When I was a child my parents had an absolute ban on toy guns. I was not allowed cap guns, airsoft guns or those nifty ray guns with the flashing lights and pew-pew sound effects (when I was a teenager they allowed me to own as many real guns as I could afford, so I don’t hold it against them). But on the other hand I had an ample supply wood, saws, hammers, nails and lego. The pursuit, and concealment, of handmade wooden guns and lego guns made up a significant part of my childhood.

NoStarch, my favorite non-gun technical publisher, has just published their third book on building Lego guns. The BrickGun Book by Jeff Boen focuses on pistols, which require less Lego bricks than their previous book that focused on building rifles and SMGs. Six gun designs are included (see above). The instructions are simple to follow with every step illustrated and are no harder, if not easier, than the official Lego set instructions.

The BrickGun Book, Page 66.

The BrickGun Book, Page 34

With a couple of nieces or nephews arriving in the near future I am slowly building a large collection of Lego to ensure they get a good Lego education, but I am still far from having enough of the required bricks to build these guns. To build the BG22, 299 parts of required. If you are missing a few parts, there are websites where you can order specific parts.

Parts required for the BG22 design.

If you have the parts, or you know a child who can be bribed to lend you the required bricks, you should have no trouble building these guns. The paper book (with an electronic PDF copy) costs $29.95, the ebook (PDF) costs $23.95.