Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide a compact & easily concealable slugthrower pistol in Lucerne Personal Defense's inventory
- Image Source: here
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Personal Defense
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Lucerne Personal Defense customers
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: LPD-62 Firefist Compact Pistol
- Modularity: Ammunition
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Ceramisteel barrel, frame, slide, and internal components, spun-plast recoil-dampening grip inserts, Magnatomic Grip Panel
- Classification: Compact Slugthower Pistol
- Size: Very Small
- Weight: Average
- Ammunition Type: Slugs
- Ammunition Capacity: Very Small (5 slugs + 1 slug in chamber)
- Effective Range: Personal
- Rate of Fire: Average
- Damage Output: High
- Recoil: Average
- Slugthrower: The Firefist is a roller locked delayed blowback firearm that uses conventional cartridges consisting of a projectile, propellant, and primer. This relatively simple design makes it exceptionally reliable in the field and unaffected by ion or EMP weapons.
- Modular Slugs: As with many other conventional slugthrowers, there is a wide variety of ammunitions available for it, ranging from simple hollow-point ammunition and armor-piercing bullets to exotic explosive tipped rounds and acid-filled bullets. It is also backwards compatible with many other ammunition types offered by third party vendors.
- Compact: The Firefist is a very compact weapon, which can easily be concealed by most people, even if it's just in a pant's pocket.
- Heavy Hitting: The Firefist fires a large 12mm caliber bullet at subsonic speeds, relying more on the mass of the bullet to provide "knock-down" power. The relatively large size of this bullet also means that specialty slugs have more room for their actual payload, making them more powerful than many of their smaller caliber counterparts.
- Short-Range: The weapon's short barrel, small sight radius, and subsonic round means that the Firefist has a fairly short effective range.
- Small Ammunition Capacity: Because the Firefist is so small in order to make it more concealable, its magazine is also corresponding small.
Small, concealable weapons have long held steady sales throughout the galaxy for obvious reasons: it's easy to keep the up the appearance and normality of being apparently unarmed despite not actually being so - whether the reason is luring your opponent into a false sense of security or not offending polite company. The LPD-62 builds off of the much earlier Stormburst pistol, using the same basic firing mechanism and powerful, subsonic 12mm Stormburst cartridge. However, the Firefist is much more refined to be a smaller design, and one with a denser frame in order to better absorb recoil for its smaller size. In this respect, the Firefist is surprisingly successful - it is actually much more pleasant to fire than its predecessor, having a recoil typical of most common slugthrower pistols. Unfortunately, these tradeoffs come at the cost a very limited ammunition capacity and the lack of any real ability to custom the weapon itself. However, the Firefist does have a fairly wide variety of ammunition available for it.
Full Metal Jacket: A simple solid slog of lead or other dense material covered in a thin jacket of copper, plasteel, or another gilding agent. This is probably the most common and cheapest ammunition available for the Firefist. It is reasonably effective against most person-sized targets.
Hollow-Point: Another common variety, the hollow-point is designed to rapidly expand in diameter when it hits a target. While this makes it inefficient at penetrating through personal armor, it also ensures peak performance in unarmored targets with a very little chance of overpenetration. This often favored by bodyguards and law enforcement agents who are worried about causing collateral damage to bystanders, as the shots typically won't penetrate through the intended target or through most forms of cover.
Armor Piercing Explosive: This is basically a hollow-point bullet whose internal cavity filled with detonite. When the bullet collides with the target or object, the kinetic impact detonates the detonite. Because of the shape of the metallic portion of this bullet, it actually acts as a micro-shaped charge, with the detonite being focused forward into the target. This ammunition, like its Galactic Civil War counterpart, is well-suited for penetrating through many body armors.
Micro Tracker: This low-powered cartridge actually contains a micro-tracker covered in instant adhesive gel contained within a thin gilding of pre-stressed plasteel. When the bullet hits the target, the plasteel almost instantly falls apart, allowing the micro-tracker to stick to the target via the adhesive. With less propellant than most cartridges, it is actually nearly silent and doesn't have much momentum on impact. This allows the user to surreptitiously track individuals or objects with a little planning and/or luck.
Poisoned: Officially marketed only for use against dangerous apex predators, this round consists of mirrsteel barbed bullet liberally coated in Cyanoxis D-570. Upon impact, the barbs irregularity carve up deep channels into the wound and then act to make bullet removal more difficult and damaging, while the poison furthers blood loss, frequently leading to deep internal bleeds and blood trails that can be easily followed.
Stun Bullet: This round consists of lightly-constructed plastic shell that contains bothan stun spores. Upon impact, the spores either enter the body or can be inhaled by the target. Depending on the target, the effect can range from mild nausea and vomiting to unconsciousness.
Acid-Filled: At a glance, this appears to be a typical full metal jacket cartridge. However, the jacket of this round actually acts as a reservoir for Trifaraleen gas. If the bullet penetrates into the target, the gas will be released into the target itself to rapidly eat at tissue. Against impact against armor and other hard objects, the gas will rapidly corrode a portion of the impacted target before dissipating away.
It's not uncommon to hear of other custom loads for 12mm Stormburst that are hand-loaded by individual users and smaller vendors. While officially silent on the use of such third party ammunition, it's not uncommon to hear LPD salesmen reference such ammunition when a potential client or buyer is mulling over their options. The compact nature of the Firefist along with its relatively good stopping power have led to it largely be sold as a back-up weapon to police, VIPs, and undercover agents. These same traits have also made it relatively appealing to the private citizen who is able to obtain a concealed weapons license on many planets. Thus, the Firefist isn't likely to ever have any large contracts from any organizations, it's expected to be sold in large numbers to individuals throughout the galaxy.
