Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Triumph of the will...

If you want a gun bad enough (and have access to a few simple machine tools,) you'll find a way to get one.
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12 comments:

Ed Foster said...

My comment also in similar cases. Consider: how many shock absorbers are there in the U.S. Canada, and Mexico? Roughly a quarter billion vehicles times four each equals...?

Same series 60 or 70 seamless tubing used in a submachinegun reciever. Add a file, a ballpeen hammer, a $40 welding kit, an electric drill if we want to get modern, and two or three hours of industrious labor, and you have a burp gun.

Or perhaps the whack jobs would just go straight to bombs.

The kids at Columbine got their weapons by prying open the locked gun safe of a cop fer crissakes.

8:21 AM, February 10, 2010
og said...

Very clever on the part of the Chinese. Shotguns are versatile and useful, relatively low chamber pressure means no special metallurgical requirements, and a revolver is a much easier mechanism to make (barely) functional than an auto. You could just about do this with a drill press and a hacksaw. A good use of resources.

8:25 AM, February 10, 2010
Tam said...

Yup. I've seen pics of revos from N. Ireland that had manually-rotated cylinders with a small spring-loaded bolt or screw to act as the cylinder stop and a rubber-band-powered slip hammer. Repeaters don't come simpler.

8:33 AM, February 10, 2010
Bram said...

I shoot with a guy who made his own Sten. What impresses me the most is that he did it legally in NJ.

9:31 AM, February 10, 2010
Tam said...

"What impresses me the most is that he did it legally in NJ."

Speaking of triumphs of the will...

Wow. I'll bet your buddy read the tale of Sisyphus and thought "Slacker..." ;)

9:33 AM, February 10, 2010
Anonymous said...

I understand that with the STEN, the hardest thing is building a magazine to seat right.

You know that's one ugly gun inthe article, but it must have serious intimidation factor, which is probably 98% of the point.

9:56 AM, February 10, 2010
Anonymous said...

Sixty years ago, Time magazine et al had fairly accurate descriptions of how gang kids in New York City made their zip guns.

It's a helluva lot easier in today's world. What with Harbor Freight or Northern Supply, you can turn out some pretty neat stuff.

Art

10:06 AM, February 10, 2010
Moriarty said...

The initial inventory, guns from the nickname “God pig” man.

Hey, if I had a cool nickname like that, I bet I could build one too.

... external trigger is not Buckle have no insurance, fill out bombs loaded on the mean, believe it or mistakenly pulled the trigger will fire, very dangerous.

Wellokaymaybenot.

10:47 AM, February 10, 2010
Stranger said...

Back when, I saw several Afghan made Martini's and Lee Enfield's made entirely by hand. The tools were one homemade treadle lathe and lots and lots of file work.

Along with rust blue, and a few pieces of spring stock salvaged from wrecked British army vehicles.

Amazingly, fit and finish was at least adequate for casual observation. While most parts would fail the micrometer test - they passed arsenal proof, and were accurate enough for the purpose.

You don't need a machine shop. Just patience and a good supply of elbow grease.

12:31 PM, February 10, 2010
jselvy said...

Just goes to show that the right to keep and bear arms is a natural right and not a government granted privilege.

3:06 PM, February 10, 2010
John A said...

OK, that thing does not look like something I would want.

Anyhoo, a machine shop is not entirely necessary - as intimated by an earlier reference to "zip" guns. Not long ago, I came across a double-barrel single-use shotgun, using match-heads as propellant, built in an Italian prison cell circa 1981 from parts of the bed (the bed legs were hollow tubes and became barrels, the wooden matress supports used for the stock, etc).

5:40 PM, February 10, 2010
Ed Foster said...

The Marine Corp Museum in Quantico used to have a Viet Cong .45, a suprisingly authentic looking 1911, made entirely by one man in two weeks, with nothing but files and a hand drill.

It was smoothebore, and the slide was bent slightly from several firings, but nothing had broken. And, again, several firings.

New York City zipguns, circa 1960's? Second section up on a car antenna, wrapped with wire, hose clamped to a carved wood stock.

Pull back the brass door bolt with the firing pin filed in the face, and latch it to the rear while you put the .22 short in the "chamber". Tip up the door bolt knob and the rubberbands wrapped around the knob and the front of the stock pull the whole thing together with a bang. Well, a pop.

Today, I would be almost as afraid of the clothespin guns we used to shoot jagged chunks of linoleum at each other.

Linoleum. That's oilcloth if you're a New Yorker.

Moving from Brooklyn back to Killingworth Connecticut, where everybody had a factory made .22 that only went off when the owner wanted it to, probably saved me from blindness.

8:51 PM, February 10, 2010

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