Zip gun | Hacker News Reader

Zip gun

en.wikipedia.org

50 pointsdrev36 comments

Probably the most effective of these if you have 12ga ammo available is a “bang stick”. It’s basically a 12ga shell in a tube, with a spring that will force it into a firing pin when it’s pressed against something and trips a small lever holding back the spring. They’re used in shark hunting and for self-defense by divers against sharks.

Here’s a commercial one, which has a safety pin that must be removed before it will fire: http://www.billsbangsticks.com/12-Gauge-Powerhead_p_17.html

In an insurgency situation, devices like this are best used to obtain something better. Only being usable for a single shot isn’t necessarily a huge disadvantage, especially if there are multiple people using them at the same time. Pressed against heavy clothing, they also make surprising little noise. The “Liberator” .45 pistol was made by the US with the intention of airdropping the, to the French Resistance in WW2. In reality, almost all of them ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic. The Sten 9mm SMG didn’t cost much more to make and was much more effective.

I remember one employed by the protagonist in one of Clancey's books, Without Remorse.

As a side note - it’s more difficult in the US to make a legal zip gun than an illegal one. Smoothbores must have a 16” barrel or longer (18” for shotguns), and an overall length of 26”.

If you’re making a semi-auto, it must be a closed bolt design, and the sear must be designed to not reset until the trigger travels forward. It’s much easier to make an open-bolt SMG than a semi-auto pistol.

Can't remember the name of it but apparently there's a short-barrel shotgun on the market that's legal simply because they asked the ATF if their interpretation of the law meant it wasn't technically a short-barrel shotgun but merely a firearm and they were like "yep". Think the thing has a 14" barrel.

Also out here in the Wild, Wild West (aka Arizona) one can make pretty much any firearm they wish as long as it isn't full-auto or has (IIRC) a barrel over a 1/2" thanks to the last governor.

Anyhoo, the point is it varies on the gun laws depending on where you live.

I bet you're thinking of the Mossberg Shockwave. It's considered a "firearm" under the National Firearms Act of 1934. There's also the Franklin Armory "Reformation", that exploits a similar legal loophole by being smoothbore, and therefore has a barrel under the legal limit for rifles. It's silly :)

> Also out here in the Wild, Wild West (aka Arizona) one can make pretty much any firearm they wish as long as it isn't full-auto or has (IIRC) a barrel over a 1/2" thanks to the last governor.

Federal laws still apply, and the NFA in particular is what makes DIY firearms complicated. I'm in Arkansas, and it's about the same here as Arizona.

exploits a similar legal loophole by being smoothbore, and therefore has a barrel under the legal limit for rifles. It's silly

Funny. I live in FL where a carry permit is relatively easy to obtain. (Interesting that many local MDs in SW FL have one) But the Mossberg Shockwave loophole is hilarious. Take for example New Jersey's supposedly highly restrictive gun laws. An assault weapon includes A semi-automatic shotgun with either a magazine capacity exceeding six rounds, a folding stock or a pistol grip in their NJ Administrative Code Title 13. Yet a Mossberg 590 Shockwave 12ga 14 inch 6-shot with a handle grip resembling an old flintlock pistol is legal.

The original intention of the NFA, back in 1934, was to restrict handguns. The "short-barreled rifle" and "short-barreled shotgun" provisions were designed to limit how well a long arm could be concealed.

The handgun portion didn't survive, but the minimal length requirements did.

Also, interestingly, it wasn't a ban but a tax. Congress at the time believed they didn't have the Constitutional authority to ban any class of firearms, so they instituted a prohibitive tax ($200) on short-barreled rifles and shotguns, "destructive devices", and automatics. There's a $5 tax on "any other weapons", which these days mostly applies to guns that don't look like guns.

Bear in mind that $200 in 1934 is about $3,700 today. At the time, you could mail order a .45 Thompson submachine gun for about $200, so the law effectively doubled the price. They were advertised as self-defense weapons for property owners: https://gastatic.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/tumbl...

Automatics weren't banned until 1986, and even then, they weren't technically banned - they just require that $200 tax, and it's not possible to pay the tax for one made after May of 1986.

Why isn't the shockwave a DD? It's has a bore diameter greater than 0.5", and it's not a shotgun (because it's not designed to be fired from the shoulder).

I believe 12ga is specifically exempted by administrative decision - although some 12ga shotguns are exempted from that exemption by name, like the “Street Sweeper” and AA-12.

It’s not, length restrictions apply to rifles not firearms make it as a pistol and as long as you don’t put a stock or a vertical forgrip on it it will be perfectly legal.

You can also have an open bolt semi there are quite a few conversions that didn’t went closed bolt.

Pistols must have a rifled barrel. Almost all home built guns are smoothbores.

AOW :)

Not to be confused with a zip tie gun, a device indispensable to anyone doing major cable routing work. It tightens the zip tie the perfect amount and then cuts off the excess tail.

https://www.ebay.com/bhp/zip-tie-gun

The whole 3d printed gun scare boggled my mind. Making a single fire weapon with some pipe is so easy nearly anyone could do it. Getting the ammunition would be the hardest part were I live. Using a 3d printer take a lot more skill and effort.

I think a lot of the scare comes from assuming you can easily 3D-print something functionally identical to a handgun you'd buy at a store. There's also the legitimate concern that 3D printing will one day be much easier.

Of course, the plastic guns are practically useless:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/oh_no_its_the_plast...

I thought the panic was because 3d printed guns are untraceable and can be made from materials that don't show up on airport scanners, etc.

(Yes, you can buy a bunch of parts off the internet and build your own untraceable gun today, or so I've read.)

A bit unrelated but it made me surprisingly happy to see that my very small hometown Vänersborg was mentioned in the article. Now I feel like going to our local museum to get some more information about the mentioned gun.

The weapon of choice for the GLA

Some of these are really impressive, but a lot look like overly involved ways to lose a hand.

The pressures produced by even a .22lr are a bit intense. I wouldn’t fire any of these

There are ways to reinforce the chamber and barrel to make them much safer, and low powered .22 rounds that make testing a lot easier. I’ve built a few smoothbore .22 rifles for fun, and have had no issues with them. They’re accurate enough for small game out to 25 feet or so.

Oh yeah, it's possible. At certain levels of skill you basically are just gunsmithing a new firearm.

That being said, I'd bet that most Zipguns are made by the desperate who lack proper materials and relevant experience.

There are “traditional” designs that have been handed down through the generations in both poorer areas of the US and in cities like NYC where legal guns have been hard to obtain for a long time.

Someday I plan to collect some of them and publish a book :)

I'd be interested in seeing that. Maybe make a table top book full of beautiful photographs?

I’d love to see that too, and it would definitely be unique!

I can’t reply to your other comment, but that’s the idea. I’m working on tracking down some of the ones local to me, and have the skill and equipment to take good photos.

It would be nice to rename this to "Improvised Firearms" (the article's actual title), as the current title contains an ethnic slur

The term “zip gun” predates the slur. “Zip” means “fast”. As in, “I need a gun now, and can’t wait until I can buy one”.

I believe it may also be related to the sound the bullets make too. Usually you'd be using lower powered ammo and get less of a bang.

See noun form of zip, first definition https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/zip#English

That's interesting! I assumed the name was because they tend to be held together with zip-ties.

I just had to look this up. I'm amazed I have never come across this meaning of the word before and it was even used in Platoon supposedly?!

Previously I had only understood zip in the context of a zipper, the compression, fast, and the zip gun..

The history of racial slurs is pretty interesting, too.

For instance, “Nip” is generally considered to be a slur, but it seems to have come to English from the word “Nippon” or “Nihon”. “Nipponese” in English would be “Nihonjin” as best I can tell in Japanese. “Nipponese” was used as far back at the early 19th Century (1), but “Nip”, as a slur, seems to have arisen after WW2.

Given the changing nature of language, I guess it’s not surprising to see random unrelated words come to be viewed as slurs. In this case, there’s even misleading “evidence”, given that Nambu pistols in the later years of WW2 were absolutely terrible firearms, due to time and resource constraints as Imperial Japan lost access to imported resources.

1: https://books.google.com/books?id=WiEYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA584&dq=N...

Just to add to your comment, the earliest usage of "Zip gun" the OED lists is 1950. The earliest usage of "zip" as a slur is listed in 1968 (and this usage presumably originated during the Vietnam war).

Zipper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipper

ZIP Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_Code

Zip file format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_(file_format)

Convolution (zip) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolution_(computer_science)

Who would win - zip gun or zip bomb?

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