The Firearm Blog

You often hear stories about ancient AK-47 rifles being dug up and fired. In this video the Special Task Force, an elite paramilitary South African police unit, assist Mozambique authorities in locating and destroying an 18 year old weapons cache left over from the Mozambican Civil War.

One of the policemen takes a rusty AK-47, pours motor oil all over it, then proceeds to empty a magazine.

Skip to 1:50 to see the AK being fired.

UPDATE: It is an AK-47, with bakelite magazines, not a AK-74 as I originally reported. Thanks to those who corrected me. It also makes more sense, as the 74 was not introduced only a few years earlier than the start of the civil war.

Hat Tip: SaysUncle

The Sniper World Cup is an sniper competition for police and military snipers held annually in Budapest, Hungary. The name is somewhat of a misnomer as the competition seems to be primarily made up of European teams, but it is open to all countries.

This year Russia won with the Ukraine coming second and Macedonia third. It is quite an achievement for Macedonia which has a population of only 2.1 million.

These photos are of the competition in 2007:

The range officers are armed … just in case of international incidents I suppose

This photo was from the 2008 competition. Interesting position.

As the western world moved away from full power battle rifles such as the H&K G3, FN FAL and M14, Heckler & Koch developed the HK32 and HK33 chambered in 7.62×39mm and 5.56×45mm respectively. Both were based on the G3 design and roller-delayed blowback operating mechanism.

The HK32K. Photo from HKPro.com

While appearing in promotional literature, the HK32 never went into production, or so everyone says.

Wamba, an very observant member of the HKPro.com forum, noticed photos of a Mexican policeman holding what appears to be the HK32.

The photo appeared in this article.

The magazine, both outside appearance and curvature, is significantly different from the HK33.

HK33 5.56×45mm. Showing 25, 30 and 40 round magazines.

The receiver also looks slightly different to the SW32, a clone of the HK33 made by Specials Weapons Inc chambered for 7.62×39mm.

SW32

I think the most likely explication for these rifles ending up with the Mexican police is that H&K sent pre-production samples to the Mexican Army who manufacture H&K weapons under license and they somehow made their way into the police arsenal.

The GSh-18 Pistol can fire a very hot (similar to 9mm +P+) 9mm Luger round loaded with an AP bullet called the 9mm PBP. It has the capability to punch holes through 8mm of steel or a Class III bulletproof vest at 20 meters. This video (from RIAN) shows off its capabilities:

Defense Review wrote about the pistol recently.

H/T: Reddit

The PSDR 3 is a fully suppressed .45 ACP Smith & Wesson Model 625 revolver developed in 1993 by Joe Peters, under contract from Northrhine-Westphalia, for Germany’s SEK (SWAT) teams.

This photo is from Visier Special 6, 1997 (special edition of one of the three big German gun journals):

Click to expand.

Revolvers cannot be effectively suppressed because gas escapes from between the cylinder and the barrel creating noise (there are some exceptions). The big shell that encloses the cylinder of the PSDR 3 prevents the gas from escaping. This combined with a big suppressor and a subsonic .45 ACP round causes a noise reduction from 136 dB to 90 dB which is comparable to a CO2 air gun. Decibels are a logarithmic unit of measurement, so a 46 dB reduction is significant. In theory this gun should make a lot less noise than a suppressed semi-automatic pistol because there no slide slamming open and closed.

I had no idea such a gun existed until Sven emailed me. I really like the idea – German engineering at its best!
Many thanks to Sven, who blog at Defense and Freedom, for the scanned page and translation.

PoliceOne.com did some online polling last year on their website. I have no doubt its results are about as accurate as any other web poll, but the results are nonetheless interesting.

Results of the third poll.

The rest of the poll results are here.

From the you-got-to-be-kidding-me-department. The BBC reports:

“We’re looking for anyone who is brandishing offensive weapons or blades,” Holly told Newsbeat.

…

Even when pictures are taken in private, though, which isn’t technically breaking the law, he says the weapons are so dangerous his officers pay a visit to the people involved.

“We show the parents their pictures,” he explained, “recover the weapons and make sure they know that behaviour is unacceptable.

“We have large kitchen knives, axes, samurai swords, baseball bats, a huge number and different type of weapons – in simple terms weapons that can kill.”

I am speechless. If you take a photo of yourself holding a knife in Glasgow and post it on the internet the police will hunt you down and explain to you that knives are dangerous.

$3 Plastic knife: Guaranteed not to offend.

If William Wallace has been forced to cook food with a plastic kitchen knife he would never have had to heart to take on the British. I think it is safe to say that the Queen does not have to worry about the Scots seceding from the Kingdom.

The Carabinieri (Italian gendarmerie) have seized a pen gun from a mobster in Naples.

.22 Short rounds and one standard (subsonic) .22 Long Rifle

My memory is pretty bad but I think it was 6 months ago when the Italian police captured one of those cell phone guns from another mobster.

SFGate reports:

A Carabinieri paramilitary officer holds a .22-caliber pen gun that was confiscated from a man in Naples. According to reports, Carabinieri were investigating if the weapon has been used in crimes or “acts of intimidation.”

Hat Tip: Zeon @ MP.net

About two weeks ago the police in Winnipeg, Canada, confiscated a a bunch of saw off shotguns, ammo and a unidentified submachine gun that is reported to be homemade.

Full photo at The Winnipeg Sun

The Winnipeg Sun reports:

Possibly homemade, the submachine-gun and five sawed-off shotguns, along with ammunition, were seized at a house in the 400-block of Manitoba Avenue on Jan. 7, police said.

Three males, aged 17, 27 and 28, are facing almost 120 charges.

If it is homemade whoever made it did a very good job. Either it is homemade or of a pre-1950ish design. Note that it has a non-telescoping bolt resulting in a long receiver.

At first I thought it may be an MP-40, but it is not. Can anyone here identify it? Please provide a link to a photo in the comments if you can.

Regular readers know that I have fascination with homemade guns

Prensa Latina reports:

A SEDENA pamphlet handed over to several entities explains what type of guns they can use to fight organized crime, the way to acquire them and the way to request them, even abroad.

The newly allowed guns include calibre-40 and fragmentation grenades.

The SEDENA document also explains the type of training and confidence control tests to be undergone by those using the guns.

I presume .40 means .40 S&W. Personally, unless I had a multi-shot 40mm grenade launcher as my sidearms and something big enough to read-out-and-touch-someone from a significant distance as my primary arm I don’t think I would even remotely consider Mexican police work … and even then

After being knocked to the ground with bean bag rounds the suspect went for his rifle on the other side of the basement at his Lakemore, Ohio home.

After a SWAT Officers’ AR-15 jammed another offer fired two shots from his MP5 missing once and hitting the suspects skull on the next shot. The 9mm bullet bounced right off.

Ohio.com reports

Brandi Tice, 28, would never leave the Lakemore house. She died of a single gunshot wound to the head — a rifle shot that police say was fired by her estranged husband.

About seven hours later, after keeping SWAT officers at bay with his 4-year-old son by his side, Daniel Tice was shot by police, struck by a 9 mm bullet that miraculously bounced off his forehead, sparing his life.

Tice, 32, was to undergo surgery Friday for a fractured skull. He is expected to recover and be charged with murder.

This is not an uncommon phenomena as the media make it out to be. Many hunters with high powered rifles have noticed the exact same thing. It is one of the reasons why head shots are not recommended for medium or large game.

Saying all that, physics is a strange beast. Low powered round can be devastating.

Thanks to Jay for the link.

New for 2009 is the Kimber Model 8400 Police Tactical chambered in .300 Win. Mag. The rifle is designed with military and law enforcement in mind.

The previous Kimber tactical rifles based on the 8400 action got good reviews and I expect this one will not be any different.

I will update this post as more information becomes available.

The CZ P07 “Duty” is a new 9mm pistol by CZ that will be launched this year.

Click to expand image

CZ have not yet released the specs of the “Duty” (as it is known). It is polymer-framed DA/SA and features an interchangable decocker/manual safety.

The pistol was designed for law enforcement but I am sure CZ-USA will offer it to civilians.

I will update this post as information becomes available.

Hat Tip: CZ-Zone, THR and CZ Forum

Indonesian police officers display confiscated arms during press conference in Jakarta, Indonesia on 30 December 2008. Indonesia police seized dozens of arms, 8,5 kilos of heroin, 1,5 tons of marijuana, and 16,000 methamphetamine pils in several operations in the end of the year. Indonesia has tightened security in the country ahead of the Christmas day and New Year Eve. Indonesia was hit by a series of major terrorist acts from 2000 to 2005, including the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, hotel explosion in 2003 and the Australian embassy bombing in 2004, killing more than 250 people.

Those sneaky drug dealers! The police think they have confiscated guns and all they have is paintball markers and cheap airsoft toys. I bet we find that those 16k methamphetamine pills are cleverly disguised aspirin

H/T MP.net