Image shows some of the details of the electrically fired homemade, double barrled muzzleloader.
Posted on 07/16/2022 5:18:53 AM PDT by marktwain
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated with a homemade gun on July 8th, 2022, in the Japanese city of Nara.
From video of the event, it appears the assassin fired his weapon at Abe from a distance of 20 to 30 feet. The two distinct shots were fired about a second apart and produced copious amounts of white smoke.
Early reports were of wounds to the neck and chest. It is unknown what sort of projectiles were used in the homemade weapon.
This correspondent made several similar homemade, electrically actuated, multishot, muzzleloading black powder firearms 40 years ago. Electrical firing mechanisms are much easier to make than percussion systems used in modern firearms. A simple switch is a trigger for each barrel. Batteries supply the power to ignite each charge. If you want multiple shots, multiple barrels are used. A nine-volt battery worked well in my 40-year-old experiments, as did a four-pack of AA batteries.
A simple galvanized water pipe is plenty strong to withstand black powder pressures for a few shots. The firearm used in the assassination appears to be close to a 12 gauge bore size. Larger bores and projectiles create sufficient energies at the lower velocities on such firearms.
The propellants for such guns are easily made at home. Many high school students successfully made black powder in my youth. Fireworks can be disassembled as another source of propellant. It has been reported that people in prisons and the former Soviet Union used ground-up match heads as a propellant. Making propellant is much more dangerous than making the guns.
This correspondent disagrees with professor Daniel Foote of Tokyo.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
After a few shots, they can become dangerous as they are subject to corrosion from the propellants used.
Image shows some of the details of the electrically fired homemade, double barrled muzzleloader.
The author writes of home made black powder. I would suggest that the explosive material is readily available from disassembled Japanese fireworks
I was surprised that such an assemblage could be so effective.
"the...Assault electrically fired homemade, double barrled muzzleloader.
Many other fun experiments when we were kids I won't go into - but it should not come as a surprise that all of us ended up in Vietnam later...
y r Japanese allowed to have steel pipe?
“I was surprised that such an assemblage could be so effective.”
Looks about as crude as the Welrod Mk2 used by the OSS in WW2.
Electrically fired?
Oh noes.
We’ve got to ban electricity and remove all references to Maxwell’s laws from texts. In any case, that damned Maxwell was practicing “white supremacy”.
A “Slam” fired shotgun is even easier to make.
From the article:
The propellants for such guns are easily made at home. Many high school students successfully made black powder in my youth. Fireworks can be disassembled as another source of propellant.
Bold added.
Yes, indeed.
They work best with factory ammunition.
The first thing I think of in that picture is Kyle...and lucky for him he had a far higher quality firearm to protect him.
“Japanese allowed to have steel pipe?”
Not for long as this weapon looks a lot like a pipe bоmmb.
He also had a deadly silver hammer.
Brilliant
oops, missed that sentence
Blmk
I am surprised this homemade gun was able to hit and kill Abe from 20-30 ft away. I assumed the assassin was 5-6-7 ft away.
Bkmk
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.