Improvised firearm
Improvised firearms (sometimes called zip guns, pipe guns, or slam guns) are
Improvised firearms may be used as tools by criminals and insurgents and are sometimes associated with such groups;[4][5] other uses include self-defense in lawless areas and hunting game in poor rural areas.[6]
Types
This section is missing information about electric ignition; other improvised ammo setups.(July 2022) |
Zip guns
Zip guns are generally crude homemade firearms consisting of a barrel, breechblock and a firing mechanism. For small, low-pressure cartridges, like the common .22 caliber rimfire cartridges, even very thin-walled tubing works as a barrel, strapped to a block of wood for a handle. A rubber band powers the firing pin, which the shooter pulls back and releases to fire. Such weak tubing results in a firearm that can be as dangerous to the shooter as the target; the poorly fitting smoothbore barrel provides little accuracy and is liable to burst upon firing.[1] The better designs use heavier pipes and spring loaded trigger mechanisms. Larger zip guns, such as homemade shotguns called tumbera (Argentina), bakakuk[7] (Malaysia), or sumpak[8] (Philippines) are also made of improvised materials like nails, steel pipes, wooden pieces, bits of string, etc.
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Improvised firearm used during WWII
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Improvised zip-gun with interchangeable barrels.
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Zip gun
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A very crude yet functioning homemade gun made by a man in India; it is constructed mostly out of plumbing material
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Collection of Zip guns
Pen guns
In the United States, pen guns that fire bullets or shot cartridges do not require a reconfiguration to fire, (e.g., folding to the shape of a pistol) and are federally regulated as an
Pipe guns
Pipe guns were first seen in the Philippines during World War II.
In 1946, pipe guns were patented in the United States by Iliff D. "Rich" Richardson, who fought with the Filipino insurgents during the Japanese occupation.[17][20] Made by "Richardson Industries" as the "Model R5 Philippine Guerrilla Gun", these 12 gauge shotguns sold for $7 at the time.[17]
Improvised versions are made by using two pipes and an end-cap; they usually fire shotgun shells. To fire the gun, the user inserts a shotgun shell into the smaller diameter pipe, places the smaller pipe into the larger diameter pipe, and forcefully slides it back until the shell's primer makes contact with a fixed firing pin located inside the end-cap.[4][5] Other improved versions use improvised detachable magazines.[21]
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Improvised pipe gun; showing barrel, receiver and a 12 gauge shotgun shell
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Improvised pipe gun; showing dimensions
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Improvised pipe gun; showing firing pin inside receiver
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Improvised pipe gun; showing 12 gauge shotgun shell
Repurposed or conversions
Flare guns have also been converted to firearms. This may be accomplished by replacing the (often plastic) barrel of the flare gun with a metal pipe strong enough to chamber a shotgun shell, or by inserting a smaller-bore barrel into the existing barrel (such as with a caliber conversion sleeve) to chamber a firearm cartridge, such as a .22 Long Rifle.[22][23]
More advanced improvised guns can use parts from other gun-like products. One example is the cap gun. A cap gun can be disassembled, and a barrel added, turning the toy gun into a real one. A firing pin can then be added to the hammer, to concentrate the force onto the primer of the cartridge. If the cap gun has a strong enough hammer spring, the existing trigger mechanism can be used as-is; otherwise, rubber bands may be added to increase the power of the hammer.[24]
Air guns have also been modified to convert them to firearms. The Brocock Air Cartridge System, for example, uses a self-contained "cartridge" roughly the size of a .38 Special cartridge, which contains an air reservoir, valve, and a .22 caliber (5.5 mm) pellet. Examples of BACS airguns converted to firearms, either by drilling the barrel out to fire a .38 Special cartridge or by altering the cylinder to accept .22 caliber cartridges, have been used in a number of crimes. Blank-firing guns can also be converted by adding a barrel, although the low-quality alloys used for cheaper blank-firing guns may break with the pressures and stresses of a real bullet being fired.[25]
Cryptic firearms
Some more complex improvised firearms are not only well-built, but also use
While most improvised firearms are single-shot, multiple-shot versions are also encountered. The simplest multi-shot zip guns are derringer-like, and consist of a number of single-shot zip guns attached together. The pepper-box design is also used in homemade guns because it is relatively easy to make out of a bundle of pipes or a steel cylinder. In late 2000, British police encountered a four-shot .22 LR zip gun disguised as a mobile phone, where different keys on the keypad fire different barrels. Because of this discovery, mobile phones are now X-rayed by airport screeners worldwide. Authorities believe they were manufactured in Croatia, and they still turned up in Europe as late as 2004, according to a report by Time magazine.[28][29]
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U.S. manufactured covert firearms (Clockwise from bottom) 7/8-inch Bolt gun; Flashlight gun; Pen gun (All are .22 caliber); Double barrel .32 caliber key chain gun
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Improvised firearm disguised as a flashlight/torch
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Four-shot gun disguised as a mobile phone
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Cane gun
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Cane gun grip and trigger close-up
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Finger-ring gun
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Zippo lighter gun
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Marlboro filter cigarette packgun
Submachine guns
Homemade submachine guns are often made by copying existing designs, or by adapting simple, open-bolt actions and leveraging commonly available hardware store parts.[2][30]
The
The
The
The
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Homemade Błyskawica submachine gun in Warsaw Uprising
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Homemade Bechowiec submachine gun in Warsaw Uprising
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A Chechen fighter holds up his homemade Borz submachine gun during the battle for Grozny, January 1995
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Three homemade Carlo submachine guns
Liberators
The FP-45 Liberator and the Deer gun were crude zip gun-like single-shot pistols or derringers manufactured by the United States government for use by resistance forces in occupied territories, during World War II and the Vietnam War, respectively.
The FP-45 was designed to be cheaply and quickly mass-produced. It had just 23 largely stamped and turned steel parts that were cheap and easy to manufacture. It fired the .45 ACP pistol cartridge from an unrifled barrel and five rounds of .45 ACP ammunition could be stored in the pistol grip. Due to this limitation, it was intended for short range use, 1–4 yards (0.91–3.66 m). Its maximum effective range was only about 25 ft (7.6 m). At longer range, the bullet would begin to tumble and stray off course. The original delivered cost for the FP-45 was USD$2.10/unit, lending it the nickname "Woolworth pistol".[37]
The Deer gun fired the
3D printed firearms
In 2012, the U.S.-based group
Defense Distributed has also designed a 3D printable
Around the world
In the United States, creating an improvised firearm for personal use does not require
A Khyber Pass copy is a firearm manufactured by cottage gunsmiths in the Khyber Pass region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The area has long had a reputation for producing unlicensed, homemade copies of firearms using whatever materials are available – more often than not, railway rails, scrap motor vehicles, and other scrap metal. The quality of such firearms varies widely, ranging from as good as a factory-produced example to dangerously poor. Much of the gunsmithing is centered around the town of Darra Adam Khel.
In
In areas like
Even in the absence of commercially available ammunition, homemade
The city of
In 2004, an "underground weapons factory" was seized in
Improvised firearms have also been used in Russia,[55][56] where they have been used in domestic homicides and terrorism.
Improvised firearms were used by the perpetrator of the
In Italy, Naples, Caivano, multiple illegal weapons by the notorious
In Japan, an improvised shotgun was used in the assassination of Shinzo Abe, former prime minister of Japan, on 8 July 2022.[59]
See also
- Philip Luty
- Improvised explosive device
- Improvised artillery in the Syrian civil war
- Barrack busters
- Improvised mortars
- Improvised weapon
- Technical (vehicle)
- Narco tank
- Insurgency weapon
- Marble gun
- Privately made firearm
- TM 31-210 Improvised Munitions Handbook
References
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{{cite journal}}
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- ^ Homemade ‘Carlo’ gun becoming weapon of choice for Palestinian attackers, Newsweek, Jack Moore, 6 November 2016 Archived 2022-07-05 at the Wayback Machine
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Further reading
- Trub, J. David (1993) Zips, Pipes, And Pens: Arsenal Of Improvised Weapons ISBN 0-87364-702-5
- Anonymous (1983) Improvised Weapons of the American Underground Desert Publications. ISBN 0-87947-110-7
- Luty, P. A. (1998) Expedient Homemade Firearms : The 9mm Submachine Gun Paladin Press. https://archive.org/details/Expedient_Homemade_Firearms_9mm_Submachine_Gun_P_A_Luty_Paladin_Press/page/n3 ISBN 0-87364-983-4
- Brown, Ronald (1999) Homemade Guns & Homemade Ammo Breakout Productions. ISBN 1-893626-11-3
- McLean, Don (1992) Do-It-Yourself Gunpowder Cookbook Paladin Press. ISBN 0-87364-675-4
- Hollenback, George (1996) Workbench Silencers: The Art Of Improvised Designs Paladin Press. ISBN 0-87364-895-1
- Métral, Gérard (1985) Do-It-Yourself Submachine Gun Paladin Press. ISBN 0-87364-840-4
- Milosevic, Marko (2012) Prepravljeno i ručno pravljeno oružje [Converted and Improvised weapons]http://www.bezbednost.org/upload/document/rucno_pravljeno_oruzje.pdf Archived 2015-02-26 at the ISBN 978-86-6237-018-1