Posted on 06/15/2012 7:41:28 PM PDT by marktwain
I came across these "zip" guns on the net, but I cannot see how they are to work. Where is the fireing pin?
Anyone have ideas? Were these just made for show?
Dunno.
I was checking out the serial number. At first glance it looked like “2007 - ID10T” and I was thinking that one would pretty much have to be an idiot to get anywhere near it ;-)
Looks like the pipe plug in the section of pipe telescoping over the barrel probably moves forward. Wouldn’t be a problem to file, machine or drill and screw a firing pin onto it’s face and the hammer would drive it home. The plug and pipe act like a shroud around the breech.
One thought anyway...
Zip guns with combat grips and trigger guards? Someone’s havin’ a little fun.
that would be on the hammer
I believe that fellow got a letter from the BATFE.
They didn’t buy his “it’s art” excuse.
And there are those who think by drying up the supply of guns, they would disarm us. Remember the “Liberator” pistols of WWll? They were a bit more sophisticated than a zip gun but not much. A single-shot .45ACP. the idea was to sidle up to a german sentry, stick the “Liberator” in his ribs, pull the trigger and take what he had.
“to hole the bolt”
to hold the bolt.
I don't know how the zip gun works, but I do know how parentheses work. You use parentheses in pairs to enclose words that clarify or are used as an aside.
Never bring “parentheses” to a gun fight.
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As I recall, our zip guns used the largest section of a car antenna for the barrel, and some kind of spring/ rubber bands thingee to strike the edge of a nail against the rim of a .22. Stocks were made of wood.
The first time I ever heard about “zip guns” was in a novel “The Cross and the Switchblade”
It was a story set in New York City in the fifties between warring gangs. They made homemake firearms with car antennas, rubberbands, .22 rounds, and wooden blocks for handles.
It mentioned the “zip guns” were more likely to explode in the users hands than hit its target.
The smooothbore of the antenna didn’t help.
Wouldn’t fire one one a dare....
Everyone else may use them that way, but in point of fact, he did not.
One thing it certainly would be is patently dangerous.
No safety features on it that I can discern, and it is liable to blow up in your face on the first round.
Unless that section of pipe is “rifled”, then that firearm would be considered to be a “short barreled shotgun” (A shotgun has to have at least an 18 inch barrel and an overall length of around 27” (not real sure about that) or it’s the same as a sawed off shotgun and the BATFE can pitch you in Club Fed for merely possessing it.
Even the few surviving specimens of the “Liberator” being smooth bored have to be registered with the BATFE the same as a machine gun.
Fooling with this sort of gizmo can be fun, but is it worth about $200,000 in fines and legal fees, 10 to 15 years of your life and a lifetime felony conviction that would prohibit possession of any firearm?
Not for me it ain’t!
Of course any career criminal who wants to make one to use for a crime probably isn’t too worried about the BATFE.
Besides; real guns are readily available on the black market and not all that hard for a competent thief to steal.
They were not made to function. Their intended purpose was to scare the panties off a certain whiney little twerp who runs NYC... and who runs gun buy-back programs.... into giving the artiste’ who made these “weapons” something like $300 per.
In this, they function quite well.
Perhaps that pipe plug is solid for BATF reasons. If you really need to fire it you unscrew it, place a cartridge in the chamber then replace it with another plug drilled for a nail firing pin.
I see a similar handgun in my Frankfort Arsenal tech manual. It shows a plug drilled for a nail.
Again, maybe that is not drilled so the BATF cannot claim it is a real firearm. Bet he has a spare plug drilled for it.
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