Closely associated with ‘juvenile delinquency’ of the 1950s, ‘zip guns’ were often fabricated by youngsters who could not afford to purchase or were forbidden from owning the genuine article. A mechanically inclined youngster might upon obtaining ammunition, [Read More…]
Wooden handguards fitted for an M16/AR15-patterned rifle are nothing new in the United States among the boutique custom build community. Some folks prefer the older, more nostalgic look of the solid wood grips that used to be so common on firearms of all types prior to [Read More…]
A YouTube channel called WarDoc has published a video where they show a rifle grenade launcher made in self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. This device is basically a tube attached to the muzzle of an AK-74 rifle. Instead of purpose made rifle grenades, it [Read More…]
Creating improvised firearms is one thing, but a recent propaganda video released by the Yemeni rebel and terrorist group Ansar Allah (better known as the Houthis) threw the spotlight on some weapons that take this to the next level. 20mm, 23mm, and even 30mm caliber [Read More…]
The war in Syria and Iraq has seen the development of a whole range of scratchbuilt and improvised weapons that are as ingenious as they are destructive. Recently, a kind of serially-produced rocket launcher has come to light as part of Da’ish (ISIS) propaganda, [Read More…]
Improvised and camouflaged firearms can be some of the most interesting weapons around, and the best ones combine inventiveness, creativity, craft work, and a sort of apocalyptic chic together into final products that are compelling far beyond the sum of their parts or [Read More…]
The Rahman Corps is a Syrian Rebel group operating in the Damascus region. It is independent of the Free Syrian Army, but is on friendly terms with the opposition group. Via the group’s Youtube channel, some videos have been released showing what appears to [Read More…]
A few months ago, the Military and Police Forces of Santa Catarina, Brazil, posted a Facebook video of an officer describing how an improvised 12 gauge sledgehammer would be fired. Like many home built weapons, the action is a simple spring loaded design that uses the [Read More…]
What is the simplest gun you can possibly make? When you hear this question, the kind of gun that comes to mind is probably a simple zip gun, like the one below, which has a forward-moving mass, a trigger, a barrel, and not much else: Given modern ammunition, [Read More…]
We’ve seen AKs fitted with all manner of 1913 pattern rail farms, but what about the other way around? AR-15s with Soviet-style side rails, would anyone really do that? For years now, one of the major modernization efforts for the Kalashnikov series of rifles has [Read More…]
Brazil is a beautiful country, but man does it seem like a lot of crazy stuff happens there. From cops shooting at bad guys from a helicopter and soccer refs pulling guns on players to interesting customized guns and even guns that shoot on their own! Check out this [Read More…]
Following on our earlier article about improvised and homebuilt weapons, Brazilian gun writer Ronaldo Olive emails us this article he wrote for Harris Publications in the 1980s about some of the simple underground improvised submachine guns seized by Brazilian police [Read More…]
Earlier this week, we blogged about an AR-15 that had seen half a century of service; a weapon originally made by General Motors between January of 1969 and the end of 1971. Recently, pictures were circulated on Facebook of a rifle even older than that firearm: A Colt [Read More…]
The state of 3D printed guns continues to improve. Hognose of WeaponsMan.com covers some of the recent developments: As we have expected to happen for some time, and as the initial Cody Wilson “Liberator” first demonstrated, 3D-printed firearms made of common [Read More…]
Defense Distributed’s project to produce and sell machines that can create firearms receivers for individual hobbyists is now being realized. “Ghost Gunner” miniature CNC machines are, after several delays, finally shipping. From WeaponsMan: Cody [Read More…]
Every now and again, a manufacturer decides to market a weapon that seemingly speeds right past all sense of aesthetics and functionality, to happily embrace a level of crudity and expedience normally reserved only for improvised or homebuilt guns. The Cobray Terminator [Read More…]
It seems someone was inspired to make a quick $400 for charity at a local police gun ‘give back’ in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Rather than the taxpayer, it was Warren Buffet’s sister Dorris who footed the bill, reportedly in order to circumvent [Read More…]
The below are machine pistols of a design that were being produced and distributed by criminal networks in Sweden. Apparently specifications for many of the parts were simply sent off to various machine shops and ordered as ‘boat components’. All examples [Read More…]