OSS "Stinger" Covert Cigarette Guns

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com. I'm Ian McCollum and the reason you can't see me is because today we are looking at some little tiny devices here and I figured we should just go straight to looking at them up close. These are stinger cigarette guns. These are OSS produced ...clandestine warfare... ...little sneaky pistols from World War II and they are extremely cool. What we have here is actually three different versions of them We have a T1, originally called a Scorpion and then later renamed to a Stinger because they already had some other things called Scorpions in the OSS catalog and they didn't want confusion These were developed first in 1943 and they manufactured 25,000 of these little things and what they are... It's a clandestine .22 Short. So this one's obviously cut away. What you have is a .22 Short cartridge that sits in this half, this is the barrel, such as it is. These are single-shot non-reusable weapons; you fire it and then you just throw it away. The firing mechanism here is this round piece... has a little nub on it as a firing pin on one side. We have a center guide rod. We have a firing spring behind it and then these outside... (let's see) (use this one as a pointer) ...these two outside wings hold that firing piece back. So in order to fire it what you do is lift this clip up, bring it back, and then push it down here. When you push it down, the two little tabs spread these two wire arms, which releases the firing mechanism... the firing cylinder there... which goes forward on its guide rod, hits the back of the cartridge, and fires it. This is an extremely close range thing. This is this is really like an assassination sort of clandestine weapon, and you can see obviously this is how they were originally manufactured - put the cartridge in and then press this tube around it said not reusable and when you put the clip in the front, it... it basically renders the things safe. These two arms hold the wire in, and you can carry this around and it does not look like a firearm. Stick it in a pack of cigarettes. Shoot you could clip it in your pocket like a pen. Now with these original ones, the first batch of 25000, which by the way were made in very short order, So once they got the design done, they were manufacturing something like 2,000 per day... so just kind of like The Liberator in that the production run of the Liberator only went for about six weeks and they made two million of the things ...however, they had some problems. They actually kind of had problems with every aspect of this. They had problems with the firing pin spring not being strong enough So they had like 6% of them would not fire you know would not actually detonate and that's a problem when you have a one-shot throwaway gun that you're probably putting yourself in serious risk to use; they had problems with the striker not cleanly releasing, they had problems with the the barrel bursting which is definitely a problem You don't want to use something like this and end up hurting yourself more than your target. So in 1944, they started redesigning this. We do have an iterative version here. This is a T1E2 or T1E1 Where they made things a little bit stronger you know strengthen this and made a few little changes internally to the spring and the striker and Then in 1944 they decided to put in a second contract. Now in 1943, these had been done entirely by the OSS. They did the design, they contracted out the manufacture. In '44 the project actually transferred to the Ordnance Department with advice and and cooperation from the OSS but the Ordnance Department was responsible for making the second batch. This is the T2 Stinger. You can see that the breech here has been strengthened substantially. There's a lot more material to it and these were substantially improved they made another twenty five thousand five hundred of these in 1944. There is no documented there no documented use of these that been able to find, but everything about the OSS and the SOE was very quiet. Very hush-hush, they weren't in the habit of documenting everything they did - that was kind of beside the point and I suspect these things were probably handed out like candy if you wanted them just grab a handful And I'm sure some people were inadvertently hurt by them. They're really potentially quite dangerous guns By the way, these are one of these is fired I believe this one has been fired and this one has been deactivated by Drilling down into the barrel using a screw to pull the bullet out dump the gun powder and then deactivate the primer with oil So they are these are deactivated and safe, but in their original format, these things are incredibly dangerous; it would be very very easy to inadvertently fire these. But of course they are original World War two OSS clandestine weapons and extremely cool. So a big thank you to the Collector who allowed me to to put these on film for you guys If you enjoy seeing this sort of thing do consider checking out my patreon page Support from you guys there is what makes it possible for me to travel about and find these sorts of artifacts to bring to you. Thanks for watching!

Channel: Forgotten Weapons

Views: 386,871

Rating: 4.9642358 out of 5

Keywords: covert cigarette guns, oss, stinger, Forgotten Weapons, pen gun, cigarette gun, 22, 22 short, 22lr, cia, office of strategic services, bill donovan, james bond, spy, assassination, pistol, gun, disposable gun, resistance, partisan, jedburg, jedburgh, allied, ww2, wwii, world war, ordnance department, mccollum, history, development, cutaway, t1, t1e2, t2, t1e1, kasarda, inrange, inrangetv, firearm, mi5, mi6, special ops, scorpion, single shot, sas, infiltrate

Id: -lFslAG9m-o

Length: 5min 56sec (356 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 16 2018