#Homemade

Sent in to TFB is another concept design for an ‘afternoon’ DIY submachine gun of particular crudeness and expediency. The majority of components are laminated together from readily available square section steel tubing, owing to its namesake. Apparently the only thing that cost anything was the STEN mag and compression spring. The model shown is a non-firing mock-up dummy for the purposes of demonstration only.

There are odd guns out there, and then there is this. A listing on Gunbroker that just ended consisted of six SKS rifles with 75 round drums arranged in some sort of odd Gatling mechanism. The listing was started at $3,500 and I don’t think anyone bid on it at all (it was viewed 341 times). Either way, this tops some of the oddest combinations of machines and firearms I’ve seen. From the auction description-

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 during that time. The article is copied below, but for those who prefer, they can download a PDF version I created at this link.

Sent in is a concept mock up for a basic ‘easily made’ compact machine pistol. The design outwardly is a near copy of the Armenian K6-92 and early Chechen made ‘Borz’ derivatives. All components inside the receiver are laminated from square tubing with a portion of the bolt mass being an external plate which doubles as a cocking handle. The prototype was made as a display dummy only for obvious legal reasons.

Whatever one thinks of the proliferation of firearms, it’s a fact that the technology needed to make reliable, effective weapons is well in hand. Even at the lowest levels of industrial capability firearms are practical, manufacturable items, and this includes those capable of fully automatic fire. Weapons with a great deal of firepower can be made from simple, off-the-shelf items at home. Proof of this can be seen in the numerous improvised firearms that continually turn up all over the world.

So, one day you’re working on your ranch in Utah, and you think “you know, when the zombie elk apocalypse comes, I had better be prepared. I’ve got a rifle, and some ammo, but what happens when I run out?”

The Chopping Block has been experimenting with home made body armor.

Pictured is an interesting improvised 9mm firearm being sold within criminal circles in Brazil. The entire trigger group / lower is from a standard paintball marker, allowing for a more useful semi-automatic (open-bolt) operation. A clever feature is the use of standard 9mm holed hexagonal brass bar stock as a crude smooth-bore barrel.

A 60 year old man in Japan was recently arrested for building homemade guns of his own design. According to him it was his hobby for the last 40 years. He used scrap anvils as a source of hardened steel and crafted his own ammunition using toy caps and casted lead bullets.

Here’s a humorously tasteful take on a crude Vietcong-esque single-shot pistol design. All it’s missing is an intricate engraving depicting the last of the buffalo.

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:

A recent gun amnesty in Mexico offering quick cash and groceries saw a number of interesting homemade and modified firearms turned in.

It doesn’t help that a large number of submachine guns churned out in the garages of Mexican drug cartel ‘engineering departments’ point the finger at the USA as their country of origin.

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.

A recent ‘gun turn in’ sponsored by Newport Police Department spurred on local gun collectors to make a small profit by turning in unwanted junk firearms and also grabbing up a few bargains themselves. Merely 22 minutes into the four hour event the organizers had expended all available gift cards and resorted to IOUs, obviously helping to draw more people attending to buyers offering fast cash outside. The payout was as follows:
$175 – Assault or assault-like rifle