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Sean Murphy of South Yorkshire, England, tried to remove a wart from his finger the old-fashioned way… with a gun. Murphy was at work when he aimed a stolen 12-bore Beretta shotgun at the offending wart. He ended up shooting off most of his middle finger.
But he said: “The best thing is that the wart has gone. It was giving me lot of trouble.”
Murphy, a security officer at Markham Grange Nurseries, Brodsworth, at the time of the incident in March, has since lost his job. He had suffered with the wart on the joint closest to the tip of his middle finger for more than five years.
He said: “It was hurting a lot and causing my finger to bend. I’d been to the doctors and tried all sorts of things but it wouldn’t go.
“I didn’t expect to lose my finger as well when I shot it but the gun recoiled and that was it. The wart was gone and so was most of my finger. There was nothing left, so no chance to re-attach it.”
Murphy was arrested for theft of the gun and other firearms charges. Prosecutors said alcohol was involved. Link -via Arbroath
Punt guns were enormous shotguns used to hunt waterfowl in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. They were so heavy that they were normally attached to small boats called punts and the boats were then pointed as birds resting on the water’s surface:
Punt guns were usually custom-designed and so varied widely, but could have bore diameters exceeding 2 inches (51 mm) and fire over a pound (0.5 kilos) of shot at a time.
A single shot could kill over 50 waterfowl resting on the water’s surface. They were too big to hold and the recoil so large that they were mounted directly on the punts used for hunting, hence their name. Hunters would maneuver their punts quietly into line and range of the flock using poles or oars to avoid startling them.
Generally the gun was fixed to the punt; thus the hunter would maneuver the entire boat in order to aim the gun. The guns were sufficiently powerful, and the punts themselves sufficiently small, that firing the gun often propelled the punt backwards several inches or more. To improve efficiency, hunters could work in fleets of up to around ten punts.
The practice faded as wild waterfowl stocks were depleted. It was eventually banned in the United States, though I gather it is still legal in the United Kingdom.
Link via The Firearm Blog | Photo: The Underhammer Society
Previously: World’s Largest Shotgun
YouTube user GatheringSticks is quite a garage machinist! He’s built a functional single-shot 12 gauge shotgun from a pipe and a stapler. The firing pin is a sharpened drill bit and the shoulder rest is padded with a piece of a Croc.
A man in Luleå, Sweden, was found to have a guitar that had been converted into a double-barreled shotgun:
Aside from the six more conventional weapons found in the apartment and a quantity of ammunition, police discovered that a wall-mounted guitar was not quite as it first appeared.
The neck of the guitar has been hollowed out and equipped with two shotgun barrels, while the body of the string instrument contained the beginnings of trigger mechanism.
Link via reddit | Photos: The Local
Home Gunsmith forum user rhmc24 took parts from a 12 gauge shotgun and a 1857 Remington revolver and created a shotgun with a revolving cycle:
Using chambers cut off 12 ga. scrap barrels and a new $10 bbl for an Italian auto shotgun, the only other gun part is a scrapped hammer from a 1857 Remington perc revolver. Loads like a SAA Colt but underlever rotates and cocks it. Blow-by is negligible, hardly noticeable with normal shirt sleeve.
Opened for some still shots, at top of the inside pix screwed in is the firing pin, impact type with return spring. The ratchet or star with the hand is visible below on the left side, also the pawl that cocks the hammer. The cylinder indexing lock is external, operated by the under lever. At very bottom the small knob releases the cylinder to turn clockwise for loading.
Due to limited equipment I was unable to copy existing mechanisms so it is pretty much designed from scratch, largely by cut and try, trial and error, etc.
There are two more detailed pictures at the link.
Link via Everyday, No Days Off
What do you get when you combine field goal kicking and skeet shooting? A lot of dead footballs.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Afrojacks
Combination guns are (usually) long guns chambered for two different calibers. For example, one can purchase a gun chambered with a .410 gauge shotgun barrel on top and a .22 LR rifle barrel on the bottom. Such guns allow a hunter to shoot a variety of animals, or the same prey in different situations.
There are also hunting rifles called “drillings” which feature three barrels, each with a different caliber. James R. Rummel has a post about these unique firearms. He proposes getting one a .22 LR barrel for small game, a .357 magnum for deer hunting, and .375 magnum for large, dangerous game.
Link | Photo: Centerline Firearms
Revolvers that fire shotgun shells are not a new idea. In fact, Taurus sells one called “The Judge” that fires .410 bore shells. What makes this handmade revolver from Taiwan unique is that it fires the much larger 12-gauge round:
Police said 19-year-old gang brother Zhuangren dimension, usually in the mountains more than 10 hotels Wai things put in charge possession of force, at any time ordered to carry weapons to parts of the scenes; within the lake precinct office yesterday morning to Linsen North Road, Suite A search in 7th floor “gun room” seized wheel and 6 rounds of canister-type shotgun, as well as four pistols, one a standard for the Beretta, and the other three for the transformation of the gun, and 15 bullets, blanks 19 made. The initial inventory, guns from the nickname “God pig” man.
This is the very large wheel shotguns, can be filled with 6 rounds of shotgun, the gun body are all constructed of steel, a short gun, weighing more than 3 kilograms, there is no rifling, can also be fitted sight, 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.
Link via Hell in a Handbasket | Photo: Liberty Times
After a football injury at the age of sixteen, Jamie Cap became paralyzed from the neck down. Now, thirty years later, he controls a shotgun attached to his wheelchair with a breathing tube. Getting legal permission was a substantial struggle, but now he’s been cleared by a court to start shooting:
Cap, 46, recently won a 2 1/2-year legal battle to allow him to use, with the help of a partner, a 12-gauge shotgun fitted with a battery-powered machine that is operated by a breathing tube.
He described firing that first shot last week with a combination of wistfulness and enthusiasm another person might use to describe rekindling a decades-old romance.
“I don’t know if there are words,” he said. “I’m so happy. When you find you can do something again after 30 years, you can’t put a price on that. Some people think it’s nothing, but try being paralyzed for 30 years and then come talk to me.”[...]
Cap might not have embarked on his bureaucratic odyssey had he not found Indiana-based Be Adaptive Equipment during a random Internet search. The company, which has made wheelchair mounts for shotguns since 2002, sells about 20 per year, according to owners Brian and Renee Kyler. Cap’s model cost about $1,600; a new 12-gauge shotgun starts at about $250.
For a quadriplegic, firing a shotgun requires help from a companion. In Cap’s case, a friend sets up the contraption, safety on, on Cap’s wheelchair and Cap aims the shotgun by moving the toggle switch with his mouth. Once his partner releases the safety, Cap fires by sipping on the breathing tube.
Link via Geekologie | Photo: AP
I have four kids who all want to sit in the front passenger seat as I drive. There is an elaborate set of rules they must follow to decide who gets the honor of “riding shotgun”.
You must say the word “Shotgun” to stake your claim on Shotgun. This must be done clearly and loud enough so that at least one other to-be occupant of the vehicle can hear you. No variations of this word are acceptable. After you have rightfully called Shotgun, you have exclusive rights to Shotgun for that ride. However, if no one hears you call Shotgun it is still fair game for everyone.
But that’s just the beginning! There are many more rules to learn, such as the importance of having your shoes on when you yell “Shotgun!” and the crucial “hand on the door” rule. Link -via Bits and Pieces
Taser International has developed an extended-range taser. It is a 12-gauge shotgun that shoots a shocking cartridge over 100 feet:
The teases have revealed little actual info, but a Taser press release highlights that the X3 will be the “first multi-shot ECD (electronic control device) capable of simultaneously incapacitating multiple targets.” That could put some real scatter in less-lethal shotgun action, but also raises potential safety and abuse questions.
For now, rest assured that the X3 probably won’t go off accidentally. A YouTube video shows the device being subjected to electric shocks, and other tests have apparently involved the cartridge “doing 4 foot free-falls on concrete at 20 below,” according to a tweet from X3.
