I’m pretty sure it’s not just Hollywood, I’ve seen old drawings and paintings of people in battle or duels and they always only use one hand to aim and fire pistols, even after multishot revolvers and pistols are developed.
Why? It’s not like using two hands only became more supportive and stable after 1910.
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To be fair, handguns before the 20th century were heavier, made of steel, and generally fired lower caliber bullets woth lighter charges. Both of these factors aide greatly in managing recoil. You’d think, a heavier gun would be better to have two hands holding it. But the weight of the gun has nothing to do with being able to hold the thing, it’s managing recoil.
The 1911 became the standard issued military semi automatic handgun starting in the early 20th century. This shape and design lends itself to the need for a two handed grip. Instead of a few bullets being loaded in a revolving calendar around the barrel allowing the grip to be just being enough for one hand to grip and hold it, the bullets we loaded in a magazine that installed into the grip. This allowed the grips to be increased in size as magazine sizes increased. The larger sized grips lend themselves to multi handed grips.
Another consideration, since the introduction of the 1911, nearly all handguns have modeled the basic design. It was a genius level design. Today, plastic polymers have been introduced and incorporated to gun designs. Plastics allow the pistol to be manufactured cheaper, and be more comfortable in the hand. Polymers do not however aide with recoil.
And recoil is in essence where we come back to. It is the number one reason why the two handed firing technique is used today and why it wasn’t used in days past. A semi automatic firearm allows for rapid firing of bullets. The accurately fire the bullets, recoil management is a must.
Before semi automatic weapons, either guns were once shot, like the old flint lock pistols you’d see a pirate like Jack sparrow fire, or a revolver like the ones the cowboys would duel with. For the flint locks, it makes sense to fire from one hand, first it prevents you from blowing both your hands off when the littoral hand cannon unexpectedly blows up, and second, firing from the side, looking straight down the barrel woth your dominant eye is a very practical firing stance. We see sport rifleman using the same pose in their sport to this day.
Also, the revolver can be two handed gripped. The .357 magnum is a great example. This caliber wasn’t available back then though. Since a revolver is not semi automatic, it requires a manual pulling back and recocki g of the hammer to advance the culendar after every shot. This is often done woth the held hand’s thumb. But a rapid fire technique known as fanning could be used. Fanning was nothing more than the off hand slapping the hammer quickly while firing. Only the most skilled shooters have been able to somewhat accurately fan a revolver. The technique tends to also require the shooter fire from the hip. This minimizes the play of the revolver, while allowing the body to better absorb the recoil. Of course this means that the gun can not be handled with both hands.
So today woth our more powerful caliber bullets amd in an effort to aide with recoil, two handed grip techniques have become the norm. Though its still taught in self defense courses to learn to shoot with one hand, Inc are of injury or what not.
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