The Kimball Pistol

A surprising amount of handguns have been chambered in Rifle Rounds. Not just those technical Ar15 and AK "Pistols", but lots of interesting and unique firearms, such as Remington XPs and others. The .30 Carbine was a truly ubiquitous round in Postwar America, and ended up becoming a caliber in Ruger Blackhawk revolvers, AMT Automags, and the Kimball Pistol of the mid to late 1950s is perhaps the lesser known of the three.

A couple weird observation on my part: Does anyone else notice a magazine release?

It was a failure of a gun. Roughly based on a High Standard rimfire semi automatic pistol, its half-slide setup is the same design, and even with a heavy recoil spring I couldn't imagine that small bit of slide could take much high pressure punishment. It's locking system consisted of a ring shaped bore that allowed the case to expand, achieved its lockup through case swaging. Not only that, but the slide, upon firing, continued backwards until stopped by a vertical post (also like High Standards/Colts). This system ensured that the post would take a huge amount of abuse. If the vertical post got worn down enough along with the pathetic slide lugs (and they would) then nothing would stop the slide from burying itself into the shooter's face.

Funny enough, in the same vein of taking rimfire frames and making them center fires, High Standard made for three years the G-380, basically a .380 ACP caliber High Standard HD (I think, I always mess up their models). Its neat to see the huge interest that this simple, fixed barrel half slide setup evoked in early postwar shooters.