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Firearm Archive
I am occasionally sent pictures of guns from around the world built by other gunmakers or hobbyist. I will display any pictures sent to me on these pages provided they are of reasonable quality and display a degree on ingenuity.
If you have a gun you wish to send for inclusion on these pages please feel free to send them along.
All guns are shown on the understanding that the builder did not break any pointless, futile, and utterly contemptible gun laws in there country of residence.
A Knuckleduster Zip Gun, 38spl.
A Homemade 12g Shotgun
This interesting homemade 12g shotgun is of a straight blowback design and very simple to construct.
The 12g shell is simply inserted into the barrel, with the bolt in the cocked position. When the trigger is pulled the bolt flies forwards and the shell is fired. The trigger is perhaps of one piece with the sear built into it. The barrel looks like it is made from 1" pipe.
These impressive .22 pistols are homemade but I am unsure as to what tools were used to make them.
.22 Pen Gun
This nice little homemade .22 pen gun was built by a friend of mine to illustrate
his engineering skills.
It will be of interest to those interested in concealable weaponry!
The pen is manufactured using a hydraulic fitting for the barrel and stainless
steel tube for the main pen body.
The pen gun also writes!!
The short barrel is shown here removed and ready to load.
The pen clip screws into a removable plastic plug. The clip and plug are
pulled out and the gun can be cocked and fired.
If you wish to contact the builder of this weapon for further information you may
e-mail John Wilson at nzgunman@yahoo.co.nz
.410 Homemade Shotgun.
This homemade .410 shotgun was sent to me by an anonymous source. Judging by the photo
it looks well made. I suspect the barrel and breech are built from iron plumbing pipe!
A Full Bore PCP Air Rifle
Made in the 1940s during WWII, this gun doesn't look like a Girandoni, but examination shows that it clearly was built by someone familiar with the Girandoni repeating airgun system. The story is that this gun was built in Austria by a partisan bicycle maker during the Nazi occupation in WWII.
The repeating magazine is spring fed and on the left side of the barrel, for the convenient use of a right handed shooter. The gun was charged with the accompanying bicycle type pump. Smoothbore, as would be expected, but firing an 11.76 mm lead ball (.463" caliber) the very same caliber as the original Girandoni Austrian military repeating air rifles! This would have been a fearsome weapon against sentries, drivers, military leaders, etc. at ranges up to perhaps 100 yards.
To a freedom fighter, the lower discharge sound and the lack of flash or smoke would have been huge values. And it did not need powder, primers, or bullets—only easily cast lead or soft-metal balls! No forensic evidence left on the shooter (not that they had too much forensic evidence in those days).
The builder surely drew his inspiration from an Austrian museum which displayed a Girandoni system airgun.
Note that this gun has a spring fed magazine, rather than the gravity fed magazine of the original Girandoni military air rifle. While a gravity feed mechanism might be simpler, and even more dependable, the spring fed magazine has great advantages for the purposes of this gun. It is more suited for operation from a vehicle or firing slot where it would be impractical to tip up the rifle for loading and it allows firing with minimal motion at the firing point—very important to a sniper.
Basic specs: A husky 12.2 lbs., 45" overall, glare-free, and almost camo anodized type finish.
A .410 Shot Pistol
These .410 shot pistol pictures were sent to me recently. It is constructed from
malleable iron plumbing pipe for the main body ('BSP' pipe in UK) and the grip of a
paintball gun! The pistol is striker fired. The ruler was no doubt used to give the
builder of the pistol a good slapping.
The upper receiver components.
The striker assembly.
Sear slot.
Fully assembled.
The Chechens are great at making improvised firearms with which to fight the old Ruskies. What a shame we don't have some of them living in the UK!
The great American hero (and history will vindicate his actions) Ted 'Unabomber' Kaczynski made this great little homemade pistol using nothing but hand tools in his remote cabin in the USA. Ted Kaczynski made this gun to perhaps avoid the detection of having to buy one. It's remarkable in its craftsmanship but rahter clumbsey looking. Don't know if it worked, but given how meticulous he was, it probably did. This photo is part of the government evidence against him, found at this CBS site, without much explanation. If you know more, write.
Reprinted from his diary in the Government's Sentencing Memorandum, which explains that agents discovered a completely homemade, operable handgun, as well as a corresponding written description of its creation and purpose:
[A] "few days ago I finished making a twenty two caliber pistol. This took me a long time, for a year and a half, thereby preventing me from working on some other projects I would have liked to carry out. Gun works well and I get as much accuracy out of it as I'd expect for an inexperienced pistol shot like me. It is equipped with improvised silencer which does not work as well as I hoped. At a guess it cuts noise down to maybe one third. It is said that it is easy for machinist to make a gun, but of course I did not have machine tools, but only a few files, hacksaw blades, small vice, a rickety hand drill, etc. I took the barrel from an old pneumatic pistol. I made the other parts out of several metal pieces. Most of them come from the old abandoned cars near here. I needed to make the parts with enough precision but I made them well and I'm very satisfied. I want to use the gun as a homicide weapon".
An example of homemade 12g shot-pistols. They are a bit "hammered" looking but but I was assured they do go Boooom!
A 16 bore shot pistol built in Bosnia in 1992.
This pistol was made by a man in India. It is a cumbersome looking
weapon but of a sound and simple design. It has three interchangeable
barrels in various calibres.
Here is a .22 zip gun made out of a 7/8" drill bit. This works on the machine gun blow back principle but without the magazine!
Charlton Automatic Rifle
Information taken courtecy of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlton_Automatic_Rifle
The Charlton Automatic Rifle was a fully automatic conversion of the
Lee-Enfield
rifle, designed by New
Zealander Philip Charlton in 1941 to act as a substitute for the
Bren and
Lewis gun
light machine guns
which were in chronically short supply at the time.
The original Charlton Automatic Rifles were converted from obsolete
Lee-Metford
and Magazine Lee-Enfield rifles dating from as early as the
Boer War,
[1]
and were intended for use as a self-loading
rifle
with the full-automatic capability retained for emergency use.[2]
It used both the 10-round Lee-Enfield magazines, and also the 30-round Bren magazines.
There were two versions of the Charlton: the New Zealand version, as designed
and manufactured by Charlton Motor Workshops in Hastings,
and a version produced in Australia
by Electrolux, using the
SMLE Mk III* for conversion.[3]
The two designs differed markedly in external appearance (amongst other things,
the New Zealand Charlton had a forward pistol grip and
bipod, whilst the Australian
one did not), but shared the same operating mechanism.
Approximately 1,500 Charlton Automatic Rifles were manufactured in New Zealand,
[4]
and nearly all of them were destroyed in a fire at the Palmerston North service
storage facility shortly after World
War II.[5]
An example of the New Zealand-manufactured Charlton Automatic Rifle is known to
survive in the Imperial
War Museum in London, but
only three examples of the Electrolux-made Charlton Automatic Rifles are known to
exist – one in the Waiouru
Army Museum in New Zealand, another at the
Singleton
Infantry Centre in Australia, and the third at the Imperial War Museum in London.
This well made 12g shot pistol is believed to be Chinese and homemade.
This homemade 12g Carbine type weapon shows some innovation.
This .22 Pistol was made using a brass barrel and is a striker fired single shot.
More Guns to Come!
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