#gunsmithing

I have seriously mixed feelings about ARC Raiders' weaponry, more specifically how that stuff looks.

The idea was to go for a cobbled together look, shit built in a cave with a box of scraps. Yeah, sure, I get it. Except this is a cobbled together look designed by someone who knows somewhere between fuck-all and jack shit about guns.

The Anvil is, supposedly, a revolver. The reload animations look like a revolver, the model... doesn't. The hammer is ridiculously far from what's supposed to be the cylinder, even with the separate firing pin that was introduced for safety fairly early after a couple of cowboys too many shot themselves in the foot by accident. There's a fucking rear sight on top of the cylinder. There's that wire connected to the hammer for no fucking reason at all. But at least the ergonomics, with the Ruger Mk1-like grip, are there. Unlike...

...Ferro. God. Fucking. Damnit. You have a break-action elephant gun, a Martini-Henry kind of monstrosity apparently built from leftover anti-air cannon parts, and you take a big runny shit on the ergonomics.

Look at that grip. What grip? The fucking grip that isn't even there! The whole thing looks like a crutch, with some unexplained flat metal bars sticking out above the muzzle, nothing to put your main hand on, absolute nonsense.

I'm not sure if I told you about the collection of homemade firearms confiscated by the local police and kept in the office where my dad worked in the Central Forensic Labs of the National Police Headquarters. Even the most primitive clunkers built out of a length of pipe, a spring, a bent nail and a lump of firewood for the grip had better ergonomics than the Ferro. And the more complex stuff? Man.

For comparison, this is a very nice render of the Luty Submachine Gun, made by Alexander Kirby. This firearm, designed by British activist Philip Luty, can be made out of stuff easily found in hardware stores, like box profiles, sheet metal, pipes, bar stock and so on. If it reminds you of the pipe guns of Fallout 4, you're not that far off.

What once was a bullpup, is no longer. Used RPK furniture and an AMD65 pistol grip, lightly restained to retain their texture from years of use, then sealed. Manufacturers will cringe at my rivet work on this one, but they're tight and they'll work, and they're worlds better than the ones the turks originally fitted to it. Don't balk at the turkishness, this is a meme gun.

Still need to order the safety lever, work on the trigger group, and fit picatinny and scope. That last part may be two or three weeks before I spring for anything. Magazine fitment is super tight right now and I may need to file some material off the tip of the magazine catch, but I'm gonna play with it a bit first.

Custom S&W 629 Performance Center with OEM comp.  This Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum Features a De-Burred & Rounded Hammer Spur, and the Trigger was Reshaped & Satin Polished for better Double Action ergonomics.  Leupold Gilmore Red Dot Scope.  And of course last but definitely not least, the full TJ Deluxe Action Package

Dude is *only* charged with illegal possession of an "unregistered short barrel rifle (SBR)" -- which appears to be referring to a legal and unregulated 37mm boat flare launcher that you'd in fact be required by law to have on a boat!!!

"pipe bombs" are bullshit: those are signaling cartridges for the boat flare launcher.

"suicide vest" is 🤣 pouches for the flare cartridges!

The dude appears to be enthusiastic and a bit of a home gunsmithing hobbyist. That is okay and is permitted and protected by the 2nd fucking Amendment to our US Constitution, damnit!!!!

If the FBI was describing an antique flintlock rifle from the revolutionary war right now, they'd say scary-but-completely-bullshit things like, "large caliber sniper rifle" and "dangerous handmade firearm with no serial number" and call the powder horn "a large amount of black powder explosives designed to be concealed and carried on the person"