About a month ago there was a shootout involving a criminal and Ukrainian police officers in Odessa, Ukraine. After the raid on the building where the suspect was shooting from and the subsequent search, police also found an illegal gun shop and seized several firearms made there. These kinds of incidents frequently happen all over the world. It wouldn’t be too interesting from the firearms standpoint if not the nature of the guns that were seized.

Three of the firearms seized in the Illegal shop in Odessa, Ukraine

As you can see in the images that the National Police of Ukraine has released, these are really crudely made weapons. The small shop set up in the basement of the building was equipped with a lathe and a mill. One can make quite impressive “devices” even with such basic equipment, however, it looks like these guys didn’t have the necessary knowledge and skills and ended up putting together just “something” that shoots. As you see in the images, these guns are just a mess of tubes, bent and welded sheet metal, screws and springs.

One of the machines found in the illegal shop

Reportedly, the criminals also made their own ammunition. I think it might be true because they probably had the same issues with acquiring factory made ammunition as they had with getting factory made firearms.

Illegally made cartridge found in the scene of shootout

As you can see in the above image, the cartridge made for one of these guns has a cast lead bullet with a conical nose. It is loaded into an unknown steel case, which looks to be a bottleneck one similar to the .357 SIG.

Sources:

“В Одесі після стрілянини поліція виявила цех з виготовлення атипової зброї (ФОТО, ВІДЕО)”. (2018, January 19). National Police of Ukraine. Retrieved from: https://www.npu.gov.ua/news/Informacziya/article-2223714/

Images retrieved from www.nvo.gov.ua, www.zbroya.info, www.nv.ua