#Blaster

Many guns are exceedingly serious tools, purpose-built for potential life-or-death situations. Others are made more for fun – entertaining, enjoyable range toys. Today’s examination focuses on a case of the latter. Unless you live under a rock, by now you’ve likely at least heard of the extremely popular television series “The Mandalorian”, launched in 2019, from Disney’s Star Wars universe. One of the titular character’s weapons in the series is a sniper rifle called the Amban Phase-Pulse blaster, noted for its prominent two-pronged forked muzzle. As gun guys often do, some viewers who are also firearms aficionados have geeked out over the show’s prop weapons, looking for real-world guns that the props may be based on. In the case of the Amban rifle, there were none to be found. The blaster was an entirely fabricated prop and not a dressed-up real gun, as many other Star Wars weapons have been. However, the mad AK scientists at a Phoenix-based shop called Lee Armory have at least somewhat changed that.

In recent years, Star Wars fans have begun to ditch their dreams of building a Mauser C96 based replica of Han Solo’s DL-44 blaster due to soaring costs, and have a new hope in the much more affordable AR-15 DL-44 clones. Enter Canto Arms, which, at present have a dedicated line of AR-15 DL-44 clones for sale, both as complete .22LR pistols, and as parts kits, plus many other accessory options to complete the DL-44 build you never thought possible. Purists will no doubt scoff at a non-Mauser blaster clone, but with Canto Arms’ Nocturne 22 Heavy Blaster, you can have a close representation of Han Solo’s blaster for less than half of what a C96 conversion would cost, and you get to save the remaining Mausers at the same time.

Many of you saw my recent article about my friend’s rough replica of Han Solo’s DL-44 blaster from the Star Wars movie franchise. If you missed it, you can find it here. The idea behind that build was to construct an AR pistol to look like a rough approximation of the movie prop, as inexpensively as possible. Today I bring you another functioning DL-44 replica gun, but the goal with this one was much different. The owner sourced a real C96 “Broomhandle” Mauser and commissioned a professional gunsmith to rebuild and modify it to be as close to a perfect movie prop replica as possible. This was not to be just a cheap, fun range toy. Today’s blaster was the obsessive mission of a Star Wars mega-fan and his gunsmith, bent on excruciating detail. Let’s discuss how they accomplished this galactic feat.

In the Star Wars movie franchise, Harrison Ford’s iconic portrayal of space-borne smuggler Han Solo is inextricably linked to his trusty blaster pistol. Throughout the interstellar saga, our roguish patron saint of shooting first wielded a modified BlasTech DL-44 heavy blaster, which he used to dispatch dozens of Imperial Stormtroopers and the occasional humanoid alien, among others. This fictional blaster was itself a modified real firearm, based on the venerable Mauser C96 – affectionately known as the “Broomhandle” Mauser. The German manufacturer produced more than a million of these guns between 1896 and 1937, and long before Ford fired laser beams out of his on the silver screen, C96s were reportedly carried by the likes of Winston Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia.

“…Not until they invent handheld laser beams or something” – maybe you’ve heard this tacked on the end of an argument about how small arms are at their peak, and unlikely to change very much anytime soon. Well, the day when Star Wars-style blasters become a reality may be sooner than some think: Military technology giant Raytheon has conducted the first comprehensive flight test of a helicopter-borne high energy laser weapon capable of blasting drones out of the sky.

The history of the IWI Tavor is a subject that has interested me for close to a decade. The rifle’s history doesn’t seem to have been well-documented so far, at least in sources I have read; yet available on the Internet are many of the original concept images and mockups of the weapon. So, instead of writing a history on the Tavor, which I cannot yet do (although I am working on it!), let’s take a look at these concepts, and see how they evolved from the first drawings to the final product. (Note: About half the photos in this article came to me via a thread on bullpupforum.com, so thanks to them.)

Those of you who believe laser weapons are right around the corner may be more right than you think. Laser weapons promise unique capabilities for destroying the vulnerable sensors apparati needed for both early warning and for modern precision guided weapons to hit their mark. Further, lasers can also be used against thin-skinned ordnance such as missiles (where the laser beam’s instant flight time is a boon to hit probability), and against other targets where a silent attack is needed. General Atomics, makers of the infamous R/MQ-1 Predator drone, are working on a 150 kilowatt laser, which could potentially be installed on an AC-130 transport-derived close air support aircraft.  BreakingDefense reports:

I am partnering with C&Rsenal’s Othais to bring you companion articles to his Primer series of videos looking at some of the most important firearms in history. First, Othais tackles the iconic Mauser C96 pistol, used by diverse characters from Chinese resistance fighters in WWII, to fictional rogue smugglers from a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Keep a look out for further articles in this set as they come out!