posted by stchman;
I think both the Luger and Nambu are ugly. This is all quality, accuracy, dependability, aside.
By this you obviously don't like any of the thin barrel Ruger Mk I, II or III's or the Walther P08 or any other exposed thin barrel semi that has a fairly raked back grip angle.
Attractiveness is certainly in the eye of the beholder. But in some cases when the proportions shift to an unbalanced look it can become much like listening to jazz fusion music. The look, in this case, is pulled by a dichotomy of shape relationships until suddenly the mind "pops" and we go from "that's a little odd but it's funky" to "OMG THAT'S FUGLY! ! !" For you obviously skinny barrels and/or sharply raked back grips are those triggers.
Is there a similarity? Yes, in profile if we squint our eyes a little or look through beer glasses (after draining them) then yeah, the Luger and Nambu and many others could be mistaken for each other in a quick view fuzzy vision situation.
But for many of us the beauty is also found in the details. On the Luger there's the obviously better finished metal and the look of the toggle grips along with the recessed saftey area. Add on a few other details to the sides of the frame and it causes the overall shape to be transformed into a far more visually interesting design for many of us.
On the other hand guns such as the Hi Point are ugly to many of us because they look like a blow up balloon caricature of so many more normally seen slender shapes.
And to a very large extent aesthetics are a flexible and aquireable trait. Habit and exposeure to an item brings on a familiarity. For someone brought up with 1911's and similar a Luger and others of the same style can well look ugly. But to someone brought up with Lugers a 1911 would feel odd and be ugly to them.
There have been more than one or two truly ugly guns in this thread that only the original designer could love in any manner. Shapes that are just so at odds with each other that they are just plain odd and unbalanced from a visual standpoint. But even then I have to wonder what would be our take on those if we were brought up with those guns and they were the ones that drove the style of other parallel guns?
Starting an "AR's are ugly" thread these days is an excellent way to get dubbed as a troll. But I wonder if they were all that well aesthetically received when first introduced to a public that was used to long slender wood stocked Garrands, fine bolt action hunting rifles and even wood stocked M-14's. To many the first AR's must have looked incredably kludgey and fugly. But with exposure over time the AR's bacame the standard and similar black rifles are all the rage these days. Again, a matter that familiarity breeds acceptance and then beauty.
