Have You Seen the First Ever Double Barrel .45 Caliber Pistol Ready to Hit the Shelves?

What do you get when you merge two .45 caliber pistols into one with a sleek new design?

A whole lot of compact stopping power, also known as the Arsenal Firearms AF2011.

The folks over at the Firearms Blog found this incredible new design created by Arsenal Firearms, who provided these photos and the video below.

The AF team is clearly proud of their achievement, writing on their site that:

"To commemorate the legendary Colt 1911-A1 in the Centenary by making a true industrial market-ready double barrel .45 caliber pistol. We achieved success in the brief span of 6 months, after intense and round-the-clock 3D designing, stereolithographic modeling and parts machining."

This is not an entirely new concept, and there have been many other double barrel pistols created in the past. In fact, ten years ago a Swiss armorer named Vivian Mueller cut and welded together parts of the storied Sig P210 for a similar effect. He successfully created a long slide, double barrel 9mm pistol that shot well. But the AF 2011 is the first time two pistols have been welded into one in a design that is shelf-ready and meant for sale.

That's right -- this model can be produced and sold in a mass market instead of just one-off collector pieces.

Now you may be wondering how the AF 2011 performs. Sure, it looks cool, and it certainly can throw rounds downrange, but what kind of patterns can it put on a target?

According to the AF team, the double barrel 2011 shoots cleanly and with good-enough accuracy:

"The gun can be handled by any shooter... [and] holds amazing and surprising target performance for the shooter: in fact, it will group all the 8 double .45 caliber rounds (16 bullets) held in the duplex, single columns magazines, in a target of the size of an orange at 15 yards and of a water melon at 25."

Whether you think you have room in your collection for the AF-2011 or not, you probably want to see this amazing piece of gun craftsmanship doing what it does best. So below is a video that gives you the full effect of the AF2011.

Right after he finishes off some shots, the test shooter in the video describes the stopping power in his hands:

"This was 8 double rounds.... in other words, it was 4000 grains of payload sent downrange in about 5 seconds. to achieve the same result with a single barrel 9mm pistol we would need to shoot about 30 rounds, with two changes of magazines, in about 30 seconds."

As described on the AF site, "it will knock down a bull."

Check out the video of the AF 2011-A1 in action on the range, via YouTube:

And in case you wanted even more specs from Arsenal Firearms:

"The AF2011-A1 can be ordered either with 2 independent triggers and one sear group (left or right, with user-interchangeability for right or left operations) or with 2 triggers permanently joined and the choice of 1 or 2 sear groups. The AF2011-A1 is available in mirror finish Deep Blue or with a 3400 Vickers surface hardness White Ash Nitrite coating."

(H/T: firearms blog)