Ugly Guns of the Past

Am Shooting Journal ^ | 8/9/2018 | M Rothschild

[w1n1]

Not sure if these were the result of poor design, lack of materials, or sheer necessity, some firearms and guns are just ugly. Many early automatic weapons and pistols were designed without a complete understanding of what works, leading to strange and ugly guns that barely worked.
Desperate times during World War II led to a need for cheap, easily made firearms, and there wasn’t time to make them with clean lines and beauty. The result? Some of the ugliest guns and weapons ever made.
Modern designs have also been accused of lacking beauty, especially "bullpup" rifles, where the magazine actually goes behind the trigger. Try doing a speed reload, its a bitch.

While this reduces the length and weight of the weapon, making it easier to carry, it also makes for a strange looking, quasi-futuristic rifle that lacks the classic beauty of earlier weapons. And sometimes, prevailing design fads take over, especially in communist countries, where principles in Soviet architecture led to blocky, metallic-looking firearms – many of which didn’t work. The ones that did work, it worked in any conditions. (Kalishnikov AK’s)
Here are some the ugliest guns of the past:
Shattuck Palm Pistol
Duck's Foot Pistol
Korobov TKB-022
Warner Infallible
Apache Revolver - See the full list and description of Ugly guns here.

[Charles Martel]

I know they function very well but, to me, the Schmidt-Rubin is an ugly rifle.

Yeah, there's something about that one (and the K-31 that followed) that just looks "off" to many American shooters and firearms collectors. Probably because for so many years, they were a true oddity compared with the world wars' Enfields, Mausers, Mosins and Springfields. Of course, the Swiss rifles, when seen up close, as a delight to anyone who appreciates the machinist's art.

Some of that Swiss weirdness trickled down into the rifle that followed the K-31, the Sturmgewehr 57:

That one is a candidate for the ugly gun list, too - though recent years have seen replacement grips, buttstocks, rail systems and such which make it look a lot more "generic black rifle". I'm just not sure if that's good or bad.