The Firearm Blog

Last month I received an email from Nigeria. I know what you are thinking … not one of those emails Emmanuel was having some problems with his new shotgun and asked if I could help. I don’t know much about shotguns in general so I was not able to give him much advice. I ended up trading quite a few emails discussing the shotgun and gun laws in Nigeria.

Turns out that the only guns you can own in his country are shotguns, and only if you have the money:

I am a firearms enthusiast in Nigeria which has a very strict Gun control law, but which licenses shotguns (Single, double-barrel, pump action and recently: semi-automatics) to responsible, respectable people (actually: who am I fooling: anyone with the money!)

Even paintball, airsoft and air guns are banned! This ban of course does not stop certain criminal organizations in the country stocking up on hardware.

The brand name his shotgun is “Magnum EFE”. I did some googling and could find nothing on the internet. Is is most likely a clone from Russia or Eastern Europe but even then google usually spits out something! UPDATE: Commenter Jarkko says it is from Turkey.

Emmanuel’s Magnum EFE 12 gauge semi-automatic

What I find fascinating is that the shotgun appears to come from the factory with a pistol grip and no stock, yet, has an etching of birds on the side. Is is tactical or hunting? Who knows.

Regardless, even for self-defense, a stock is preferable. Unforuntly unlike in the west Emmanuel cannot just wander into the nearest gun shop to buy an accessory.

Remember I told you I was looking for a stock to add to it? Well, in Nigeria, there are practically NO shops to buy anything related to firearms or the accessories. There’s NO where here I can buy a stock for my firearm. It’s that bad here…Obviously: this would also mean I can’t buy one abroad and bring back.

I think we sometimes forget how lucky we are!

Being a DIY nut he decided to fabricate a stock using a steel walking stick. These walking sticks are apparently all the rage with African chiefs (and wannabe chiefs). The result is a very cool looking wire-style stock.

Click to expand.

Emmanuel’s holding the shotgun. Click to expand

A very ingenious idea. He modeled the angle of the stock after the Benelli M1.

Click to expand.

Used a hot (Red hot!) piece of metal to melt a nice neat hole into the firearm’s pistol grip: positioning hole so the bracket welded on the rod would fit right against the hole through which one bolts the grip to the receiver.

The stock has been tested and work fine.

We read about African gunsmithing but this is the real deal. It just shows what a good job you can do at home if you don’t have a gunsmith on speed-dial Great job Emmanuel and thanks for the photos and information.

Last week Engadget reported that a man was killed by an exploding cell phone battery. Turns out he was carrying a homemade pistol, which fell on the ground, discharged and he was hit by the bullet. Engadget reports:

According to some roughly translated reports from Sohu.com, the “imitation firearm with bullets” suddenly fell to the ground at one point, which caused the bullets to fire up into the man’s chest and neck arteries, leading to massive blood loss

The bullet damaged his cellphone which was the reason for the confusion in the media.

Always wear safety glasses! A few videos from YouTube illustrate why.

[ Definition: Firing out of battery: when a round is fired before it is fully chambered. Instead of the expanding gas being forced out the barrel it wrecks havoc inside the gun) ]

AR-15 blows up, not sure that happened. Out of battery?

12 Gauge single shot shotgun blows up. A home made shell apparently caused the problem.

He seems to have a problem fully closing or cocking the shotgun. Maybe the shell was to long and it protruded slightly out of the chamber, causing the explosion. Anyone got a better explanation?

The slide is blasted off a blank firing pistol.

A homemade pistol blows up. The barrel shoots off and the shooter gets the steel primer cap embedded in his arm.

AK-47 blowing up. Out of battery. This is an old one I have posted before on the blog.

Safety glasses are your friends. These are WileyX tactical glasses.

UPDATE: A bonus video. The bolt action barrel is plugged causing the barrel to split. [ Thanks to UraniumHead for the link ]

Billll @ Billlls Idle Mind took some photos of a friends’ 2-bore rifle.

More photos and load info here.
Later in the week I will be posting a heap of 2 Bore photos I have gotten from a gun maker who specializes in big bore rifles.

Last month Sven Ortmann wrote an article on The Firearm Blog about small arms cartridges. His European perspective generated some controversy on the blog but it generated a great discussion. He has written a follow-on article on his blog. He told me that this article is merely an opinion piece, not intended as an essay.

Rifle calibers have been discussed and changed since we moved from musket ball to rifle bullets in the 19th century. The introduction of modern smokeless propellants brought another huge boost for caliber discussions, again toward smaller calibers. The final push toward smaller calibers (calibers smaller than 7mm were already tested at the beginning of the 20th century) came after WW2 when almost every soldier got a fully automatic weapon.

More here.

Mike has started up a new forum focusing on sub-compact / micro / mouse guns. If you are into these guns check out Microguns.net

FAB Defense, an Israeli company, makes a picatinny rail mounted glass breaker for the Glock.

A pretty interesting device. It appears to need to be cocked first and then triggered when it hits the glass, unlike emergency window breakers which come cocked from the factory and need a significant amount of force, usually 12 lbs, applied to release the spring.

It is selling for $124 at this website which ships internationally.

Hat Tip: Blue Gun Blog and GunPundit

UPDATE: Manufacturer name and website provided by DoubleTapper. Thanks DT.

As the author of two books on iPhone software development published by the prestigious IT published O’Reilly you would expect any iPhone / iPod Touch application by Jonathan Zdziarski would be of high quality. He does not disappoint with his ballistics calculator simply named “Ballistic”.

Quite frankly there are to many features to list so I will summarize coolest ones:

- Ballistics Library with over 1500 bullets. No need to go online to find ballistic coefficients.

- Automatic weather conditions. It uses the GPS to find your location and look up weather conditions online.

- If mounted on a rifle it can automatically calculate the angle and adjust measurements accordingly.

- Range log (see screenshot below).

Range Log


Windage Charts


HUD Display (Field Tactical Edition)

Two versions are available. The Standard Edition (iTunes Store link) costs $7.99 and the Field Tactical Edition (iTunes store link) costs $9.99. The Field Tactical features an HUD designed to be use on iPhones that are mounted on the rifle.

More info about the app here.

I saw this at Occupied Nashville:

The device is called a “Univeral Tactical Attachment For Glock 19” and is manufactured by Israeli company FAB Defense.

It mounts a Glock 17 or 19 onto a standard standard picatinny rail and includes a side charging handle for the Glock that somehow attaches to the slide.

Pretty pointless, unlikely to be legally used in the US (because it adds a stock to the pistol), and costs $425!

On sale at Israeli Weapons.
UPDATE: Manufacturer name and website provided by DoubleTapper. Thanks DT.

American Tactical Imports will be selling the GSG-5 rifle in an SD configuration. The SD is patterned after the MP5-SD, a suppressed variant of the MP5. The main difference between the SD and the standard GSG-5 lies in the bigger stouter fore grip which is patterned after the MP5-SD integral suppressor and a fake over-barrel suppressor. It will be available in April/May as a complete rifle and later in the year as a conversion kit.

What is really cool is how the gun came into existence. Chris from ATI told me that last year after the original GSG-5 was introduced they noticed many people on the ar15.com GSG forum voiding their warranty to achieve the SD look. Late last year they flew to the GSG HQ in Germany to discuss these modifications. They worked out a plan.

This is a fantastic example of a company listening to it’s customers. I wish more gun companies would do this.

MP5SD3. Photo from Wikipedia.