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.
Armslist - the Craigslist of firearms!
http://www.armslist.com/
That's how they were made in junior high shop class in the 1950s in Detroit, however I never fired one or saw one fired, honest.
You put a nail or some other kind of pin in a hole in the plug that screws into the pipe section. You screw the plug down until the pin touches the primer, and the hammer drived the pin into the primer, firing the cartridge. I’ve seen these designs in handbooks for improvised weaponry issued by the army. The ones pictured are actually pretty fancy, which is not to say they look safe to actually fire.
“Grammer on FR is graded on a curve.”
So says you.
NFA'34 says that any pistol with a rifled barrel shall not be considered a short-barreled shotgun, which is why something thing like the Judge is considered a pistol despite firing a .410 shot shell. The NFA'34 does not state that all firearms with smooth bores are shotguns. Something like the Judge, which can accept either a .44 Long Colt or a .410 shot shell would be called a shotgun if it didn't have a rifled barrel, but there would be no basis for applying such a label to a firearm that's designed to accept a common pistol cartridge and does not accept any shot cartridge which is not designed for use in a pistol. Incidentally, if the Liberator is a short-barreled shotgun, so would be a typical carbine with a 16.1" barrel. The language which exempts rifled-barrel handguns from being called short-barreled shotguns does not exempt rifled-barrel shoulder-fired weapons. And just about any carbine can fire shot shells.
The most likely answer IMHO.
You need to process those guns with WinZip (or an equivalent utility) and they become AK-47s.
***...which can accept either a .44 Long Colt or a .410 shot shell would be called a shotgun if it didn’t have a rifled barrel,...***
Back in the late 1900s the Wild West Shows would order smooth bore colt .45s for use in the show. That way Buffalo Bill could shoot sand out of them and make it look like he was hitting a balloon or other item without endangering the audience.
But then, that was before 1932.
“Or not...”
LOL
Zip guns don’t have a firing pin, because they don’t fire anything.
They use a powerful spring to launch a projectile almost silently, except for the sound of the spring sliding through the barrel (Zip!)
Be cautious buying from there. They are loaded with BATF shills.
.
Thanks for the warning!
It’s my understanding that the “Judge” IS rifled - at least part way, sufficiently to dodge the law and classify it as a “pistol” rather than a “short barrel shot gun”.
Back in the depression days some fellas used to ream out the rifling in the barrel of a 1917 .45 Army revolver and use it against rattlesnakes. Along came the Feds and they were verbotten.
Most reasonable men will take their chances with a rattler before crossing a BATFE Nazi.
Of course you can fire shot out of a rifled barrel, but it tends to spin the shot column and project a “donut” pattern with a hole in the middle - right where you’re aiming.
I have excellent results however with a .22 pistol using #12 shot cartriges on rats, mice, snakes and such varmints fairly close in.
Check with the ATF web site http://www.atf.treas.gov/ about the “Liberator” - I’m pretty sure that it is considered a SBSG.
Back in the 1950s urban delinquents made zip guns out of cut off car antennae and a piece of hack saw blade. Just the right size for a .22. Obviously they were not overly concerned with federal regulations; most criminals aren’t. They know that the firearms charges are the first to get plea bargained away.
It’s usually the peaceable working stiff Peasant who gets thrown under the dungeon for possessing contraband you know.
Most firearms laws are patently absurd and tyrannical to begin with, but none of our politicians have the gonads to even try to reform any of them, and I’m not holding my breath for any to try any time soon.
There is explicit language in NFA'34 which states that a handgun which has a rifled barrel shall not be regarded as a short-barreled shotgun. The Judge could be considered a short-barreled shotgun if it didn't have a rifled barrel, since it is designed to fire ammunition of a type which is generally unsuitable for use in anything other than a shotgun. If you have a link to particular information about the Liberator, I'd be interested in seeing it. It wouldn't surprise me a whole bunch if the BATF would claim the Liberator is an SBS, but if the question were put before the Supreme Court, I suspect it would find that the BATF was overreaching, just as it found that the BATF overreached in claiming that a kit containing a Contender frame, a 14" barrel, a 16.1" barrel, a shoulder stock, and an instruction sheet warning that one must detach the 14" barrel before attaching the shoulder stack, and detach the shoulder stock before attaching the 14" barrel, together comprised a Short Barreled Rifle.
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