Underground Arms Watch – November Pt.1

A look into criminally manufactured firearms seized in recent months continuing from Part 2 of last month’s round-up.

First up is what appears to be a shortened homemade copy of the Madsen M50 submachine gun pictured alongside an M16 and AK which was surrendered to police in Indonesia. The magazine looks to be possibly original, albeit slightly modified.

As well as those made from scratch, interesting examples of heavily modified firearms are sometimes encountered. Below is what appears to have once been a French-made MAS-38 submachine gun. The original stock has been replaced with a side-folding wire stock which would have required drastically shortening the bolt as in its original configuration this rides in a cavity (also housing the mainspring) for almost the full length of the stock.

One of the most common types of criminally modified firearm – a pistol created from a bolt action .22 rifle which was seized by New South Wales Police last month.

A modified starting pistol seized in the United Kingdom – similarly another common adaption. With this example, the original fake barrel has been removed and a homemade barrel made from steel tubing or similar has been inserted into the frame, the blocked chambers in the cylinder having also been bored through. Usually, only blank ammunition modified with the addition of a ball bearing or lead projectile inserted is used.

An Improvised firearm made using a stapler being a trend observed in Papua New Guinea in recent years. This example was used to hold up a vehicle in September.

Another example of a multi-shot zip gun which was seized in Brazil last week.

This example makes use of the rear section of a .22 air gun barrel with a crude striking mechanism welded to the remnants of the original cocking arm.

Probably the crudest automatic firearm ever conceived. In this case the builder opted to simply weld the magazine to the receiver. They did not skimp in adding a sort of sighting system, however. Example seized in Mexico.

A typical pattern of locally made machine pistol from Ecuador which was seized on November 3rd after being found carried in the waistband of an individual who was approached after being seen “moving in a prospective manner”.

On Saturday a bandit used this .410 contraption to rob a motorcyclist in Porto Velho.

For those interested in the forensic side of unusual firearms, a recent paper from the International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology examines powder markings from examples of licitly locally made semi-automatic pistols proliferating in India.

Comparison of Difference in Blackening obtained from a Country made Pistol of 7.65mm at different Ranges- PDF