Weird and wonderful
 

Figured it was odd we didn't have a thread for oddities, abominations and obscure firearms, so let's start one.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...r.jpg~original

The Porter Turret Rifle was a rather bizarre attempt to circumvent Samuel Colt's revolver patent, using a "cylinder" with the pivot perpendicular to the barrel. This monstrosity is a percussion rifle and the chambers are in that circular section, facing in all directions (including one pointed directly at the shooter).

As well as being a terrible idea on principle, it was prone to row ignition; not so great when your rifle is designed to have a chamber pointed straight at you, and supposedly one of its designers was killed while demonstrating it.

http://www.horstheld.com/Cent.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img81/9631/threeb10.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img81/3835/threex10.jpg

Download the GURPS High-Tech Pulp Guns sourcebooks. It's loaded with all sorts of period firearms from the late 19th century up to the 1930s, including weird ones like the HDH Mitrailleuse (basically that revolver up there, but with only 2 barrels).

I always have trouble finding it, but there's a website detailing pocket pistols (mostly early 20th century ones) and there's a .25 ACP pistol where you don't take the magazine out after the gun is empty. You just shove the new mag straight into the magwell and it pushes the spent one out the ejection port. I can think of a few ways that could screw up, but it would be a neat trick for a sci-fi pistol.

Saw this on Forgotten Weapons the other day:
http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/5571/vz85.png
It is the Landstad 1900 Automatic Revolver, and is basically a two shot revolver where the top chamber is in line with the barrel and the bottom chamber is reloaded from a box magazine (which to add to the bizarreness is inserted sideways into the gun and is the left grip panel).

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/SDC10267.jpg
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...t/SDC10269.jpg
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...t/SDC10268.jpg

Arrizabalaga Jo.Lo.Ar, made in Eibar, Spain during the 20s. Unlocked breech 9 x 23mm Bergmann with a tip up barrel (probably the first tip-up semi auto), no trigger guard or safety, and with a folding cocking lever. The whole idea was a pistol for cavalry that could be drawn, cocked and fired with a single hand, leacing the other on the reins. In practice, it just seems all kinds of unsafe! Only ever purchased by the Peruvian mounted police and sold commercially, saw some use during the Spanish Civil War.

LifeSizePotato has a review on one of those. Very informative, and he's got a lot of weird and obscure pistols.

Now can anyone tell me what this is?

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...pscd3c2a8f.jpg

My guess is homemade as it has an AKM front sight, an FN FAL grip, and a backwards IMI Romat heat shield. What ammo is that thing feeding, belt looks like a 7.62x54mmR one but the bullets themselves look too short.

The builder calls it an MG47BP. Need to register to see the pictures, but there's some higher-res versions of the one you have here.

That gun seems to be about the only belt-fed bullpup, which reminded me of another probably-unique configuration: an open bolt revolving shotgun (I guess?)

TSKIB SOO made a revolving shotgun, which I think is really good looking:
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...255/659336.jpg
Then they made a tactical version, which isn't.
http://www.internet-d.com/wp-content...186-tm-tfb.jpg
Then they made a pistol version, because they're just the very best kind of crazy:
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/w...log-tm-tfb.jpg

Yeah, the Jo.Lo.Ar. is actually mine. I haven't shot mine yet - makes me a little nervous, and I haven't tracked down an 9mm Largo ammo yet.

EDIT: He just needs to tighten the screw on the Palanca and it won't flop down like that. I had the same problem with mine.

Staying on the subject of attempts to bypass Colt's revolver patent, let's go for an entire class of weapons people barely remember, the chain rifle:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...1.jpg~original

Treeby Chain Rifle of 1855. Since the things on the belt are chambers rather than rounds, this is actually a belt-fed revolver. The big handle in front of the chambers was a screw thread for sealing the gap between the front of the chamber and the barrel, you had to turn it down to form a seal before the weapon would actually fire.

There were also handguns of this type.

1866 Josselyn 20-round chain revolver:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...h.jpg~original

And this thing. Nobody's that sure what it is, but it's in Tula's small arms museum labelled as a prototype from the 1920s.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...6.jpg~original

How did the inventor propose holstering such a pistol?

In Soviet Russia, pistol holsters you.

I guess you could wrap the chain around it and have a *really* flared-out top to the holster, otherwise you'd have to load it every time you drew it.

This is what happens when someone patents the obviously correct answer to a design question, I guess. Not sure what the excuse was for the 1920s one, though, and I think the Josselyn was after Colt's patent had already expired, probably just being different for the sake of not being the same.

Another bit of insanity from 1855 which wins any "how do you holster that?" contest, Joseph Enouy's 8-cylinder, 48-round "Ferris Wheel" percussion revolver:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...y.jpg~original

You can load that on Sunday and shoot all month.

You don't need a holster for it, you need a sling for that

That redefines "high capacity revolver". It rivals the highest capacity stick mags on the market today. Not to mention that thing has an AFG 150 years before Magpul even dreamt of it. What a glorious bit of technology.

And clearly it's not for holstering. You have to lug it around attached to an old timey leather single point sling affixed to the butt. It doubles as an anchor.

As for the belt fed pistol, you get a long enough belt to act as a bandolier and fire it as far as you can stretch it from your body as it hangs from it, hoping the chambers don't get caught or burn you as they come round. When men were men I say!

Should have counted myself rather than just going with what the site said, it has eight cylinders for 48 rounds. And since it's percussion, loading it must have been quite a project in itself.

And the emperor of weird high-cap 18something guns, the Guycot, is another chain rifle.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...1.jpg~original

Doesn't look like much? Look inside.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...5.jpg~original

These were built with capacities of up to 100 rounds (this one is 100, apparently) in a chain that filled the entire inside of the weapon including the stock, using very short ball rounds (similar to the Volcanic bullet, hence there being nothing resembling an extractor) which were inserted into cups in the chain through a hole in the top of the rifle.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...d.jpg~original

The whole nightmare had an inner and outer barrel and a very thin firing pin which struck through the base of the cup. Everything was operated by the trigger (including retracting the inner barrel to form a gas-tight seal) which I guess would make this the world's first crew-served rifle. Even better, in order to load it you had to use a firing pin disconnect since the only way to advance the chain was pulling the trigger. And since this was using a Rocket Ball / Volcanic type round, you'd be looking at a rifle with the ballistics of a pocket pistol. Strangely, it didn't catch on.

I can into thread necromancy, because boredom


Collector's has all kind of weird guns


http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server51...0.1280.JPG?c=2

http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server51...0.1280.JPG?c=2

http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server51...0.1280.JPG?c=2

What? :confused: LOL

No sleep + saw a guest checkin' this thread out + just saw some odd guns = brought the thread back from the dead

Here's a couple of neat ones for the "the founding fathers never had weapons like this" crowd, two 17th century flintlock repeating rifles!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...m.png~original

This is a Kalthoff repeater, the designers of which weren't about to let silly minor things like "nobody has invented the unitary firearm cartridge" stop them making a lever-action rifle. These had at least two and sometimes three magazines (powder, balls, and sometimes primer); the two-mag versions needed to be manually primed, while the three-mag version was a true 6-shot levergun.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...1.jpg~original

This is a Cookson repeater, a 7-shot 1750 rifle based on a mechanism developed in 1680. This one's simpler; the lever is linked to a drum that rotates and the balls and powder are in the stock, you reload by tilting the gun forward and operating the lever to rotate the drum in line with the stock and then back to the barrel, and it's self-cocking and self-priming too!