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Is there any info on how much plasma pistol is weighted? Cause it's huge slab of metal and they hold it on straight arm? With no any servo support or anything. Or there some type of anti-grav tech inside? I understand when it's some sm with PA and all, but guards for example?

It’s gonna depend what it’s made of.

Given their propensity to overheat, and not needing your traditional firing mechanism, it could well be the majority of the weapon is made from Space Plastics, reducing the weight, and presumably thermosetting, so it doesn’t go all floppy when hot (oooer)

Other than that? There’s a flash of chemicals for the ammo/fuel, cooling coils and magnetic doodads to contain the resultant shot.

Whether we’ve a specific in-universe source for the weight, I dunno.

Most guns in 40k are comically oversized. This is so you can see what they are on the mini at table top distances.

In universe, suspensors are a thing used to reduce the weight of things. You most often hear about their use on heavy weapons.

I'm fine with their size tbh just like you can't fit plasma machine into smaller casing, just wanna know how my commissar/castellan/kasrkins hold this log in one hand

How does someone hold a Desert Eagle in one hand?

Weighting, and Balance.

So should i just accept that plasma pistol is ancient stc which use ancient(or future for us) materials which are way lighter, and gun is lighter then it's looks. Said like desert eagle for example?

Yup.

I know it’s a lazy slag trope? But when something seems daft or infeasible in 40K? Just chalk it up to super advanced tech.

I mean, look at where we’ve come in terms of Resistant Materials and the Application Thereof in the past century. Steel for cars? Old hat, old bean. These shiny new alloys are stronger and lighter, and ideally for the manufacturer, cheaper.

If you look at mankind’s scientific progress across the same century, and perhaps unrealistically assume a similar trajectory over another century, let alone a handful of millennia, and who knows what would then be of no consequence then that might as well be witchcraft right now.

The pistol has very light ammo and possibly not much in the way of internals beyond the magnetic rails and some cooling. It's entirely conceivable it's more or less hollow along a large-bore barrel and a lot of the weight is towards the rear, which would make it manageable by most people.

Plasma weapons have a few sections that look like they might be mostly hollow (the coils and front cowl/casing) for a bit of additional weightsaving cope.

According to Dark Heresy 1st and 2nd edition, a plasma pistol weighs 4kg. Which is pretty damn hefty for a handgun.

But then in real life we have some specialty handguns which do weigh even more, like the Pfeifer Zeliska revolver which is chambered for .600 Nitro, a big game hunting cartridge. For when you want a slightly smaller elephant gun. That weighs around 6kg.

Hm, only 4 kilos.. so for all life trained guys it's ok I think. This remove my concerns.

I'd also point out that, whatever the exact weight, characters in-universe seem to regard plasma pistols as being hefty but not so hefty as to be unwieldy. So whatever a plasma pistol weighs, it's light enough for an unaugmented human to draw and aim one-handed.

Also, probably little in the way of recoil.

There’ll be some, of course. But given the launching of the Plasma appears to be achieved by electromagnetic coils? I’d imagine it’s fairly limited.

The means by which the projectile is launched doesn’t affect the recoil. F=ma. If mass is accelerated, a recoil force is produced. The question to ask is if plasma pistols slowly lob gobbets of plasma at the enemy, or if the particles are pushed up to appreciable fractions of light speed.

Although this xkcd post sets out the problems of light speed projectiles

https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

Does that depend on the mass of the plasma bolt?

Been 30 years since high school physics, and the teacher was a wrong’un and all.

I always just imagine the plasma weapons from Halo.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Does that depend on the mass of the plasma bolt?

Been 30 years since high school physics, and the teacher was a wrong’un and all.

Mass of plasma bolt and speed (or more accurately, acceleration out the barrel) are equally important.

If one is very low that can counteract the other being high - e.g. lasguns being negligible recoil as photons are close to massless despite being light speed.

I’m not sure how much info there is though on how plasma bolts compare to say bullets in either mass or speed.

Indeed. I think it will depend on whether the plasma bolt is relatively light and tenuous, and kept hot by means of an encasing EM field (or other space magic effect) all the way to target, or if it’s some kind of super dense plasma mass that can keep its own heat that long (which would probably need a mini black hole to keep it together, so more space magic…)

If they are some kind of lightning gun in actuality, then there might not be any recoil, but then the damage is being done through the electrical discharge side effects rather than directly by plasma.

IIRc in few guards novels plasma pistol/gun shoot a beam of plasma. and no recoil mentioned. For example for laspistol and bolt pistol there is recoil. and it mentioned for few times. but no for plasma pistol.