#DIY

A reader was sent this collection of photos said to be of Pakistani gunsmiths and gun dealers. The photos appear to be from different sources and a few look like frames taken from videos. While I would not want to fire these guns, the results they achieve in poorly lit rural workshops is impressive. Note how they load the ammunition: using a hammer instead of a loading press and very primitive dies.

These photos are of a colonial Virginia-style .54 cal flintlock build by a redditor’s father. The wood is beautiful.

Fresno Police discovered a convicted felon in possession of a homemade shotgun disguised as a Super Soaker. ABC reports …

This shows the process of making a blank firing replica gun. The video shows the steps from CAD design to the finished working gun.

Every so often I get an email from a conceptual artist who is obsessed with the artistic merit of putting a gun on display. Rarely do they exhibit beautiful guns, but instead poorly made, badly modified or kitschy blinged out guns. My theory is that eventually conceptual artists eventually run out of metaphors for genetalia and need to find the next thing to shock the public. The artsy crowd is apparently easily shocked by guns sitting inside locked glass display cases.

A YouTube user claims to have seen this unidentified gun at the range. I don’t know why a person would video someone else shooting a gun without asking what they were shooting. Maybe this is a hoax, a marketing stunt or just a blank firing pistol inside a DIY shell. Regardless, it looks cool.

Instructables has instructions on how to integrate a $20 battery powered soldering iron into a $16 airsoft pistol. The battery is integrated into the magazine, allowing fast reloads.

The “working” Lego guns featured in the new LEGO Heavy Weapons book are amazing. I love the shotgun and Enfield.

Boys will always be boys. Before guns they made pretend swords out of sticks. Before swords they made clubs. The invention of the gun presented unique challenges to boys the world over. My attempts at building a gun involved a lot of elastic and usually ended up being inefficient crossbows. Kids today have it easy. They just walk into a store (or Amazon.com) and buy a nerf gun.

Earlier this year Chuckyzord guest blogged about his DIY replica SKS. Yesterday he emailed me a video of a replica China Lake (40mm pump action) grenade launcher he has just finished making. The replica is very impressive. It loads, fires and cycles just like the real China Lake.

Longziz purchased his first AR-15 when he was studying in the USA and it inspired him to design his own rifle. A few years later, now studying in Germany, he has unveiled his patent-pending design which he named the Longziz #1.

This video shows an impressive homemade CO2 powered fully automatic air gun. The magazine holds 23 AA batteries and it can fire them at a rate of 600 / minute. It is impressive how well it cycles.

The Atlantic published a photo of fishermen in Bangkok using homemade above-water spear guns. Those stocks look like they were lifted straight off old rifles.

Iraqveteran8888 demonstrates homemade wax slugs in the below video. To make these slugs you just buy some #8 target shot shells, remove the shot, mix the shot with wax and then pour back into the shotshell. They seem to hit accurate and hard.

Danger Room has published a fascinating article by David Axe about a farming community who have organized themselves into a militia to defend themselves from the marauding remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group …