POTD: Blast from the Past

by Steve Johnson

Published: August 4th, 2015

Our friend Gabor Vass of Kaliber Info sent us this photo of a prototype flare pistol convention. The pistol is a Soviet SPSh-2 Flare Pistol converted to 9 mm R Knall (.38 blank ammo) + 28 mm rubber bullet.

The original SPSh Flare Pistol dates back to WWII and was invented by the Georgy Semyonovich Shpagin, who is better known for designing the PPSh submachine gun. It fired 26mm flares out of its 6″ barrel, making it well suited to 28mm rubber balls.

#Pistol #Russia

Steve Johnson

I founded TFB in 2007 and over 10 years worked tirelessly, with the help of my team, to build it up into the largest gun blog online. I retired as Editor in Chief in 2017. During my decade at TFB I was fortunate to work with the most amazing talented writers and genuinely good people!

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8 of 15 comments

PK on Aug 04, 2015

Neat! Too bad that conversion would classify that as a DD under USA laws, or I would happily make something similar.

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- M2AP on Aug 04, 2015
  
  @PK Nope, it would be a muzzleloader since it doesn't fire fixed cartridges, just like a can or golf ball launcher.
  
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- PK on Aug 04, 2015
  
  @M2AP Are you sure? It's a post 1898 design, using a cartridge to propel a projectile intended to be fired at a person. Seems like a DD to me, but with how confusing the laws can be maybe it would be the same as the blank launchers.
  
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- M2AP on Aug 04, 2015
  
  @PK The projectile is separate from the blank. It doesn't meet the legal definition of a cartridge (which is projectile, primer, and propellant in a self contained unit).
  It doesn't matter if it's a post-1898 item since it doesn't use fixed cartridges. Modern muzzleloaders are still legally antiques because of that. There are also modern repros of the Civil War Smith Carbine that fire from "cartridges" but are not legally firearms, Smith Carbine cartridges do not have their own priming and require a percussion cap be placed separately.
  Now if it were able to fire self contained cartridges in addition to these blank and rubber ball loads, then it would be legally a firearm (AOW if it lacks rifling), but still not a DD since the projectile fired out of the fixed cartridge is not over 0.5" in diameter. It's the same deal with a golf ball launcher on an AR. You can fire .223 cartridges out of it and it's legally a firearm, but muzzleloading projectiles over 0.5" into the adapter to be fired by a separate blank does not turn it into a DD.
  
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- Christian Hedegaard-Schou on Aug 04, 2015
  
  @PK Ken is right. This does not fire "Fixed ammunition". It uses a blank to propel an object. Same reason a Can Cannon, golf ball launcher, etc are all legal.
  
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- Kovacs Jeno on Aug 05, 2015
  
  @M2AP Exactly, and because of this "separate ammo thing" it is a non-firearm in Hungary.
  
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Kovacs Jeno on Aug 05, 2015

You can see in this video this "gun" in action:
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

{ "id": "15009724", "alt": "", "title": "", "video_link": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/cIJ_3go5zGM", "youtube_video_id": "cIJ_3go5zGM" }

{ "width": 634, "height": 357, "showRelated": false }

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- Bill on Aug 05, 2015
  
  @Kovacs Jeno That soundtrack rocks.
  
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