Pendragon Special

The Pendragon Special is a hand gun manufactured by Lands and Grooves, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Consolidated Head-Melters, itself owned by the Gudersnipe Foundation. The weapon was initially developed by Hunter Jusenkyou while he was a student at Gudersnipe School, then later re-designed and developed for mass-production. It did not acquire it's name until the Age of the Dragon, when Hunter became Pendragon and began carrying it as his usual side-arm. Prior to then, Hunter refered to it simply as "my killing gun", while it was listed in L&G's catalog simply as "Special Model 23-2". At the time it was only available to Gudersnipe students and to Crimson Blade elite special forces. It was later made available to law enforcement though was not popular, and a heavily modified civilian version was also sold.

Design

The basis of the weapon is a semi-automatic revolver chambered four a .44 large bore caliber round. Hunter chose this initially for it's improved stopping-power, though he also usually had a standard-issue nine millimeter due to increased ammunition availability. He preferred the auto-revolver for it's faster rate of fire, and being a particularly accurate shooter, he chose a design that fired from the bottom chamber of the cylinder to provide better recoil reduction. Most of the design is well-known, but the primary improvement Hunter made was to add a second, larger barrel on top of the first. This was chambered for a sixteen-gauge shotgun round, and could be accessed with a selector-switch. The weapon was devastating at close range, while also being able to fire the hand gun rounds with incredible accuracy over distance. Hunter is said to have specifically delighted in combatants expecting him to be out of ammunition, only to find themselves dealing with a shotgun blast in close-quarters.

Hunter's original prototype was all metal and quite heavy. The gun was very reliable, though complex in it's design, and required every part to be laboriously hand-tooled. After showing it off on various missions, he began receiving requests for copies from other students. This greatly complicated the logistics, as the barrels wore out quickly and the hand-tooled parts were often quite fragile.

Working with Jason Bur'I, the pair finalized the design and published complete plans for the weapon