Heckler & Koch

Overview:

The HK-4 was the first pistol to emerge from the now famous German company Heckler & Koch. HK-4 was the brain child of the Alex Seidel, one of co-founders and master minds of Heckler-Koch, and a former Mauser employee. During his years at Mauser Seidel participated in development of several pistols, including the famous Mauser HSc. In 1952 Seidel at HK developed a prototype .22LR caliber pistol, based on Mauser HSc, but the legal problems with Mauser precluded its production. In 1964, Seidel started the development of the multi-caliber pocket-size pistol of civilian and police use. This pistol, designated as HK-4 (Heckler-Koch, four calibers), had some features, based on Mauser HSc, but in severely modified form. Mass production of the new pistol started in 1968, and continued until 1984, with about thirty eight thousands pistols being made. Of those, about 12 thousands HK-4 pistol were bought by German police and other government agencies, the rest has been sold on domestic and foreign civilian markets. HK-4 pistol was one of the first handguns to employ idea of modularity.