#HomemadeFirearms

Underground Arms Watch returns from the dead with a look at some recently confiscated weapons and emerging trends.

The 3D printing community continues to impress me by finding ways of making reliable, durable, and interesting homemade guns. IvanPrintsGuns is one of my favorite YouTube channels that focuses on 3D-printed firearms and in early March, Ivan showcased his latest working prototype – the Kleiner Freund or KF5. The KF5 is a 3D-printed MP5 that makes use of only the core of an MP5 and then combines it with improved 3D-printed parts to make the world’s most affordable MP5.

A university student in the UK has been convicted of firearms offences after being found in possession of two 3D printed guns. Tendai Muswere, 26, a student at London South Bank University and Zimbabwean national admitted printing a Washbear PM522 revolver and a Hexen .22 pepper-box using a 3D printer at his flat in Pimlico, south London in October 2017. According to him he printed the guns for the purpose of being used in a dystopian film project related to a film, cinema and video studies course he had attended.

Below are pictures of a homemade submachine gun seized last month by the Municipal Civil Guard of Limeira in Sao Paulo along with cocaine base paste and marijuana. This illicit craft produced SMG model has been seized as far back as at least 2014 and has appeared more regularly in recent months. These weapons are certainly the product of a large criminal distribution network being supplied by an efficiently run and well equipped illicit workshop.

One mans humble dream of becoming a master craftsman at Taurus was cut short after Police in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil seized this entirely homemade .380 semi-automatic pistol (excluding the magazine) which was made in his backyard, presumably from melted down Coca-Cola cans.

According to Edmonton police A Parkland County machine shop was being used to manufacture MAC-11 type machine pistols for the criminal underworld. The examples seized appear to be entirely handmade including the magazines and are each fitted with a silencer.

Famous strategic and political thinker once said that “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” From many perspectives, this is entirely true and weapons being tools of war can then be seen as weapons of politics. While we here at TFB focus on the technological aspects of our hobby, sometimes the creation of a firearm is indeed intended as a political act.

Pictured are several homemade firearms discovered by police in the cellar of a 70 year old man in Italy who was arrested following an altercation with a neighbor. Impressive are several large entirely handmade revolvers which appear to be chambered for .410 shotgun shells. Also present are what appear to be a number of guns disguised as walking sticks, seemingly also chambered in .410.

Here is a classic traditional style break barrel 12 gauge shotgun built entirely from scratch using scrap steel plate and tubing which can be found at any decent hardware store. Using the the drawings here as a basis, the builder managed to produce something which functions well and is aesthetically close to a factory made piece. The building process is documented below.

Banten’s police chief displays a P.A Luty designed expedient submachine gun equipped with suppressor as well as a crude homemade copy of a Thompson, both of which were seized from militants operating in Java.

Pictured is a homemade submachine seized by police during a raid which also uncovered a suspected meth lab. The weapon itself is very obviously based on a design described in the infamous Expedient Homemade Firearms series of manuals published by British author P.A Luty. Such homemade weapons have been widely encountered, accounting for at least 10% of firearms seized by NSW police.

It seems someone was inspired to make a quick $400 for charity at a local police gun ‘give back’ in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

A number of factories raided by police near the Uttar Pradesh/Haryana boarder in India appear to have been producing copies of the Jaco Western pistol, a popular DIY design published in 1972 and sold via mail order in the USA.

Homemade firearms have long featured strongly in Indian criminology. Known locally as Kattas or tamanchas, these crude handmade pistols account for up to 30% of firearms related crime. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, their use is continuing an upward trend with around 75% of gun homicides in the capital being carried out using homemade weapons. Almost all examples are smooth bore, sometimes utilizing a sanitation pipe or automobile steering shaft as a barrel. As well as 12 gauge, many are notably chambered in the 8x50mm mannlicher /.315 bore and British .303, both very common cartridges in the region. The designs themselves are typically influenced by old British flare pistol patents, such as the Webley MKIII.

I thought some of these examples were particularly … rustic.