Heavy blaster pistol/Legends

A heavy blaster pistol, or heavy blaster, was a more powerful version of the standard blaster pistol.

Description
Heavy blaster pistols were basically cut-down blaster rifles, utilizing a more highly powered gas chamber, firing larger, more damaging bolts with a wider beam. Though bulkier and heavier than a standard blaster pistol, the heavy blaster's advantage was firepower. It had the destructive power of a blaster rifle without the longer range that a rifle typically provided. The power pack was generally the same size as a standard pistol and was consumed at a considerably higher rate than a typical blaster pistol. Due to the weapon's formidable power it was heavily restricted in most systems if not entirely illegal.

Heavy blaster pistols were very popular with soldiers and mercenaries of all sorts.

History
The Arkanians were the first to experiment with creating blaster pistols with the same energy output as blaster rifles around 5,000 BBY. It took some time for the concept to be widely adopted, and it wasn't until the time of the Jedi Civil War that power output of heavy blasters around the galaxy began to match Arkanian standards.

ARC troopers, the elite clone troopers of the Grand Army of the Republic, were trained in wielding two heavy blaster pistols at the same time. Han Solo used the BlasTech DL-44 heavy blaster pistol.

Behind the scenes
The Heavy Blaster heavily resembles the German Mauser C96, a widely used sidearm for the German army in World Wars I and II.