Underground Arms Watch returns with another look at recently seized oddball weapons. Featured as the title picture is an improvised .22 firearm seized by police in Brazil from someone who “reported that he was shooting to scare off robbers who wanted to rob his [Read More…]
Welcome back to Underground Arms Watch. Catching up into the new year, we continue our look at some of the black market bootleg weapons seized worldwide within the last few months. First up is an interesting pistol seized in Liverpool, UK by Merseyside Police. It [Read More…]
Continuing our regular look into criminally made and modified firearms within our Underground Arms Watch series, we start with a seizure of a number of homemade firearms by Queensland Police on October 2: Officers from Logan District Drug and Firearm team have charged a [Read More…]
Since late 2017 a group of secessionists in Cameroon’s former British mandate located in the southwest have been fighting under the banner of a self-declared state named the Federal Republic of Ambazonia or Amber Land. Bordering Nigeria to the northwest and the [Read More…]
Continuing the Underground Arms Watch series, here are a number of black market made and modified firearms which have recently surfaced. First up, here are three corpses of what were once guns which were seized in Zimbabwe earlier in the month. “EASTERN CAPE – [Read More…]
The latest ARES report published March 30 examines emergent technologies currently enabling further ease in the production of DIY firearms, including (but not limited to) advances in 3D printing. The 54-page report covers a wide range of production methods and firearm [Read More…]
Catching up with police seizures from mid-February onward, March’s look into improvised and modified firearms circulating the criminal underworld begins. Firstly it appears that automatic conversion switches have been showing up fitted to Glock pistols seized in [Read More…]
Welcome to another installment of Underground Arms Watch series where we take a look at criminally made and modified firearms seized throughout the world. Last week police in Queensland Australia seized two homemade firearms during multiple drug-related raids on Gold [Read More…]
Welcome to another installment of Underground Arms Watch series where we take a look at criminally made and modified firearms seized throughout the world. Modified suppressed rifle seized by Italian police Pictured is a modified ‘Contender’ type single-shot [Read More…]
A new year brings about the first of January’s Underground Arms Watch installment – a look into criminally made and modified firearms seized by police and security services worldwide. Below are three Locally made pistols seized by Bengaluru City Police in [Read More…]
Continuing from Part 1 of December’s Underground Arms Watch edition, below are some of the good and not so good criminally manufactured and modified weapons recently seized off the streets. ‘Numerous weapons found by OPP, border services during search’ [Read More…]
A look into criminally manufactured firearms seized in recent months continuing from Part 2 of last month’s round-up. First up is what appears to be a shortened homemade copy of the Madsen M50 submachine gun pictured alongside an M16 and AK which was surrendered [Read More…]
Continuing from Part 1 of Underground Arms Watch, below are several more notable examples of criminally produced firearms seized worldwide by police and security services in recent months. Mock M4 A 9mm SMG seized in Espírito Santo, Brazil. Cosmetically It has likely [Read More…]
Occasionally police operations across the world churn up weapons produced solely for the criminal market. Some of these are improvised while others are semi-professionally produced in illicit workshops. Documented here are a handful of interesting examples uncovered in [Read More…]
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 [Read More…]
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…]
Even in relatively isolated developing nations criminals find ways to arm themselves. Below are a number of crude improvised firearms made from regular household stapler guns recently seized by police in Papua New Guinea which are fast becoming a trend. The example [Read More…]
In 1991 the Croatian parliament voted to seceded from what was formerly the ‘Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’, leading to armed conflict between Croatian and Serbian government forces as well as various paramilitary groups formed along ethnic lines. [Read More…]
Pictured are two dirt simple improvised ‘zip guns’ seized by police which were the subject of an officer safety notice. The weapons have been constructed by screwing together standard pipe fittings which can be obtained for a total of around $5 at any local [Read More…]
A police officer in Beong-dong, northern Seoul was shot and killed Wednesday during a standoff with a man (Seong Byung-dae, 45) who was also kitted up with body armor and had previously attacked a neighbor with a hammer. The firearm or multiple firearms used by the [Read More…]
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.
A recent gun amnesty in Mexico offering quick cash and groceries saw a number of interesting homemade and modified firearms turned in. Perhaps the jewel of the haul was a very nicely made .22lr revolving rifle: In contrast, a trash bag full of zip guns was handed in, an [Read More…]
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 [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…]
Some glorious individual decided to take a duffel bag full of improvised slam-fire shotguns (of legal length) to a local gun buyback which was offering $50 for each gun handed in. Unfortunately on this occasion the officer manning the table was apparently [Read More…]
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 [Read More…]
Police in Sydney, Australia have arrested a suspected manufacturer and supplier of pen guns, an increasingly popular weapon among Australia’s world famous gasoline marauding biker gangs. The examples seized are extremely minimal in design, the suspected culprit [Read More…]
I thought some of these examples were particularly … rustic. The last example appears to be trying to channel a S&W Model 3 top-break.
The recent political upheaval in Egypt has fueled demand for cheap weapons for personal defense giving way to a variety of locally produced guns. Most commonly seen are patterns for simple homemade single shot shotguns and pistols circulating [Read More…]
The new boss of the Firearms and Organized Crime Squad has revealed that at least 10% of firearms seized by police in NSW are homemade. “Supt Plotecki said there was anecdotal evidence that outlaw motorcycle gangs were targeting people who have the skills to make [Read More…]
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