What's the most unusual firearm you've ever fired?

Dang, you guys have ALL the fun! Most exotic things I've ever shot were a suppressed HK Mk 23 in .45 Super & a suppressed AR15.
Danger Dave-you got a chance to shoot an Assault 12, eh? I think that's the cat's pyjamas in coolness. I remember seeing a video of Atchison shooting it. Very impressive, especially when he dumped off a full 20 rd drum mag of 12 ga 00 buck-one handed-with great accuracy! The row of targets looked like something a cat had shredded-more holes than paper.....
For those who've never heard of it, imagine an M16-in 12 ga, with a 7 rd box mag or 20 rd drum. Whooee, yehaaa!

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Shoot straight regards, Richard
The Shottist's Center forums.delphi.com/m/main.asp?sigdir=45acp45lc
 
I've been blessed with the opportunities to fire all kinds of neat stuff. Whilst in the military I did my level best to qualify on everything in inventory that could be carried and fired by 3 folks or less. That is a lot of stuff.

I built really stupid stuff as a kid, and am grateful I didn't kill myself or hurt anyone. The best one of those was a match head rocket made from a wrapping paper tube and two boxes of aluminum foil, and 5 boxes of matchbooks. Friend Kurt an I spent one entire saturday chopping the heads off the matchbooks with a hatchet, cinderblock, and hammer. I still giggle over watching that thing go. It really worked, just not like we planned. We did manage to put the fire out before any real damage occured.

But the oddest weapon was a 12 gauge a friend of mine built out of black iron pipe, a threaded pipe clamp, a nail, a door hinge, screen door spring, a piece of german siding whittled down with a swiss army knife for a stock, with the reciver/barrel assembly attatched with hose clamps.
He fired it once,
I fired it once, pronounced it a really very very bad idea.
He fired it a couple of more times before the threads on the cap gave up, the cap hit him in the forehead requiring 14 stitches. We were 13.

"He got the cut falling down in the woods and hitting his head on a rock" That was our story, and we stuck to it. Now only you know! :)
 
45King,
I used to do WWII reenactment, and we had a live fire exercise at a range in north Georgia (Toccoa, I think). It seems one of the guys in our association knew Col. Atchisson and invited him along. I'm standing there (after firing some pretty neat OP weapons - Lewis guns, PPSh 41, Vickers, etc.) and Col. Atchisson sees me watching him fire the Assault 12 and says, "Have you fired it?" then puts a mag in and hands it to me. Neat!!! It shoots a lot like a Thompson - lot of push, not much climb. Had big discussion with him - he opened it up and showed me the insides of it. It's mostly spring wrapped around a stainless barrel. Col. Atchisson said the hard part was designing a reliable feed mechanism and magazine setup.

He also had a short barreled single shot bolt action 20 ga. there (I'm thinking about 20-24" overall). Doesn't seem unusual? Well, it was supressed! Didn't get to fire it, but saw/heard it fire - sounded more like sombody hitting a leaf spring than any sort of firearm. Weird.

All in all, Col. Atchisson was one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. Loved to talk about/explain his inventions and let people play with them. I don't think I'll forget that day!
 
UKGrad: Yes, and you have to drink your daily Ensure now, too. And leave your turn signal on constantly while driving. Dangit, I never shot anything cool.
 
Okay - Some one said DRAGON...

:D

Loved the Dragon II and the TOW II we used... Battle Field Guided Missiles are a hoot to shoot. The Rockets are a lot easier... the LAW, small fast handling light... about as powerful as a grenade... Used primarily against APCs or houses during MOUT operations. The AT-4... the LAWs big brother... Bigger, heavier, more powerful... You cant carry as many - but they are a much better weapon.

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Every man Dies.
Not Every Man Truely Lives...
FREEDOM!

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
 
This only works once, and when it does work, make sure you have adequate cover. My friend and built a run-of-the-mill spud gun (3 ft. chamber, 4ft. barrel, all PVC) We'd get decent distance on a good spud (75-100 yds) using old, faithful, aqua-net. Told my boss about it, and he gave me a better propellant to try out. Now, I have to say that I never thought working as a contractor at an oil refinery would ever exhibit any kind of advantage. This was before I knew that I could get my hands on large quantities of pure toluene :) To make a long story short... The flaming spud could have passed as AAA, and the previously
kick-@$$ spud gun was now in about 4 distinctly seperate pieces. Scary. FUN, but scary.
 
...W-88 - thats the thermonuclear warhead on the Trident II's - no never fired one, just getting the attention of the National Security Agency Hi guys!! How're you doin'? Have a nice day! Keep Smiling! :) .

Guess if any of us had been able to fire one of those we would have heard about it. Maybe one can get one from Norinco these days. Meanwhile, guess I'll just have to be stisfied with my ol' 10 gauge muzzle loader shotgun - plenty of blast with a tad more than 100 grains of black powder.

El Chimango Pete
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"a W-88 beats a 44 which beats 4 aces - and even a 454 Casull"

[This message has been edited by Elchimango (edited July 09, 1999).]
 
Noboby has mentioned the 240mm Atomic Cannon yet. It was a huge thing, had a 10 wheeled tractor at each end of the carriage and apparently was able to fire atomic rounds of some sort. ;)

It made a lot of noise when firing training rounds.It had an electrically detonated primer which sometimes didnt work and tne thing had to be fired with the current from a EE-8. (Im sure that someone out there is old enough to remember the EE-8)

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
twin 40 mm cannons, quad 20 mm vulcans and quad 7.62 mm gatling guns all at the same time. Keeps you hopping to load the 40's and remove the brass from all of them. Some nights over the MuaGia pass would use up over a million rounds. Every time the guns fired at the same time the plane would shift sideways.
 
Christopher,
Toluene, huh? It might be appropriate to add here, for the benefit of anyone considering the idea, BE VERY CAREFUL!!! Toluene has an ignition point at 76 degrees F. There is a plant here that manufactures adhesive tape, and tol. is used extensively. They have flash fires every other day. Forklifts opperating in certain areas of the plant need special tires which won't squeak and ignite the tol., and it still happens.
Say, I just had a thought (an occurence which is singularly rare for me); if a trigger is depressed, does it need Prozac, or just a good pep talk? :D ;)

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Shoot straight regards, Richard
The Shottist's Center forums.delphi.com/m/main.asp?sigdir=45acp45lc
 
Sorry Gunfounder, but when I see big numbers I gotta ask questions. One million rounds? One aircraft or the entire squadron? Even if they were all from the Gatling guns, that would be an estimated 35 tons of ammo.
 
MalH: in response to your questioning the amount of ammunition expended from a single acft. Consider the lift and carry capability of the AC-130, no I didn't count the ammuntion round by round I was going by the verbal report of the pilot in the after action debrief. Not all of the ammuniton was 40 mm, in fact a small amount of it was that being reserved for heavy equipment targets, the majority of the rounds fired were 7.62 mm or .308 Nato. the next most plentiful round was the 20 mm.
To give you an idea of how much was expended on some nights, fill a bin that measures 8'X 6" and is about 4 feet deep. This was just the 7.62 and 20 mm rounds expended. Then add several burlap bags that were filled during lulls in the firing to make room for the rest of the casings.
 
45King, You're absolutely right. It was somewhat irresponsible of me not to post a VERY LARGE WARNING TO NOT PLAY WITH TOLUENE OR MANY OTHER EXTREEEEEMELY DANGEROUS HYDROCARBONS. I've seen fires and accidents and what-not at my refinery, and it's not a pretty sight. The toluene-propellant vegetable launcher was, in hindsight, by all means a very bad idea, and not to be repeated by overenthused, semi-pyromaniacal 21 year-olds. I'm thinking only trained chemists and professional hazmat people should be doing the handling of these types of materials. Again, I apologize for my irresponsibility, and I would STRONGLY urge others not to repeat my "experiment".
 
Gunfounder - An AC-130, ah ha. Now I have no doubts. For some reason I was picturing a Huey, Apache or Fighter trying to get airborne with that load.
 
Please also keep in mind that toluene is a hazardous air pollutant as classified by the EPA. It has a tendency to create low level ozone, a major contibutor to smog - a health hazard.

It's funny that manufacturers that use the solvent can only use so much by law to keep the emmision levels down but you can go to a local paint store and buy gallons of the stuff.


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The most unusual firearm I've ever fired was a Johnson automatic rifle chambered in 7mm.

The second most unusual firearm I've ever fired was a small black powder cannon. It was about 14 inches long.
 
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