You're an ass, but I like your style.

*starts to slow clap*

I concur with Gittmasha

An interesting idea…From all the background i could get from both Fan and Cannon….ive found that the standard bolters use .75 caliber shells..which ( pardon the pun) shoots the crap out of a pathetic .50 cal hand cannon round as .75 caliber translates to something eq of i believe almost 20mm for size..and that is definitely something you CANNOT use one handed …unless you want to loose that wrist of yours first shot..even with the special gloves…your aim would be innacurate unless you had some special trait or some such in order to use to fire the thing without sufficient Strength…id say a S bonus of 5 or higher to fire it at all as well as the recoil gloves in order to fire it without penalty…obviously the damage would be the same as a standard bolter round only the range would be comparable to a bolter pistol simply scaled down for humans to use and made into a revolver…as for shots…at THAT caliber size…youd have to carry the thing on your back..lol..anyone whos been miltary knows how big a 20mm shell is ( they are used in the grenade launchers and the M203 undermount on the M16A2 )..for a handgun to hold them in cylinder..id say no more than 5 shots..and even then..jeez..the actual size of the cylinder would be massive by comparison..not to mention the weight of the thing…

Damage: same as bolt pistol round

Range: comparable to bolt pistol

Weight: perhaps a kg or two lighter but i wouldnt go any lighter than that

# of Rounds of Ammo: for human sized use…id say no more than 5

Notes: id say for this to be made it would have to be custom#1 AND at LEAST of Good if not Best quality workmanship as result as you would be rennovating a STC template pattern idea/design with your own..and that is NOT something the mechanicum in its infinite incompetence looks highly on..aka tech heresy by their common standards. so in that case id say go for it..lol..( im my campaign i am in process of tearing the Terran-Martian treatise apart in favor of the Emperors intended ideals of science over idiotic religions…using remnants of the squats knowledge and STC cores to usurp the mechanicums tech monopoly

Traits potential: if your gonna want to use it in wild west style..then the two you have to have are gonna be Reliable and Accurate

Just my two cents though

I understand where you are coming from on caliber (especially if you look at how impractical the Pfeifer Zeliska in .600 NE is), but bolt weapons ARE NOT solid projectile weapons, which use the initial launching force to deal the damage. Bolt weapons use a 2-stage mode of firing and exploding shells (1st Stage: Small charge to launch it out of the weapon, 2nd Stage: Gyrojets for the serious propulsion, 3rd Stage: BOOM from the explosive inside on impact)

I suggest taking a look here for more info: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Boltgun#.T_3kBZGyrbg

Cobramax76 said:

A bolt revolver wouldn't be as unreasonable as you say, and here's why.

Caliber does not equate to the amount of recoil there would be. A .45 ACP pistol has less recoil than a revolver that fires .357 Magnum, yet the .45 ACP round is wider. The reason is that there's less powder behind it. Bolters (at least human bolters; Astartes bolters are another story) seem to have manageable recoil, as in the RAW, a Bolt Pistol does not require you to use two hands like a Hand Cannon does. The reason for this is that bolts are two-stage projectiles; an initial charge to get the bolt moving (which produces the majority of felt recoil) and the bolt's own gyro-rockets, which keep it spinning and propelled in-flight. The initial charge is to make sure the bolt has reasonable killing power at short range, and the rockets ensure high velocity and accuracy at long range. Because of the bolt's rockets, there does not need to be as much of a powder charge behind it compared to an equivalent SP round. So despite the .75 bolt's high caliber, there is less powder, and less felt recoil, than a the .51 magnum rounds used by the Tranter hand cannon (which do cause a penalty when fired one handed unless you're SB4 or higher or wearing recoil gloves).

Also, the grenade rounds used in modern military grenade launchers such as the M203 are 40mm, not 20mm as you said. .75 bolt shells would be only a little wider than a 12-gauge shotgun shell (by comparison, a 12 gauge shell is roughly .729 caliber). See that big revolver earlier in the thread that fired shotgun shells? That thing can chamber six 12-gauge shells. I think that a five-shot bolt revolver wouldn't be any bigger than that; it might even be a little smaller.

Basically, you've grossly overestimated the size and recoil of a bolt shell. If the handcannon was chambered for Astartes bolts, then there would be an issue, but otherwise I don't see the problem with it. Besides, in-setting, people fire bolt weapons one-handed all the time, such as Commissars or Battle Sisters. Why should this be any more of a problem?

Basically, it would look something like this. For an idea on how big it would be.

Yeah, no doubt it would be a big and heavy gun.

So, I think that there should be two patterns of it. So far I have the generic "bolt revolver";

Ranger-pattern Bolt Revolver
Class: Pistol (Bolt)
Range: 30m
ROF: S/-/-
Damage: 1d10+5 X
Pen: 4
Magazine: 6
Reload: 2Full
Special: Reliable, Tearing
Wt: 3.5kg
Cost: 200
Availability: Rare

The tradeoff for its reliability is a smaller capacity, longer reload, and reduced fire rate. On the plus side, it's cheaper, just like how a stub revolver is cheaper than both a stub automatic and an autopistol. However, the Mauler bolt pistol (in the Inquisitor's Handbook) has the same magazine capacity as the revolver while also being Reliable, but it costs 175 Thrones more. It also reloads faster and has a S/3/- fire rate. The Mauler's overpriced in my opinion anyway, compared to the standard bolt pistol.

And this one;

Enforcer-pattern Bolt Magnum
Class: Pistol (Bolt)
Range: 30m
ROF: S/-/-
Damage: 1d10+6 X
Pen: 4
Magazine: 5
Reload: 2Full
Special: Reliable, Tearing
Wt: 3.5kg
Cost: 275
Availability: Rare

When used by someone with a SB of 4 or less, requires two hands to use, or else the firer suffers a -10 penalty to hit due to the recoil.

Basically the same thing firing the Sacristan bolts, which are +1 damage and have bigger recoil. The downside is that it only holds 5 rounds instead of the usual 6, and it's not as cheap as the Ranger. The Sacristan, by comparison, costs 380 Thrones, 105 Thrones more than the Bolt Magnum, but again, possesses the advantage of fire rate, reload speed, and capacity (+1).

Tell me what you think of these, and how you might change them for balancing purposes. I've tried to make them as balanced as I can, but I admit that I'm not exactly flawless. For example, Cymbel thought that the Ranger pattern should hold 5 rounds instead of 6 (because hand cannons hold 5 rounds) while the Enforcer (the bigger one) should only hold 4. What do you guys think?

I would make the Ranger Pattern 3kg possibly and like I said on capacity, otherwise looking great!

Oi Boss! 'ow many teef it take gets one of dem smashier gunz big nuff for us boyz ta use dem as clubbas? Der just not 'eavy nuff for skullz smashin, ye green?

I dunno, c'mere an' I'll find out! Ya got a lotta teef in yer gob, hur hur hur!

This is the Good Samaritan from the Hellboy comics/movie. It is 20mm, which is .79 caliber, and holds four rounds in the cylinder. I'd imagine that the Enforcer-pattern would look like this, with the smaller Ranger-pattern being a five-rounder instead. It's huge, but it's pretty much par for the course as far as WH40k handguns go.

That makes the most sense.

The image doesn't seem to show up on my older post, so here it is again.