whipitgood wrote:
The reason I say give him a new gun, is that he obviously had more than one in the course of the series. That seems to be the only thing I could tolerate changing. Also if I were him I would purchase a more recent firearm that had refinements over my previous guns. It could even be the same model of gun, but maybe slightly better or different in design.
Except for the new models with the plastic frames, and the higher capacity magazines, handguns really haven't changed much since the 30s. Some of the detail styling has changed, and the fashion trend has been away from revolvers and towards pistols. Stainless steel and polymers have really been big over the last ten years, but in the 50s there weren't very many good pistols and the selection was just about the same as it would have been in the 30s.
Two of the best pistols of the mid-1900s were both Browning designs; the High Power and the 1911. Both of which were around when ROTLA was set. Others, like the Luger pistol and the Mauser, are decent designs but really wouldn't have fit well with the Indy character because of their association with Nazi Germany. Besides, he already used a modified Mauser in another great movie he was in. Anyone know it?
Revolvers really haven't evolved much at all since the 30s. There have been virtually no changes made to the current designs when compared with designs from the 30s and 40s. The Webley top break design was weak and antiquated even when Indy was carrying it and is considered to be obsolete as a tool, although it is a collectable curiousity by today's standards. The British military was extremely late in making that gun obsolete, in my opinion. The British have never placed a high priority on staying current with military technology. They used the Lee-Enfield bolt action until 1957. Almost 20 years after the USA had switched over to the semiauto Garand. Although I have to say that the British replacement for the Lee-Enfield, the L1A1, is truly a great design. It's interesting to note that it was based on the FN FAL, also a design by John Browning.
The point to all of this is that, even if Indiana did want to switch to another type of handgun, he really didn't have a lot of choices available at that time in history. There really would not have been a practical reason for Indy to use a different gun. It would have taken additional practice and training for him to become comfortable with it, and there would not have been any advantage.
For example, look at the 1911 style of handgun, except for some styling and materials changes in recent years, it has survived basically unchanged for about a hundred years now. If you had a current factory production 1911 from one of the better known makers, such as Colt or Springfield, most all of the parts would swap out with a military issue gun from WW2. The High Power is similar.
