There isn’t an incredible amount of variety in the marketplace for firearms these days when it comes to differences in design, but in this list we take a look at five truly unique offerings that make even the most seasoned firearm connoisseur raise an eyebrow. Like to wind your gun before you shoot it? Prefer loading bullets in backwards? Big fan of RoboCop? If you answered yes to any of these, we reckon you may find something on this list quite captivating.

The full transcript …

– [Voiceover] Hey guys, it’s Alex C. with TFBTV and the topic of today’s video is going to be the top five weirdest guns currently on the market.

That means these guns currently have to be offered by the manufacturer for sale, so the weird guns of the past unfortunately aren’t gonna be on Ian at Forgotten Weapons channel.

Anyways guys, we’re gonna start the video off with a Boberg XR9 pistol.

This is an XR9-S, now it’s notable that these are kind of bullpup pistols but if you look at the magazine, there’s actually no follower and you load the rounds in backwards.

I’ve talked about this a little bit before but if we take a closer look at that magazine, it is actually kind of strange.

You feed the bullets in nose first and yeah, that’s just, I’ve never seen a firearm like that before.

I know of no other firearm that actually does that.

And then there’s a switch, like there is on a belt fed machine gun that actually pulls the round out backwards, tilts it up and into the chamber.

So if you take the Boberg apart, you can actually see kind of how it works.

It actually, there’s a dissasembly switch like there is on a Sig pistol, not really a strange feature, but you can see the switch right there, it’s kind of a brass color.

Very cool mechanism actually, very interesting how these work, I would say if you have a chance to fondle one, go ahead and ask the guy behind the gun counter to grab one up.

If anything it will satisfy your inner German with the weird engineering that went into this thing.

You can see there’s even a weird locking block.

It’s a rotating barrel pistol like a PX4 or an All-American, and it’s just a strange gun but very, very cool.

They actually shoot very well, they have a stout double action trigger, but all in all, not too bad, no worse than a J-Frame revolver’s trigger.

So yeah, if you get a chance to, try to get behind one of these, they are a lot of fun.

Anyways, second weirdest gun, we’ve talked about this a little bit before, this is a Calico.

The Calicos are famous for that weird magazine that sits atop the gun that is a helical magazine like a soviet Bizon sub machine gun.

And realistically, they’re not very well-designed.

They’re roller-delayed blowback like an MP5 but the sights are located on the magazine themselves.

They’re also quite heavy, you can see loaded they weight eight pounds, two ounces.

And then the weight is nearly cut in half once you take the magazine off.

Of course the magazines do hold 100 rounds, they’re giant helical concoction things, you can see the rear sight located about midway on the 100 round and then towards the rear of the 50 round magazine.

They’re ridiculous, I can’t imagine actually carrying around four or five of these in a pouch.

I really don’t know what Calico’s solution is as far as they would deploy with law enforcement, but to load them you do actually have to load ammunition and then wind the 100 round magazine 23 times.

And with each rotation it gets more difficult so once you get past about 15, it gets absolutely ridiculously impossible and it’s like a workout for your forearm.

And of course you see rounds pop out of the magazine there because I guess there was a little bit too much tension.

But to store them you actually press this button which is a little clutch that releases the pressure and tension and that way you can throw them in the safe and forget about them.

But these guns do shoot, I’ve never gotten through a whole magazine.

What they do actually do best, what you can see here is jam, which is unfortunate because they are kind of cool.

So next up’s kind of a broad category, I’ve just chosel Kel-Tec PLR-16.

But you know, any of these rifles that are scaled down to be a pistol to get around basically the rifle law in the United States is kind of strange.

However, the PLR-16 is just an example of one of the weirder ones, it’s an all polymer construction for the most part, you know, minus certain operating parts and whatnot.

You know, Kel-Tec’s famous for these weird, strange unconventional designs and this pistol is no exception.

I will say it’s very light and very nifty and George Kellgren can really make some interesting guns.

It’s kind of funny, they came with a little dainty 10 round magazine but this hand guard didn’t actually come with it, you have to purchase it separately, so I guess the only way to prevent your hand from being burned is with a giant asbestos glove.

They have a threaded barrel for suppressor or flash hider and all that kind of stuff.

Also kind of interesting here, you can see the cam pin actually doesn’t have anything that covers it, it just kind of protrudes a little bit from the gun’s receiver.

And of course, I’m not exactly sure what the big Picatinny rail on top is for, but it is the PLR-16 which I believe stands for pistol long range, so why not scope it if you’re gonna go all the way with something like this.

Anyways, next up is what I would consider my favorite and best gun on the list and that’s going to be the FN FS2000.

Now make all the jokes you want about how it looks like a fish or a yacht or whatever, but these things are a tremendous amount of fun and they are an extremely well made and well designed gun.

They actually look a lot bulkier in pictures than they are, but we’ll get to that in just a second.

The one thing I really, really don’t like about this gun is the way you check the chamber is by lifting what’s called the toilet bowl, or toilet seat, excuse me, and then you can actually see if there’s a round in the chamber or not or clear an obstruction that way.

Other than that, things are very ambidextrous.

You’ve got your selector here which is actuated by the pointer finger of your dominant hand, and of course it ejects shells out the front, whereas the Aug or a Tavor will actually just send shells in your face if it’s configured for a left or right handed user, or opposite whatever you are.

While this giant shroud kind of looks strange, you can actually remove this and then remove the factory optic if you want to.

Underneath it there’s a Picatinny rail so you can mount whatever you’d like if you just want iron sights or if you want Acog, what have you, then you can absolutely do that.

There’s also an adjustable gas regulator here, another well thought out feature, a lot like the SCARS, I think it’s actually just the SCARS.

But the FS2000 shoots like a dream, they look a little goofy but they definitely are weird in more ways than one.

All right, so lastly we have a gun that everyone kind of looks at and makes a joke, either about RoboCop or asks me, “Why would you buy such a ridiculously obnoxious pistol?” And I generally reply with, “Well, I wanted to and “this America and I can buy whatever I want.” It’s absolutely as big as a Desert Eagle, which is hilarious.

Here I’ve laid a Browning Hi-Power over it, which is a full size serviced handgun and you can see the Mark 23 is just ridiculously huge.

I mean, like I said, it’s Desert Eagle size however it is.45 ACP it holds 12 rounds.

It is more practical, it was developed as an offensive hand gun at the request of the United States Government.

HK did not come up with the term offensive hand gun despite funny stuff on the internet you’ve read.

But the United States Government put out the offensive hand gun request, Colt and HK came forward, HK won the contract, and then the Mark 23 was born and then it trickled into civilian hands as well as the Mark 23 instead of the NK 23.

And you know of course the Knight’s Armament Company produces a suppressor for this pistol.

You can buy those as well if you want to properly outfit your Mark 23 and pretend you’re Solid Snake on the weekend or whatever.

But realistically these pistols shoot fantastically, they are big and heavy and they don’t have much recoil.

Obviously as a part of the weight and all that but they really are just fantastic, I really love this handgun, it’s one of my favorites of all time.

I wouldn’t do anything with it aside from just use it as a range toy, but it is a terrific handgun.

Anyways guys, thanks for watching this list on TFBTV.

We really appreciate your continued viewership.

If you want, check us out on Patreon.

Another big next of Ventura Munitions.

We hope to see you next time.

(gun firing)