Improvised & Craft-Built Firearms w/ Jonathan Ferguson & Nic Jenzen-Jones

now guys thanks for tuning in to another video on Forgotten weapons comm I'm Ian McCallum and today I am happy to be joined by two very cool people we have on the far end Nick Jensen Jones from Aries armament research services and we have Jonathan Ferguson from what is colloquially known as the pattern room collection which is actually now the National Firearms center here at the Royal Armouries that's quite a lot of different organizations isn't it it's true can you tell us you know in a brief moment what is I think everyone in the United States thinks of this place is the pattern room but nobody over here thinks of it as the pattern room yeah that's the problem tell us what is the difference okay so where we are right now the core of that collection is what we call the form a pattern room collection so the collection still exists we saved it preserved it however you want to look at it but it's a subset of the existing and even more ancient Royal Armouries collection okay so the pattern room was the Ministry of Defence basically their gun collection their set of of literally sealed patterns which is you know the guns that that served as the standard for manufacturing and then also all the guns that they got for trials over the course of what like 150 years that's that's right the two collections grew in parallel and the the armory started at the tower indeed we still have outside of the Tower of London the displays there that was an issuing Arsenal was also where guns were usually set up or assembled rather than manufactured but nonetheless a manufacturing centre and in the 19th century production substantially or assembly as well moved to the Enfield Factory in North London that facility then started its own parallel collection aimed at servicing more contemporary needs but it also became an historic collection okay and now you've assembled all of that here together into the coolest gun collection basically in the Western Hemisphere I like to think so we last count we have twenty six thousand and three firearms and that's not actually really the relevant detail I think I think what's important is the quality of the guns that are here there's a tremendous amount of stuff here that simply exists nowhere else that's fair to say certainly a primarily British military firearms but tons of stuff this collection was gaining guns through World War one and World War two every time there was a conflict that the British military was involved in they bring back interesting stuff that they found yep and add it to the collection here so now there's all sorts of cool stuff so what our collection takes us back to about 1400 AD the medon collecting activity brings us up to the present day with Palmer bodied firearms yeah you'll get to this a month now Nick you're also here because this this isn't well certainly you're interested in both modern and historic firearms as well but some of your recent work has been on what you described as improvised and craft produced firearms yeah look I mean not just my work personally the work of the company more broadly with a quite a lot of interest from a range of different actors on what are these things what one of the difference between so-called improvised and craft purchase firearms how are they made how widespread are they globally how frequently are they used in current recent conflict what benefits or drawbacks do they offer the users including criminal groups non-state actors and so on so we started by trying to get through some of the language both those terms improvised and craft produced have been used for a long time you also hear of course things like DIY or scratch made or locally produced and a lot of different terminology flowing around we've tried to draw a distinction between improvised firearms that are very simple and require the minimum amount of skill and also machine tools to produce so this that's a great example this was this says this pipe shotgun slam shotgun yes and this stick with a cartridge case wired to of course I do want to point out the the collection here has a lot of this type of material because it's not just military you're also involved with the police on a really kind of a daily basis yeah it's not something we can go into details about but yeah the pattern the pattern room had these responsibilities to government over and above the museum that we do and we still do that kind of thing but the two overlap in the we aim to preserve these things not only for contemporary reference for those that need it but for the future that's why antastic so let's take a look at what are some of these we've got this whole selection of interesting improvised and crafts produced weapons you wanna start us off on what our I think you've picked up the obvious starting point already I think that's that's an interesting number it's I mean it's fashioned from a piece of wood a cartridge case at 23 millimeter cartridge case I think and I'm sorry 20 mil cartridge case and a some base wooden some wire yeah it's about as basic as you get in someone's bashed a hole into the top that you can you can use to ignite your your propellant charge and it's become a matchlock it is a very basic muzzle loader exactly it's a bit block it's why I would call a handgun and I think from the Mao Mao insurgency I believe this one is actually greekcypriot okay okay okay okay yeah terrorists so I know a lot of these were what fashioned they were uprising that's where they I think it's a couple photos floating around from the Imperial War Museum and other sources that are quite well known yeah this is in the same vein and that's sort of I guess the very very low end of the scale of what we see produces improvised weapons and then you move up into things such as the slamfire shotgun for example so I know some of this this sort of thing has actually been produced commercially in the United States for a short time yeah based loosely off some Filipino designs that you brought back by American servicemen yeah so what is this okay tell us I mean it's it's as simple as it looks and I had one piece lead with in the other a fixed firing pin of the RIA and ideally a chamber size that correlates with something you have on hand so in this case probably a 12-gauge shotgun cartridge looks like a 12 yeah that's the most common design and a fix for encode in the rear and you simply pull one big very quickly back into the other we get yeah that's it you figured it out so you can see into it obviously they're pretty basic and one of the spectrum of course at the other end they start to come quite involved in complex I think Jonathan probably is well-placed to speak about this reach out and grab that maybe arrest that little down yeah a clear field of view there so we we have received various weapons from the troubles in alignment and this is one of them this appears this has been published you can read up details on that there are relatively few details about these things partly because they've not been passed to us relevant but the variety is is striking with these things most of the SMGs are loyalist terrorists rather than mir a indeed this is quite time sure why that why that's the case except that I guess the other side at other ways of getting original purpose lethal purpose firearms so the learners terrorists had to make to make do and mend as we say in Britain and they made all sorts there are sterling variants there are Sten based things like this and there are what they call nicknamed stem rings which are sort of hybrid of the tape okay and we have examples on most of those this one was was named I presume this was this has gathered interrogation or something that the Avenger we're gonna go into any politics but that's that's what it's called white and white people probably notice 303 on this clearly not the caliber right we believe that's an attempt at a serial number probably artificially high to conceal the fact many were made who knows it is absolutely standard blowback operated except that it has a semi this non-functional washed out semi telescoped bolt which wraps around the back end of the barrel a bit like an Uzi or any other design it uses that feature impressive yeah it is actually yeah also a rather unusual record I can't show you unfortunate without soaking in a park job weary of doing requests spring it mounted in the front yeah it's interesting if you look in the back you can see there is no spring and yet there's very clearly spring tension that's above us exactly what that is and the recoil spring return spring is hidden in here so it is actually relatively unusual but it's working on the same principle let's say or at the moment feeling too close to work it is broken yeah thank you stand that side magazine is a stone magazine I can get it out it's interesting to know a lot of these craft reduce weapons often use some original purpose parts yet magazines especially good as well as we all know they're notoriously difficult to to produce reliable magazines that's right the fact the main thing about the stem blings is they are often stem primarily but the magazine like built they were built around a sterling raising because it's so good right certainly magazine is one of the best submachine gun magazines ever made yeah this is not using a stone Mack so who knows what sort of malfunctions they may have had with this a couple of other interesting features one is this oh that's interesting I was looking at that pulling stock and I realized that the front gripper was the bus rather Gucci this locks into the front as a full grip as you write you say pull down swing out and it will look into place quite a serviceable shoulder stock yeah yeah with two struts and it appears to be reasonably so it's a little wobbly isn't it it's not amazing but better than mp40 stop folding stocks in saloons and the other obvious elephant in the room there I haven't talked about is this suppressor now the story goes that and how this was obtained this is all that public domain information was because of this because a some sort of contract was put in place with some sort of air container manufacturer and someone got wind of that and traced the weapon from that this was meant to be a sort of industrial muffler yeah I wouldn't see this is not like a tube with some caps welded on it that wasn't professionally factory made yep sealed sealed unit with something going on in there yeah is that even put in an order of how presumably quite a few yeah even if they didn't have that many guns to fit them to and obviously the barrel is started to accept you know those certainly running workshops and producing production line style manufacturing in some of these areas yes again we're going into details that are pretty to work was done you know in the evenings by guys that were employed by legitimate companies so they were using machine shops Tomatoes interesting to know these rack numbers you know we see these sorts of attempts by non-state actors quite frequently people still want to have accountability within their organization thanks in in some ways it's even more important right so a situation like that you know one of the things that people compress in the field for example are lists of issued weapons and names and it's actually really interesting research tools you know one of the other interesting elements of this sort of firearm is this continuous spectrum from one guy building something for his own sake or you know just one guy building one gun through to what almost become functional factories even if there's small production you do have shops that are making a whole lot of copies of the same the same weapon and then a whole spectrum in between yeah I mean we see everything from exactly the backyard developer whether he's quite talented or not talented at all right through to you almost quasi industrial production and certainly some non c'è actors for example have acquired some original purpose firearms production machinery actually producing firearms parts to you know what would be an industrial spec either they haven't got the whole the whole farm right and then there's wide range capability and I think there'd be interesting to look at some of the edge the boundary cases where you get what was a non-state group large and organized putting together its own production facilities that becomes a functional nation-state that what started as an underground you know covert operation turns into a legitimate arms factory we see some of that if not into a legitimate factory certainly some of the models have been adopted into service officially and some of the Balkan states for them yeah I was thinking Israel right as well some of the clandestine early is really gun manufactured turned into full-on real factories hmm it's probably worth noting I don't know derailed us into a legal or god forbid political discussion starts and having said that that we talked about the magazine and how it seems important in Northern Ireland we'll put it this way it's the only part of the UK where the magazine is a component part of the firearm I suspect out someone really restricted Jim yeah no but code right yeah if you can if you're trying to prevent people from making making guns and you can prevent them from getting their hands on factory made magazines that will make that job that much easier yeah now speaking of factory produced we also have an interesting conversion this isn't a a homemade gun well it didn't start off as a lethal firearm no we I mean I guess the background that many quickly is that we also spent a lot of time looking at not just these craft producing improvised weapons but also those that are converted from either replica firearms from less lethal or blank-firing firearms and even even sometimes from deactivated firearms farmers have gone through a deactivation process and then have been reactivated so to speak so there are also sources of weapons for criminal groups for insurgent groups in they vary by region but I think we see a lot of them are quite regionally located and in Libya for example a lot of Turkish plane firing firearms are converted to lethal purpose use in the UK quite a few of these and then John there's the story behind this quite well okay yeah thanks I suppose the first thing to say just a dovetail into what we just said is that there is a craft produced component right a lot of these this is the most common criminal use firearm in the UK and these are widely publicized in the press from the pound when you say that you talk about the Makarov specifically well or converted I believe that our original that this Makarov that there has indeed there are four other types but when I say the most common I mean the baikal usually the eyes at age 79 okay either eight or nine traumatic traumatic pistol yes we're trying to get out the way first of all this because I can't tell you much about it anyway these officers will tell you what the press call assassin kits so you get you the pistol which I'll come to in a little plastic gun case possibly for the case that the pistol is sold and I'm not sure with one of these and this is as far as I know entirely what workshop produced it's good for perhaps one shot hardly is no real baffled in there there's like a concentric tube drilled with holes it will have some minor suppression effect I'm sure certainly for one shot because there's a rubber block in the end of it but anecdotally we haven't testified one ourselves but anecdotally after one shot they aren't they do lose essential effect and again the threaded barrel before you go further show you to know what this term is but I think it's going to be a new term for a lot of Americans watching what is a traumatic pistol it sounds to me you know any pistol sounds traumatic that shot would but that's clearly a very specific yeah as the terms apply primarily to Eastern European designs and some of the gingival designs but really which went less lethal weapons in this case they often fire rubber ball cartridge okay sometimes they have irritant loads as well okay OC powder for example this is something that isn't really commercially sold no I mean it's not you know the prevalence of firearms in the u.s. it's not really what the market they're it's usually sold in areas where lethal purpose firearms are restricted and some states still have an allowance for these kinds of less lethal this becomes a civilian self-defense option right now I should point out of course they still completely illegal in other states including the UK including the UK there varies it varies by country I should should put that out anyway as these are that's a very good point as these are important if they are already prohibited weapons in the UK okay I guess it's just easier to obtain for these groups things where they are legal that makes sense even if they're bringing them in illegally in the first place they then need to convert them and so these things are they made by bio Cal and legitimate firearm manufacturer shotguns and all sorts other things the generic term Baikal has become common in the UK because these are a common relatively common criminal weapon here it's a Makarov p.m. you know almost yeah that they're very guys making them for real now and for that reason materials may change over time because they don't necessarily have to bear the full pressure of it I know my 18 cartridge or anything but typically these are these are functionally real balance that's why they're so attractive for conversion there's no monkey metal to blow up they're really solid what do they do to prevent you from simply floating I mean that magazine even looks like a standard yeah I'm Beauty magazine so presumably when sold as a traumatic pistol they've done something they have and this is why this cuts to why they are illegal in the UK because to have such a thing as a blank fire or if we set it up we have something firing rubber balls or irritants or whatever but blank firing pistols are obtainable they have to be absolutely blocked they have a most event at 90 degrees either up or to the side the barrel is completely blocked as essentially useless to the typical that would be criminal of course with sufficient effort you might be able to make it into something but you are better to with sufficient effort you can make a gun out or nothing so which of course the argument of course is not exactly so sorry bit long-winded yeah but essentially in the original barrel of these things is of a spiral vane that allows the rubber bullet to spiral its way out of the barrel under pressure of firing so if you were to chew if you're able to chamber and fire a live round it would be a bad day for you okay basically that means that's not toasted or anything like we're quite having the UK break your drill bits and harder than the metal around it you can just drill that out okay and that's what they do certain most sophisticated groups are able to obtain basically bits of rifled barrel and fit those it's important to know that most examples of the improvisers of crap produced weapons we see in criminal usage or indeed in use with non-state actors and very silent premature and the world are not arrived with their smoothbore weapons yes which means their accuracy in the range of very limited yep but with sufficient resources and scare and it's not insignificant you can basically replace the barrel right it's not something your average person yeah not trivial on a macro because it's a fixed barrel to begin with yeah but and that's well given that you can create a gun out of nothing but hardware store scrap right this gives you a head start right yeah that's that's basically it and the end result is a is a perfectly functional somewhat reliable you know things that things like feed ramps and stuff will probably need finessing right but it's basically a real gun and of course in this case they have threaded the m4 the suppressor yeah now it's always a question of stands we're saying you know different standards that would be allowed in blank firing okay say just blank fires in other countries and not even traumatic Englund hangouts believe a blank fires produced in Turkey number the ones that we talked about being converted in Libya most of those are of course Ford venting rather than side or top venting yeah for obvious reasons of simplicity of conversion the same applies to deactivated firearms so different standards by which the firearms are deactivated in different states that leads to you know firearms deactivated firearms from certain countries being vastly preferred by criminal groups or non-state actors for the reactivation potential so activated firemen the UK for example under the current specifications is incredibly difficult to turn into anything useful whereas a activated firearm from another country well relatively a deactivated firearm in the United States only has to have its receiver destroyed which leaves most of the pressure bearing components still perfectly usable and in fact there is a there is a legal and and not thriving but there's a legal community of people rebuilding destroyed machine guns into semi-automatic rifles in the United States okay which would not be legal to do none day those are the many places most prices right yeah so Nick you're the primary author on the report that's coming out on exactly this sort of material right right so Ares staff have authored a report for small arms survey geneva-based research organization looking at improvising crop refuse weapons and actually whoever contributed to that study must have been brilliant and fantasy and and John have contributed in their roles with Ares and it's been you know I think it's a it's a pretty good guide for the layperson each got four guides it's pretty comprehensive goes through the major types of the seen around the world and it talks about some things we touched on today like the scale of manufacturing types of manufacturing skill and tool requirements and so on and then also we've got you know a number of blog posts and a number of shorter pieces that have come out and some of the improvised converted reactivated different different sort of topics we touched on today all right very cool so a good resource for anyone who is looking Jim please find out about this type of material and of course we are sitting in the best gun collection in the Western world is it possible for people to come visit the NFC and study maybe this or maybe any other part of firearms history the the facility is not open to the general public if we have a museum that people can come in for free it is a very cool museums thank you Elizabeth the Royal Armouries Museum right yes that's right and we also have the gathers at the Tower of London that we have an artillery Museum in Portsmouth near Portsmouth is it yeah yeah so we have the public facing side and it's mostly on the historic side and I'm very keen to develop modern displays okay move them to us is by 1900 on it is possible for individual researchers bona fide researchers to apply to us and we'll assess you and you can get in on an individual basis and if you do you can access all of the things that you've seen laid out by my class by tonight by country and use as a study resource which is really what it's designed to be wonderful it's really cool that a collection like this can actually be available to researchers I totally understand why you don't want to have the general public in here 24/7 handling everything because it's the the more interesting guns get often times you have to either put them away and leave them protected just not that people are wrong it's just that a lot of handling has a negative effect on artifacts absolutely yeah it's a room it's a balance you'll notice the gloves it's a balance we have to strike on the museum side and then on the on the NFC side if you like we are not allowed to have group as it's by civilians anyway okay there is a bureaucracy involved but if it's something that you're interested in it is absolutely worth contacting them the people here are really cool and very helpful and very knowledgeable and I would strongly recommend it if it's something if you're working on a book or any sort of bona fide research definitely come check them out if you can't of course well we have a whole video series coming up that we have filmed in here so you'll be getting to take a look at a number of very cool guns from this trip and hopefully there will be more in the future thank you guys for watching hope you enjoyed the video and check out make sure to check the description text below for links to a bunch of the different things we talked about today

Channel: Forgotten Weapons

Views: 1,189,340

Rating: 4.882834 out of 5

Keywords: ares, forgotten weapons, improvised gun, improvised weapon, craft built, guerilla gun, workshop gun, crude gun, homemade gun, conversion, handgun, pistol, smg, submachine gun, luty, pa luty, cody wilson, troubles, ireland, makarov, loyalist, roundtable, discussion, slamfire, pipe gun, liberator, silencer, suppressor, less lethal, traumatic, rubber bullet, ferguson, mccollum, jenzen-jones, pattern room, history, development, armament research, shotgun, weapons, small arms survey

Id: 0TMrunbZLJw

Length: 25min 38sec (1538 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 27 2017

Reddit Comments

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[u/jebeller]

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