laststandonzombieisland

Whereas a rifle can reach out and touch someone, handguns have always been more up close and personal while knife fighting has been described as the most intimate combat scenario of them all. So what could be better for those who relish a good gutter fight than a knife attached to a handgun?

In Renaissance Europe, defense weapons began to increasingly fall into one of two categories: ranged weapons like guns and bows that hurled objects and projectiles, and edged weapons, like knives and swords, used to pierce, hack and slice.

An era of innovative ideas, it did not take weaponsmakers long to start attempting to combine the two. For example, the pike (basically a long spear and one of the most effective weapons in human history) was augmented first by the musket and then finally replaced by the bayonet—which turned a musket into a pike.

The ability to retain the advantage of distance (even if your gun is out of commission) makes the bayonet seem obvious, but why would one want to apply this same concept to a handgun? Truly ridiculous, you say? Well, these hybrid knife-pistols were the original pig stickers. Hunters in Europe in the 15th century added long bladed knives to the end of their flintlock pistols so they could have a means of defense in the event that the boar they chased wasn’t dropped by the weak and unreliable boom stick of the day. These combos remained popular until gun science got its act together.

Here’s five of our favorite knife handguns in my column at GUNS.com