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Terminology note: in American gun law, a "handgun" is defined as a weapon which is designed to be fired with a single point of contact with the shooter's body, with no reference to the weapon's caliber. Any pistol which incorporates a forward grip (such as the Beretta 93R) or a stock (such as the Mauser C96) is instead classified as either a "Short-Barrelled Rifle" or an "Any Other Weapon" (except for C&R pistols with original production stocks, which don't count because reasons). This is not the technical definition; a handgun is any weapon which is primarily designed for a single-point grip and fires a pistol cartridge, or any revolver which lacks a shoulder stock and forward grip (ie, which is not a revolving rifle, cylinder-fed grenade launcher, revolver cannon or full-size shotgun), regardless of what it fires.

"Pistol" is sometimes held to refer only to weapons with a single chamber in order to differentiate such weapons from revolvers, but this is not a formal classification. However, revolvers are placed in Category:Revolver rather than on this page.

Muzzle-Loading

Breech-Loading

Manual Repeaters

Self-Loading

Flare Pistols

Legal "Pistols"

These weapons satisfy the legal definition of a "pistol" but fire intermediate rounds and therefore are actually semi-automatic compact carbines.