, it can be combined with an Iron Frame and an Iron Barrel if he has the Zaurus 81 Misc Parts to make the respective pistol. If he manages to loot a Polymer Pistol Frame, and a Crock 23 Misc Parts, the survivor can use the rest of the Zaurus 81's parts to craft a Crock 23.

## List of Deathwish Pistols

* 6P9
* A2011
* Alpha Noble
* AMT Hitman
* Asp
* Automag Mark IV
* Belfort 12
* Berille 87 Target
* Berille 93R
* Conan 357
* Croatian 2k
* Crock 17
* Crock 18
* Crock 19
* Crock 23
* Crock 33
* Crock 40
* Czech 52
* Czech 57
* Grynov 18
* Heisenberg 38
* Heisenberg 99
* Heisenberg K
* Imp
* Little Hammer
* Little Rocket
* Mokarev
* N99
* Kard
* P11
* P2K
* P30
* Pernarch
* Regul P02
* Regul P08
* Rook 334
* Royal Condor
* Savanna Condor
* Serdyukov
* Silver Witness
* SIS Aedes
* SIS P226
* SIS P228
* SIS P250
* SR MK III
* SR MK III-S
* Sterling 35
* Sterling HP
* Tershal 57
* Tershal X45
* Thebes
* Tokarev-30
* UCP MK II
* USLP
* Volks 70
* Vulture
* Waedoo K5
* Wesmith 659