Before explaining how obsessive fans built a better Han Solo blaster, Norman Chan gives some background on many of the original Star Wars props:
Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, for example, was famously made out of a Graflex camera flash handle, with nothing else but rubber strips of cabinet t-track glued onto the base of the handle for a grip. Original flash handles occasionally appear on eBay and are swooped up by Star Wars fans looking to make their own lightsaber prop replica. The Stormtrooper’s E-11 blaster rifle was a modified British Sterling submachine gun. Luke’s binoculars that he uses on Tatooine were made by a camera company called Rolleiflex.
The most important component in building Han Solo’s blaster is the pistol used for its base, and it’s well known that the body for the DL-44 was a German semi-automatic pistol, the Mauser C96. This is easily identifiable by the distinct box magazine in front of the trigger and curved grip in the shape of a household broom handle (the gun is affectionately nicknamed “Broomhandle” in the western world). The Mauser C96 was a very popular pistol in the early 20th century — Winston Churchill is reported to have favored it — and was a mainstay of serials and fantasy characters of that era like the Rocketeer.
A key feature of this new improved version is that it always shoots first.