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Telling the difference between a machine pistol and a compact SMG
The following is an article I was writing up for the "General Information" section of IMFDB. It was written to clear up any confusion regarding whether a firearm using pistol-caliber cartridges is a pistol-caliber carbine, or a machine pistol, or an SMG. I would like to hear the community's feedback on it.
----- How to tell the difference between a machine pistol, a pistol-caliber carbine, and a submachine gun. There can be some confusion regarding just where the differences between these three firearm types chambered for pistol cartridges lies. This article was written to help IMFDB's users with that problem. The iconic machine pistol is a handgun with select-fire capability, or else a handgun capable of fully-automatic fire. And the handgun classification is defined partially by its ergonomics; it has no dedicated place to put your offhand in a different place than your trigger hand, and has no buttstock whatsoever. A true submachine gun, however, has ''both'' a buttstock and a dedicated place to put your non-trigger hand (whether this a sufficiently-long handguard, a foregrip, a protruding magazine well, etc.), as well as select-fire or fully-automatic fire capability. With the exception of the [[Izhmash PP-19 Bizon]] (largely because you don't really have a choice in the matter given how the helical magazine blocks the handguard from below and you shouldn't put your hand in a place that blocks the iron sights), a firearm's magazine doesn't count as a dedicated place to put your off hand, since that will likely cause a malfunction. Both these features, along with select-fire or fully-automatic fire capability, are necessary for a firearm chambered for handgun cartridges to be considered a true submachine gun. Examples
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