[@Themerlinhawk] sorry I'm being a nit picky gun nut, but I didn't really understand:

"he fitted a compensator to the end of it(the pitol) which would prevent the gun from coming out of battery if he pressed the muzzle against another entity"

Maybe I'm reading the phrase wrong, but I do know that what a compensator does is help compensate for kick of a firearm- sorry, I was just reading over the posts again and that sentence stuck out to me.