Plastic guns are easy, try paper!

Via an email from Paul K. we have instructions on how to make a working gun out of paper. I have duplicated the instructions here for archival purposes.

I really, really, have serious concerns about using one of these. I can see where the radial strength might be adequate when using a small gauge shotshell but the recoil could still be a problem. There is no breachface and stock to prevent the shot shell from pushing the nail (firing pin) and perhaps the case-head into/through your hand.

Use at your own risk and remember that the extent of my obligation should this result in you or a friend of yours dying an unnatural death is to nominate you for a Darwin Award. If, and only if, I am in a generous mood when I learn of your date with fate.

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11 thoughts on “Plastic guns are easy, try paper!

    • To be strict about it this instance wouldn’t qualify for a Darwin Award because the idiot is still alive. But you are correct there should be an award of some type for that level of stupidity. Maybe Bill Engvall could give him a sign.

      It turns out I have met someone who shot himself in the shoulder doing the gun twirling thing. It was the husband of one of our kids teachers. Alcohol and youth (I think he was like 18 years old at the time) was involved. He survived with only some range of motion issues after it healed.

      Hollywood probably should bear some responsibility for a large number of accidental shootings for all the bad gun handling the actors display.

      • When I was trying to find that story, I actually saw a few others where people had been shot twirling their guns. Just Google “shot twirling gun.” I guess there are a lot of morons out there.

        • The numbers of young servicemen who shot themsleves in the thighs and feet practicing Hollywood cowboy quickdraw in teh 1950’s and ’60’s prompted a whole SERIES of training films on HOW to properly draw an 1873 Peacemaker. No kidding.

          • If it’s a single action and the hammer’s resting on an empty, or if it has a transfer bar or hammer block as all the new models do, it is impossible to fire the gun unless you’ve brought the hammer back to full cock (well I suppose you could heat the cylinder with a torch and cook off a round or three). You can twirl it, toss it, catch it, draw it, holster it roughly, play with it pretty much any which way, for a thousand years and it will never fire.

            So you’d have to cock the hammer inadvertently, all the way back, AND pull the trigger. If somehow the hammer were brought back by accident, which takes quite a bit of directed force, and it didn’t make it all the way to full cock, it would then drop into half cock, where pulling the trigger does nothing. If the hammer came back a little, but not enough to reach half cock, and then snapped forward, it would not touch a round because the cylinder will not have rotated enough.

            Maybe there’s a job for the Myth Busters – try to see what it takes to drop, bump, brush, graze, or otherwise mishandle a revolver and end up fully cocking the hammer by mistake.

            I could try it with one of my percussion guns (same action as the Peacemaker) if I wanted to beat them up, which I don’t. You could load them with caps only and see what it takes to get a pop.

            So it takes a fairly “deliberate accident” to shoot yourself twirling your single action. Of course it must be loaded first. If you twirl a double action, you’re just an idiot.

          • The technique they were using, and that was widely known, was squeeze the trigger WHILE it is in the holster, thumbing back the hammer while the trigger is pressed, so that as the hammer reaches full cock, the thumb slips off, firing it.

            No kidding.

      • To win a Darwin Award you don’t have to die; you simply have to be “removed from the gene pool.”

        In short, you have to lose your ability to reproduce. Generally, this can be done by either dying, or destroying your genitalia.

  1. Pingback: SayUncle » Paper or plastic?

  2. The pretense that 3d printed plastic guns are somehow a new concept is complete baloney. The article quoted here is only one example. http://thehomegunsmith.com/index.shtml is another. And there’s the device described, in detail, in Tom Clancy’s “Without Remorse”.

  3. I would expect that the breech plug, if the gun were built exactly to those instruction, would shoot out the back alright, but I do believe the basic idea could be made to work. I note that there was no accompanying video showing this little firecracker being hand held while firing it with a good defense load. No mention of the vast differences in pressure between various loads either.

    My son and I built an NPG (NewsPaper/Glue) rocket, flew it successfully and then donated it to the school science department. Nothing but newspaper and glue. It’s amazing how much strength you can get with several laminations using full glue coverage.

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