A small single shot firearm designed to be concealed in oneself until a time it can be discretely extracted and presumably used against a high valued target. Custom tiny projectiles (4.5mm in this case) were often intended to be laced with poison.
Police in Queensland Australia recently seized a .22lr 3D printed ‘Liberator’ pistol during a raid on a meth lab. The lovely looking nail shown in the picture functions as its firing pin when inserted. Despite the police having to fan themselves, this find [Read More…]
A recent police raid on an illegal weapons factory in Sao Paulo netted some interesting items. The group involved were producing bombs, submachine guns, pistols, shotguns as well as .50 cal rifles. An odd little open-bolt automatic rifle: Submachine gun with suppressor: [Read More…]
Sent in to TFB is another concept design for an ‘afternoon’ DIY submachine gun of particular crudeness and expediency. The majority of components are laminated together from readily available square section steel tubing, owing to its namesake. Apparently the [Read More…]
Here is an interesting patent (US4019423) for an open bolt assault rifle which looks like a cross between a STEN and an M16. A large compression spring is depicted in front of the barrel assembly which in theory will slightly delay the breech opening when struck by the [Read More…]
Sent in is a concept mock up for a basic ‘easily made’ compact machine pistol. The design outwardly is a near copy of the Armenian K6-92 and early Chechen made ‘Borz’ derivatives. All components inside the receiver are laminated from square [Read More…]
Here is another unknown machine pistol that I’ve posted a short write up on via the ARES blog. A number of these have been appearing in the hands of Italian and British crime groups, one even being seized in a Real IRA weapons cache. Along with the [Read More…]
Pictured is an interesting improvised 9mm firearm being sold within criminal circles in Brazil. The entire trigger group / lower is from a standard paintball marker, allowing for a more useful semi-automatic (open-bolt) operation. A clever feature is the use of standard [Read More…]
A 60 year old man in Japan was recently arrested for building homemade guns of his own design. According to him it was his hobby for the last 40 years. He used scrap anvils as a source of hardened steel and crafted his own ammunition using toy caps and casted lead [Read More…]
Pictured is an unknown 9mm machine pistol which has been seized in the Netherlands and more recently in the UK. ‘R9-Arms Corp USA’ appears to be a fictional company, suggesting it has been manufactured illicitly. The model is made to a very professional [Read More…]
Pictured is a type of muzzle-loading improvised firearm sometimes encountered in Russia. The barrel usually consists of a length of steel or copper pipe, either capped off or hammered and folded shut at it’s breech end. A hole is drilled on top over which toy caps [Read More…]
Here are pictures of a neat little submachine gun prototype sent in. It uses minimal components and can be constructed with very basic tooling in short order. The builder made the example pictured as a non-firing replica for obvious legal reasons. The criteria was for a [Read More…]
Banten’s police chief displays a P.A Luty designed expedient submachine gun equipped with suppressor as well as a crude homemade copy of a Thompson, both of which were seized from militants operating in Java. Fact of the day: convicted drug dealers in [Read More…]
Here’s a humorously tasteful take on a crude Vietcong-esque single-shot pistol design. All it’s missing is an intricate engraving depicting the last of the buffalo.
A recent gun amnesty in Mexico offering quick cash and groceries saw a number of interesting homemade and modified firearms turned in. Perhaps the jewel of the haul was a very nicely made .22lr revolving rifle: In contrast, a trash bag full of zip guns was handed in, an [Read More…]
It doesn’t help that a large number of submachine guns churned out in the garages of Mexican drug cartel ‘engineering departments’ point the finger at the USA as their country of origin. You’d think that these people would know that there are [Read More…]
Pictured is a homemade submachine seized by police during a raid which also uncovered a suspected meth lab. The weapon itself is very obviously based on a design described in the infamous Expedient Homemade Firearms series of manuals published by British author P.A [Read More…]
A recent ‘gun turn in’ sponsored by Newport Police Department spurred on local gun collectors to make a small profit by turning in unwanted junk firearms and also grabbing up a few bargains themselves. Merely 22 minutes into the four hour event the [Read More…]
It seems someone was inspired to make a quick $400 for charity at a local police gun ‘give back’ in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Rather than the taxpayer, it was Warren Buffet’s sister Dorris who footed the bill, reportedly in order to circumvent [Read More…]
The below are machine pistols of a design that were being produced and distributed by criminal networks in Sweden. Apparently specifications for many of the parts were simply sent off to various machine shops and ordered as ‘boat components’. All examples [Read More…]
As I reported earlier on the ARES blog, a new IRA splinter group has released pictures of the improvised grenade launcher used to attack a PSNI vehicle in North Belfast last week. Interestingly, the crudely welded together device appears to use a very common Makita [Read More…]
Some glorious individual decided to take a duffel bag full of improvised slam-fire shotguns (of legal length) to a local gun buyback which was offering $50 for each gun handed in. Unfortunately on this occasion the officer manning the table was apparently [Read More…]
A number of factories raided by police near the Uttar Pradesh/Haryana boarder in India appear to have been producing copies of the Jaco Western pistol, a popular DIY design published in 1972 and sold via mail order in the USA. Many more Indian homemade pistols can be [Read More…]
Homemade firearms have long featured strongly in Indian criminology. Known locally as Kattas or tamanchas, these crude handmade pistols account for up to 30% of firearms related crime. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, their use is continuing an upward [Read More…]
This relatively valuable and scarce weapon was reportedly found during a raid on boats belonging to a criminal gang at Bulwer, Moreton Island, Australia. Submit photos you have taken to TFB’s Photo Of The Day.
The Projected Recoilless Improvised Grenade (PRIG) was a shoulder fired weapon developed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) for use against lightly armored vehicles. It is perhaps the most ingenious example of kitchen cupboard improvisation to date. The [Read More…]
Police in Sydney, Australia have arrested a suspected manufacturer and supplier of pen guns, an increasingly popular weapon among Australia’s world famous gasoline marauding biker gangs. The examples seized are extremely minimal in design, the suspected culprit [Read More…]
The post apocalyptic shimmers intensify… Displayed are various crudely home built self-loading pistols seized mostly in Brazil and Mexico. The designer here chose to build this example inside out using an external slide rail: A neatly made attempted copy of the [Read More…]
I thought some of these examples were particularly … rustic. The last example appears to be trying to channel a S&W Model 3 top-break.
As previously delved into, a seemingly endless variety of these are regularly emerging, some of factory quality, others of bedroom quality. A very crudely made model recently trending in numbers, sometimes fitted with a barrel made from a section of brass hex [Read More…]
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