Pistol

“

Bang! I make it look easy! Click to listen — The Scout

”

The Pistol is the secondary weapon for the Scout and Engineer classes. Its accuracy, while not exceptional, is superior to that of the Scattergun or Shotgun. It is useful for hitting targets at medium or long range or as a last ditch effort when the primary weapon is out of ammunition. The Pistol is very useful for destroying Sticky bombs and taking out unsupervised Sentry guns from outside of their range. The Pistol suffers from medium damage falloff, despite being a single-projectile weapon, and combined with its relatively weak damage per hit, is often neglected by many players. However, when fired at maximum speed, this weapon is formidable in the hands of an experienced player, and has an extremely fast reload speed. In combination with the First blood buff, the Pistol is an incredibly lethal tool that can kill any enemy, overhealed or otherwise, in a single magazine. Like the Revolver and SMG, the Pistol fires a single, perfectly-accurate shot before 'bullet spread' goes into effect, so long as the player has waited at least 1.25 seconds since firing the last shot.

Damage

• Base: 15
• Max Ramp Up: 150% (22 damage)
• Max Fall Off: 50% (8 damage)
• Point Blank: 20-22
• Medium Range: 10-15
• Long Range: 8-9
• Mini-crit: 20
• Critical hit: 45

Medium range is defined as length of the main resupply door to the opposite wall on the upper level of 2Fort. Long range is defined as the length from battlement to battlement on 2Fort. Base damage is the damage done at 512 units before damage variance or bullet spread. Ramp up maxes out at 0 units. Fall off maxes out at 1024 units. Damages are approximate and determined by community testing.

Function times

• Attack Interval: 0.17 (6 rounds/second)
• Reload: 1.36 (Engineer) or 1.25 (Scout)
• Spread Recovery: 1.25

All times are in seconds. Times are approximate and determined by community testing.

Trivia

• Neither the hammer nor slide on the Pistol model move when the gun is fired, even in world view. In fact,the Pistol's firing animation is just a recoil.
• A community-made pack exists that makes the Pistol look and sound like the Scout's scrapped weapon, the Nailgun.
• When the Engineer reloads, it appears he simply slaps on the new magazine. Careful observation or a large field of view reveals that the magazine simply falls out during the first few frames of the reload animation.
• The closest real-life equivalent to the Pistol is the PSM, the featherweight Soviet self-defense Pistol firing a tiny 5.45mm cartridge and not intended for any serious use beyond point blank range.
• At point blank range, the Pistol is much more powerful than the Bat, and assuming you wouldn't get a Crit it is usually more effective than the Wrench as an Engineer. But due to the scarce ammo the Scout carries and the Wrench's high Crit rate, this is not recommended.
• The Shotgun, Pistol, and Pain Train are the only weapons in the game to be used by more than one class.
• While the Pistol behaves like an automatic firearm, the user is simply pulling the trigger very quickly. Originally, players could fire faster by rapidly tapping the mouse, but now fires as fast as holding the primary fire down.
• When the Scout reloads, he flips the Pistol around and slots in the new magazine mid-flip. This is not only nearly impossible, but also extremely dangerous as there would possibly still be a round in the chamber. Fortunately, accidental discharges are not simulated ingame.
• The Engineer holds the Pistol with one hand, whilst the Scout holds it with two hands. However, if the Engineer is running backwards while firing, he will hold it with both hands in world view.
• The Scout wields (and reloads) the Pistol differently in first-person than in the world view. To the player, his left hand is clenched beneath the magazine, but to everybody else he's holding it normally with both hands.

See also

• Scout's Pistol Strategy
• Engineer's Pistol Strategy

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