Winter envisions a special purpose police ammunition for the SWAT gun. These rounds include a sandbag “stun” round, hypodermic low-velocity projectiles and a special capacitor bullet with a 45,000-volt negative charge to relax adductor muscles and make a subject go ''limp." In addition, a powdered fuel/air mixture round (FAM) using a grenade launcher principle could completely disable an automobile or defeat a substantial physical barrier.
The SWAT revolver configuration maintains sideways, cam-actuated ejection and extraction all in a solid frame design. The forward frame element pivots to allow the cylinder to swing sideways on a vertical axis. In a similar manner to older break-top revolvers, a cam actuates and automatically ejects the spent cases. Winter is working on a special loading device for standard service ball rounds. The projected cost for one of these guns would be $800, complete with a redesigned Audley clamshell holster. There is no projected date on delivery since the gun is not yet in the prototype development stage.
Tomorrow's Handgun Designs Today
Editor’s Note: The following article and accompanying graphics were originally published in the May/June 1979 issue of American Handgunner.
Few things interest gun buffs more than new firearms. Inventors come and go on the gunning scene, creating a stir of interest and perhaps leaving some indelible mark.
Many arms inventors have colorful backgrounds, being creative people of multiple talents and varied aptitudes. One such person is John Winter, whose work is represented herein. Among his many inventions is a unique .25 ACP purse gun that has commercial potential. John Winter is a lifetime shooter and arms collector. A mechanical engineering graduate of Illinois University (1941), he served as an ordnance officer in the European Theater of Operation in WWII. His earlier war experience was with design prototyping and testing at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. After the war, he pursued a fine arts degree at Marquette University. His professional background includes work as a designer/illustrator for Brooks Stevens, an industrial design firm, and General Electric as a professional design consultant.
During the mid-1960s, Winter became concerned with street crime, especially the rising rate of crimes against women. He was aware of the special needs for safety and ease of operation for women’s defensive weaponry.
Ishtar .25 ACP
The result of his research and development is an intriguing and deadly piece of hand ordnance called Ishtar. The name derives from 9,000-year-old archeology. Ishtar, according to Winter’s research, was the first woman in recorded history to defend her honor and select her lovers by force of arms. She was a fertility goddess in a pre-Egyptian mid-East civilization.
The Ishtar handgun configuration does not resemble a conventional firearm. This fact makes it appear less like a firearm, thus not creating a stir when it is seen. Its unique action combines a straight-line DA trigger pull with a compact, telescoping blowback self-loading actuating means. The DA lock is operated by three fingers of the shooting hand. The oversized trigger allows for this three-finger pull. The arrangement minimizes trigger resistance and also guarantees no accidental discharge; there is no need for a manual safety.
The action is made thin and compact by designing the actuating means as a simple, telescoping blowback system. The breechblock is a hollow cylinder of steel of appropriate weight to provide ample inertial delay and enough momentum transfer to assure positive blowback action. The breechblock houses the firing pin and extractor in its rear section; the forward section surrounds the barrel. The coil operating spring, fabricated from square section spring steel, sur rounds the barrel and is compressed inside the forward portion of the breechblock by a shoulder bushing.
The hammer does not cock on the rearward movement of the slide. Each shot requires a separate pull of the DA trigger. Each shot cycles the blowback actuating means, extracting and ejecting the spent case and feeding a new round from the detachable box magazine as the action closes to battery. The magazine holds six .25 ACP rounds. All this comes in a boxy little package not much bigger than a packet of 100mm cigarettes. The gun appears to be a small camera or vanity box having an aluminum frame with recessed panels of black vinyl-like material inset. Its rectangular shape will not tilt in a woman’s purse and can be slipped in and out of a coat pocket easily. There are no external protrusions to catch on clothing.
After prototyping the gun, financial support for production aborted and the project has laid fallow since then. The excellence of design and the ease of production of Ishtar makes it seem likely that commercial support would be forthcoming.
The whole piece is quite thoroughly and totally designed. Winter’s Ishtar shows him to be a capable professional, knowledgeable in the many facets of design that impact the production/marketing phases of product development.
A few small details will be added to Ishtar before production. Winter wants to redesign the retractor handle to better suit weak hands. This will eliminate the thumb/forefinger opposition necessary to manually retract conventional auto pistol slides. He will adapt the Negator spring system to the magazine in order to provide a constant spring tension for the final as well as first rounds. This feature will further increase operating reliability.
Some thought has been given to adapting Ishtar for .22 LR, but Winter feels the feeding reliability problem of such a conversion should be worked out first. Long, thin .22 LR rounds are more difficult to feed and the rimfire ignition system requires more primer indentation than small, round pistol primers. Ishtar’s Kennertium (dense tungsten alloy) inertial firing pin carries plenty of momentum for positive ignition. And a Negator magazine spring with appropriate feed ramp angles might produce a super-reliable .22 LR version.
SWAT Handgun
As with most other arms inventors, John Winter has more than one claim to fame. Among his many ideas is a SWAT pistol especially designed to meet the multiple needs of these elite police units. Most SWAT people I have known go “ape” over new equipment, and their mouths will be wet for weeks over Winter’s design.
The frame configuration utilizes the Pederson grip shape used on the M51 Remington and the M54 Government Model pistol. Trigger control is DA/SA selective, with a 5-shot cylinder capacity. The ammunition is designed for police use only and includes a family of rounds made for specialized police applications. The caliber is .408”; weight 40oz., with a 4” barrel. Standard ammunition is the ballistic equivalent to, but not interchangeable with, the .41 Magnum.
The barrel is configured low on the frame to keep the recoil thrust near the shooting hand. This arrangement minimizes muzzle rise in recoil. All manual controls (safety, magazine release and slide stop) are ambidextrous. The space above the barrel houses a xenon pulsing tube capable of projecting a 1.5 million candle power (150 lumen/seconds) light circle 12” in diameter at 110 feet. Since the light is collimated to the bore, centering the light on a target guarantees hits at night. The source of the light spot is so small that it is hardly detectable at night. Pacemaker batteries in the handle power all the electronics of the pistol.
Other devices worked on by Winter include a kinetic recoil reducer and an automatic cylinder indexing device that works off the ejector rod, making the ejecting of spent casings from single-action revolvers fast and simple. Winter also has a DA auto version of Pederson’s M54 .45 ACP auto pistol.
Whether or not any or all of these devices will ever reach the market is a matter of future speculation. These are the products of a skilled and talented man who has gone many steps beyond merely spawning ideas. The documenting by illustration and full-scale models is important to idea development; the making of prototypes and reduction to practice of the idea must be done to approach production possibilities. While there are many people who can prepare specification lists for new firearms, very few are skilled and determined enough to reduce the idea to practice.
The works of John Winter merit a close look to see what value lies therein for shooters and the marketplace.
Read American Handgunner May/Jun 1979
