Or: why Sam has more guns, but Dean is the better shot
So I can’t find much proper meta about the weapons (and even the SPN wiki was making mistakes.) But I think there’s a goldmine of good character stuff here. Ryan Steacy has been the SPN armorer since the beginning of the show, and he’s put some really nice thought into the boys. Respect, love, appreciation for him.
So… I’ll just jump right in, shall I?
Dean’s M1911A1
Dean carries thebaddass American pistol. It’s very macho, very MURICA. The 1911 was the service gun during WWI & WWII, right up through the Korean war. So it gets (and deserves) a lotof love. They have a reputation for needing more maintenance than some modern pistols, but considering how often Dean’s just sitting there, casually cleaning while chatting with Sam, he probably sees this as more a feature than a bug. He’s a natural mechanic. Firearm maintenance is probably relaxing and zen for him.
(I do think that for Samit’s more a stressed-based compulsion. He tends to do it when he’s feeling helpless or scared. In “Hello, Cruel World” Dean interprets Sam’s gun-cleaning as sign that he’s in a bad headspace.
BOBBY: Well, at least he’s not curled up under the sink. DEAN: Yeah, no, he’s just sitting there silently field stripping his weapon.
And Hallucination!Lucifer sees it as evidence that Sam’s suicidal. Samgoes for a more traditionally low-maintenance pistol, and I kinda think Dean may clean it for him a lot of the time.)
But anyway. Dean’s 1911 holds large .45 caliber Colt ACP rounds - which means it can only fire sevenshots before he has to reload. (Sam’s pistol, by the way, can fire seventeenshots in a row.)
And people who like the 1911 say this is fine.The bullets are so big and the gun is so powerful that seven shots is all you need. (You hear the phrase “stopping power” or “knock-down power” a lot.) But there are also the people who think that the 1911 is just over-powerful, and it isn’t worth it to sacrifice carrying capacity and accuracy for pure force.
Like, I don’t think it’s ever explicitly stated, but of course he is?
Their entire childhood, it would have been Sam going back to the motel room early to studyordo his homework, while Dean dutifully puts in another three hours shooting coke cans off fenceposts.
This also helps explain his choice of handgun. Dean uses a less accurate pistol with a smaller carrying capacity because he can.He knows he’s going to hit the thing the first time. And if he’s going to be fighting literal wendigos, I guess he wants the holes he pokes in them to be as big as possible.
(plus all this classic Americana does kind of go with the Impala)
Sams’ Taurus PT92AFS
Sam spends the first season borrowing Dean’s Smith & Wesson 5906. It’s very clearly Dean’s - it fires .45 ACP rounds (Dean’s preference) and Dean sometimes actually loadsit before handing it over to Sam. Since Sam doesn’t actually want to be a hunter though most of S1, this makes perfect sense.
Then in S2, Sam gets his Taurus PT92AFS – basically, a budget version of the Beretta M92. In a lot of ways, the Taurus is the souped-up Honda civic you get when you can’t afford a Ferrari. (and in both cases, you’ll totally get people saying they’re being smart by not paying extra for the brand name.)
A Taurus PT92AFS is a practical and cautious choice. It’s not the least bit flashy. It’s light and accurate, it carries a lot of rounds, and they’re little .99mm rounds, which are more budget conscious and accurate than .45 ACP rounds.
Partway into S2, Sam’s Taurus gets nickel plating and pearl grip. Possibly Sam did this so his gun would match Dean’s. Or possibly Dean customized Sam’s pistol as a gift. (it’s the firearm equivalent of painting racing stripes on your car.) Either way, it’s a pretty darn cute touch.
@supernaturalwiki, it’s because the witch-killing bullets Sam makes are .45 ACP, not .99mm. They wouldn’t fit in Sam’s normal Taurus PT92AFS. He makes them for Dean, so of course he makes them in a caliber that Dean prefers.
Sam’s Taurus Judge is a close-quarters backup piece that fires five shots. This is just in case Dean (the better shot) isn’t able to take out the main threat. Hilariously, the Judge is a revolver that chambers both .45 ACP rounds andshotgun shells. This means Sam can load it up with rock-salt shells orwitch-killing bullets or silver bullets. So you know. Whatever’s on the menu that day.
Soulless!Sam’s Heckler & Koch Mk23
Sam switches over to this when he loses his soul, then switches backto his Taurus products when he gets his soul back. When Soulless!Sam and Sam!Sam fight in their vision quest, they fight Heckler & Koch vs Taurus.
The Heckler & Koch Mk23 is designed to have the power of Dean’s 1911 andthe carrying capacity of Sam’s .99mm handgun. So it’s huge, and very intimidating. It’s waterproof, crazy durable. It’s made by a fancy schmancy German defense contractor known for their precision engineering and their popularity with the special forces. H&K weapons are also known for being crazy expensive. This pistol would have set Sam back at least$2,000 (and for reference, you can get a Taurus PT92AFS for $500, easy.) So, either Soulless!Sam killed someone with a Mk23 and looted it, or somehow raised 2K very quickly. And I’m not even sure which option is more terrifying.
But the Mk23 still has that vibe of practicalityandcautionthat Sam seems drawn too. (’Over-prepared’ is a good word to describe it.) It’s still an in-character choice. Just, Soulless!Sam is more brusque and intimidating when he’s dealing with persons of interest, as opposed to Sam!Sam’s softer, more approachable manner. And I think those two attitudes are pretty well represented by the H&K Mk23 and the Taurus PT92AFS respectively.
Interestingly, the H&K Mk23 does not fire Sam’s normal .99mm bullets. It fires the larger .45 ACP caliber rounds. And Soulless!Sam can get away with this because - I’m pretty sure Soulless!Sam is a much better shot than Sam!Sam.
SAM: Ever since I came back, I am a better hunter than I’ve ever been! Nothing scares me anymore. ‘Cause I can’t feelit.
Like again, why wouldn’the be? Soulless!Sam is ice cold, steady heartbeat in a crisis. Marksmanship is a mental thing as much as it’s practice, and Soulless!Sam’s hands aren’t shaking. And that’swhy he eventually switches back to his Taurus PT92AFS. It doesn’t matter if your shots are more powerful, if they don’t hit anything.
(he still does havethat H&K Mk23, though. He cleans it when he’s in a bad mental place. It’s not like he borrowed it from the Campbells or anything.)
tl;dr
Dean uses big slow American bullets, because he’s a good enough shot to compensate. Sam uses little, accurate European bullets, and he uses a lot of them (because he’s cautious, and not quite as good as shot as his brother.) The witch-killing bullets Sam makes are a larger caliber, because he makes them for Dean. He’s got a little revolver that can take them, but he’d prefer it if he didn’t have to use it so much.
Soulless!Sam is both a better shot, and not adverse to giant expensive German handguns acquired though less-than-legal means. So he switches over to a pistol that shoots giant bullets, and lots of them.
(Also, disclaimer: I do not pretend to be a firearm expert. I’m just here to have fun.)
Corrections for Using the Above as a Writing Resource:
I’m seeing this post go by my dash with tags about using it as a writing resource, but there are some errors in it, so for more accurate writing about the handguns in spn, please take the following into account as well.
Like OP, I am not a firearms expert. The extent of my qualifications for writing about handguns is that I bought one for its intended purpose, regularly shot it for several years, and because I live in a state with tight gun control, was required to take a three month handgun usage class, taught by cops, to get my pistol permit. I welcome correction of any errors.
Ammunition
For people looking to write withtechnical accuracy about Sam and Dean’s handguns, probably the most important correction is that afaik, there is no such thing as “.99mm” ammunition. Sam’s Taurus takes what’s usually just called “9mm” rounds, or slightly more technically “9x19 parabellum”, or “9mm luger”.
Ammunition is classified by the diameter of the cartridge. A .45 has the decimal point in front because it’s .45 of an inch in diameter. A 9mm has no decimal point because it’s 9 millimeters in diameter. A 9x19 round is 9mm across and 19mm long.
.45 APC cartridges, as OP says, have more stopping power than 9mm, while 9mm cartridges are smaller and lighter, allowing both for more rounds before reloading and less recoil/greater accuracy. 9mm is by no means the cautious fallback choice of people with lesser gun handling skills though. 9mm is the most popular ammo in the world; like .45 ammunition, was designed for usage in guns originally made for war (”parabellum” is from the motto of the first manufacturer of 9mm cartridges and means “prepare for war”); and is used by more than half of police forces worldwide.
The meta of handguns (Or: handguns are made for killing/They ain’t no good for nothing else).
In the immortal words of Lynyrd Skynyrd and my gun safety instructor, handguns are made for killing. They’re easy to use and don’t actually take much skill to kill with. There’s slightly more to it than “point and pull trigger” but not a ton, especially compared to other skills like “drive a car from Point A to Point B” or “use a laptop to gain accurate information online”. Dean’s M1911A1 is a badass, classic piece of Americana that’s good at killing. Sam’s Taurus is a big, practical workhorse of a firearm that’s good at killing. They’re owned by two killers who are good at killing.
I think it’s fair, based on the rest of canon as a whole, to deduce that Sam and Dean’s choices of handgun are reflective of their different attitudes towards killing. Both Sam and Dean bear an intergenerational curse: Dean’s is that he’s good at killing and he likes it. Sam’s is that he’s good at killing and he doesn’t like it. Dean’s gun matches his identity; he’s a hunter and is proud of it. He loves classic Americana–his leather jacket, his car, his taste in music, and his gun–and he sees it as part of who he is. Sam’s gun also matches his identity; he’s a hunter because he has to be. He’s there to get the job done with as little of himself sucked into it as possible.
But nothing can be deduced from either canon or Sam and Dean’s handgun choices about who is a better killer. That’s not how handguns really work and it’s not how spn worked thematically.
Symbolism in media isn’t there to tell a story that is different than the story being told on the surface; it’s there to reinforce the story being told on the surface. Sam killed a super-powered vampire dude with razor wire and his bare hands. He destroyed himself with demon blood in order to kill better and with less collateral damage. Here he is shooting the scope off a sniper rifle with his handgun from down two floors and across a street:
Dean, obviously, is also an incredibly skilled and motivated killer. He tortured people for 40 years for a living. There’s a grenade launcher in the back of his car that’s a running gag for most of a season because he wants a chance to destroy something with it so badly. Cain calls him a worthy bearer of the Mark because he’s such a good killer, and he agrees (Sam, we find out later, is also qualified to bear the Mark).
I don’t know anything about sport shooting. Maybe in sport shooting, instructors do “start you off with baby .22mm [sic] bullets, then slowly move you up to something bigger“. But for defensive shooting, at least in my experience, they start you off with whatever gun you bought. A high caliber handgun is all I’ve ever shot and is honestly just not that hard to shoot accurately. Skill comes from practice. Sam and Dean both kill a lot. We’re supposed to understand that they’re not just good at it; they’re exceptional, and although it’s cool (like Han Solo) it’s also destroying them (like Luke Skywalker).
The idea that Sam is a less skillful killer because he doesn’t like it, that he makes witch killing bullets for Dean in Dean’s favorite caliber and then has to have a second gun to act as a back up for his more competent brother, that he picked his handgun because it’s low maintenance and then Dean cleans it for him anyway, or that he picked it to compensate for being a poorer shot–all of that is confirmation bias. None of it is anywhere in the text, and it comes from the idea that Dean is the protagonist and Sam is the deuteragonist. And the actual text of spn is not that.
Obviously, when you’re writing fic, neither technical accuracy nor adherence to canon is necessarily paramount or even desirable. A fic writer might not even be interested in them at all, and that’s fine. But if thoseare factors you want to consider, then I hope this will be a helpful addition.
