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cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/HistoryArtifacts/t/1039837
Ceremonial warhammer, Germany, 16th century AD
Forgotten Weapons
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This is a community dedicated to discussion around historical arms, mechanically unique arms, and Ian McCollum's Forgotten Weapons content. Posts requesting an identification of a particular gun (or other arm) are welcome.
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This is a prototype or one-off over/under sporting shotgun, made in a bullpup configuration. It is basically two long slabs of wood clamshell around a pair of barrels, with the action at the very end in the stock. The breech rotates up to open, activated by a lever on the surface of the buttplate. That’s certainly strange enough to be interesting, but there’s more…the barrels are actually gently curved inside the furniture. And they have to be, in order to line up with both the stock and the sight rib.
Not much is known about the origin of this gun including the date it was made. It sold in a 2019 auction for only $2,300.
Ian's Video: [5:52] https://youtu.be/GiVA7a2eIVg
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"The [Winchester] Ringblaster® Industrial tool is a heavy-duty shooting apparatus that is designed for multiple industrial applications. The industrial tool is coupled with our specialized Ringblaster® Mount system which has a precision weight balanced construction that helps maintain bull’s-eye accuracy, with substantially reduced vibration and recoil. The Ringblaster® can be fired by a manual lanyard operation or an auto fire operation. The Ringblaster® has been used by the cement, lime, and ferro alloy industries for over 60 years. Because it has proven to be durable, versatile and cost effective, it has been the tool that these industries depend on.
The Western™ Industrial Tool is a portable alternative to the Ringblaster®. This tool utilizes a pistol grip and hanging bracket to allow an operator to shoot and maneuver in much tighter spaces and from a more broad range of angles. It was originally designed to remove ash build-up in power plant boilers. The portability and versatility of the Western™ tool makes it useful for many other industrial applications."
Here is some of the shells it uses:
Video of it in use: [0:56]
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018/06/22/winchester-8-gauge-industrial-shotguns/
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CZ Tarantule was supposed to be used in cases where explosives couldn’t be used due to a high risk of collateral damage. The Tarantule uses a modified .50 caliber blank round loaded from the breech of the 18mm caliber smoothbore barrel to propel the 70ml of water which is poured down the muzzle and sealed in the bore via a special plug. The muzzle velocity of the water jet is a whopping 3500 m/s or 11,483 fps.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2022/04/27/cz-tarantule-prototype-water-cannon/
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This Romanian PAR-1 is mostly made up of traditional AKM parts with a twist. It features a pump action mechanism rather than a functioning gas system.
Interestingly unlike most pump actions the pump on this rifle is spring loaded. Meaning that it will slide back forward after being pulled back and released.
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Video of it in use [1:00] (no audio): https://youtu.be/YoOaJclkSZg
The Department of Defense’s research agency, DARPA, releasedfootage on Monday showing the bullet, after completing a prototype in February, as part of DARPA’s Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) program. Footage posted to DARPA’s official YouTube channel shows live-fire tests by an expert sniper and a first-time sniper. In both cases, the bullet course corrects in midair, speeding toward a target even if it’s not centered in the crosshairs. An optical guidance system enables the bullet to compensate for weather, wind and other factors that might push it off course.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/04/30/darpas-exacto-guided-bullet-makes-progress/
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“Since a regulation size football weighs 14 ounces, it was considered feasible to make a shaped charge grenade within this weight limitation. In addition, most US troops are familiar with throwing footballs,” according to the Army’s test report for the weapon.
So Army researchers simply hollowed out a Nerf football — yes, the foam balls you threw as a child — and placed explosives inside.
Footballs fly through the air because there is an even distribution of weight surrounding the hollow inside of the ball. But 14 ounces of explosives tended to make the trajectory of the Nerf grenade “unpredictable,” according to the test report.
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The barrel is octagonal, slightly swamped and with a plain muzzle. Simple triangular foresight and a single backsight decorated by a concave forward section. The barrel is fastened to the stock by four pierced lugs underneath. On the upper surface of the barrel near the breech is a mon inlaid in silver in the form of a circle containing a five section melon shape within which was a five petalled flower, now missing. The barrel is further decorated, probably at a later date, with a pine tree in brass and herons in silver. The pan, pan cover and flash guard are of the usual type.
The stock is of kashi (red oak) in the style used by the Sakai group. All of the pin holes are surrounded by decorative chrysanthemum shaped inlays whilst the remainder of the furniture is engraved with peonies. On the outer face of the butt is inlaid a shishi in brass with a peony on the reverse. Inside the barrel channel is an inscription in ink. Typical brass lock with external mainspring of brass. Inside, the horizontal scear is of iron, the tail wrapped with paper to take up movement.
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Armour presented to King James I by Tokugawa Hidetada. Possibly originally for Takeda Katsuyori and modified by Iwai Yozaemon for presentation in about 1610.
The helmet (suji kabuto) is composed of twelve plates lacquered black and embossed to simulate twenty two plates, all separated by gilt copper ribs. The front plate has three ribs, while the rear plate has two and a loop (kasajirushi no kan) holding a red agemaki. It is fitted with a neck guard (shikoro) of three iron plates cut and lacquered to simulate lamellae. It is laced with red silk above and purple below. The lower plates are laced with two rows of red cross-laces and one of woodpecker braid throughout the armour. The upper plate of the shikoro is extended into modern turn-backs (fukigayeshi) lacquered black and decorated with modern gilt kanemono. At the peak is a modern fitting retaining gilt copper kuwagata. The half mask (mempo) has a fixed nose piece and a small throat guard of four iron plates laced with purple silk. The teeth are gilt, and there is small, brown, modern moustache and beard.
The cuirass is composed of iron lamellae laced horizontally with leather, lacquered black, then laced vertically with red and purple silk braid, The upper breast, back and side plates are of solid iron lacquered black with gold badges (ken-hanabishi). The do is fitted with six kusazuri formed of lacquered leather plates and laced in purple silk. It is decorated with the karabana mon, the petals separated with ken blades, in gold lacquer, of the Takeda family.
The shoulder defences (o-sode) are each made of seven rows of laced lamellae, the upper three of iron, the lower four of leather. The upper plates (kamuri ita) are lacquered black and decorated with flowers in gold lacquer, with a binding of blue leather stencilled with seven-leaved grass in white. The shin defences (suneate) are each made of three plates lacquered black and connected by hinges. The upper plates are laced to each other and to the lower plates with purple silk.
The armour box was made in 1972 by Hiromichi Miura, who undertook the complete conservation and relacing of the armour. All the missing elements of the surviving parts of the armour were replaced, including all the gilt kanemono; the kanemono which are now of plain copper are original.
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>The spear has a large, leaf-shaped blade with pronounced medial ridge and a short hexagonal socket pierced to receive the bolt of a toggle. The bolt ends in a loop from which the toggle is hinged.
>The toggle, socket and the lower part of the blade are decorated with appliqué patterns of trophies of arms, laurel branches, strapwork arabesques and starts in silver, copper and gold against a blackened ground.
>The shaft is of hexagonal section at for its top quarter and of circular section for the rest of its length. It has been replaced.
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The Experimental Model 2 submachine gun was a pre–World War II Japanese experimental submachine gun chambered in the 8mm Nambu round.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Model_2_submachine_gun
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Designed by Gerry Fox in the early 1970s, this carbine saw production sequentially as the Fox Carbine, the TAC-1, and the XF-7 Wasp, as it went through several different manufacturers. It is an open bolt, semiauto carbine sold in both 9mm Parabellum and .45 ACP – and you could get caliber conversion kits consisting of a bolt and barrel assembly to swap caliber on an existing gun. In 9mm they used Sten magazines, and in .45 then used M3 Grease Gun magazines.
The gun was marketed to law enforcement audiences as well as civilians, but never found any LEO success. A fully automatic version was also made, but similarly saw little popularity (because of the cost of NFA registration in the 1970s and 80s).
Mechanically, the gun is somewhat akin to the Soviet PPSh, which an upper cover that hinges open and a bolt which is square on the bottom and rounded on top. The TAC-1 version had a few neat additional features, namely a combination lock built into the receiver and a battery in the fixed wooden stock to power a stun gun/baton device for police use. The Wasp replaced the wooden furniture with a fairly clever collapsing metal stock...
Ian's video [16:42]
