Did anyone ever fix SR2-SR3 light pistols/heavy pistols?

In SR2 and SR3 the average light pistol do 6L damage, while a heavy pistol do 9M. The light pistols has a slightly shorter range and roughly the same range of concealability.
As a result in our games nobody but insignificant NPCs (who really don't have a choice ) use light pistols.

We have tried various house rules (alone or in various combinations):
- no recoil for light pistols
- Light pistol damage is 6M
- make heavy pistols less concealable and make light more concealable
- make heavy pistols single shot, not semi-auto weapons
- revamping both categories so there is 9L and 6M pistols (either 'armor-defeating/hard to save' or 'high basic wound level' pistols)

We have not been happy with either change.
And neither have made light pistols worth using.

Have anyone thought of a better solution?

well, all you need to do is give all the players a dice pool of around 50 for using pistols. that way they'll all be causing deadly wounds that are nearly impossible to resist anyways!

(more seriously, I'm not seeing how this is a terribly urgent problem... it isn't as if light pistols are an important concept in the setting).

Doing both of these seems like the best. They still aren't as good in combat, but they're useful in a way. I think the issue is concealability doesn't matter most of the time.

Maybe concealability should matter more often. If it doesn't, then the mechanics do indeed make light pistols a bad choice. I would go with the concealability option ... and make it matter.

Probably. If you aren't playing in Denver, or planning to just walk in the front door of everywhere you're supposed to break into, only bouncers check for guns. Unless you're carrying a rifle or heavy weapon everywhere you can probably get by with not making people care.

Those things existing makes it worthwhile to have them included in the world, but most players won't plan to specialize in them. It certainly should come up once or twice per campaign, but I think I'm okay with having some options that aren't used often, as long as they get used.

A possible option is to change the social acceptance and acceptability. When Mr Johnson gets to carry his gun to the meeting because it's a light pistol which is clearly for self-defence, rather than the manstopper boom cannon 3000 that your runners are trying to get past the bouncers, they might start to look at more fashion conscious, slender and stylish hardware.

If the police stop you with a folding penknife, with a small 2" blade (certainly in the UK anyway), they'll not be too fussed. If they stop you with a 6" hunting knife, much less so. Even if you have a legitimate reason to carry, or use it for a trade, you're still going to have to explain why you're "going equipped" a lot more often. Obviously when the runners are on a job and breaking a bunch of other laws just by existing somewhere, or they're in the barrens, this isn't an issue. But you can just increase the hassle factor, sneers, police attention or cost of doing business when they're "overgunned" until they realise that sometimes fitting in with the crowd and being discreet really is the easiest way of doing business?

Thanks to all.

Great point about the light pistol being seen as a self-defense weapon.

The players may still think of it as a useless BB-gun, but the market for light pistols makes a lot more sense "in world" (and explains how Tee Hee from Dreamchipper could become famous for making a chip for the L36 light pistol )

nobody in my group uses light weapons

Put a bouncer at the door once, with the back door barred.

If you expect them to get caught hiding the weapons, have a caliber limit that in game terms comes down to light vs heavy.

If you need a light pistol, then you are better off with a dart gun. Or with a Taser even.
A Heavy Pistol, expecially with ExEx Ammo will be a serious threat.
A light pistol is less usefull than dart guns.
Hiding weapons is a much bigger problem. If you know what you
are doing in SR3, you can get the TN to find a heavy pistol, even
while frisking somebody, up to . . 10 or so easily enough.