Zip gun is a term used for a crude, improvised firearm, usually a handgun. Zip guns are almost always single-shot, as the improvised construction sometimes makes them weak enough to be destroyed by the act of firing. Zip guns are usually smoothbore. Improvised firearms are guns made by individual gunsmiths and not manufactured legally. ... A handgun is a firearm small enough to be carried and used in one hand. ... Single shot pistols have existed since the early years of firearms. ... Smoothbore refers to a firearm which does not have a rifled barrel. ...

Basic zip gun designs

The most basic zip gun consists of a short length of steel tubing, into which a cartridge is placed. The cartridge is then held in place by an endcap, with a small diameter hole drilled in the rear to allow access to the primer. A nail or other thin object is then placed in the hole to act as a firing pin. A spring or rubber band can be used to propel a hammer against the rear of the firing pin, in order to fire the cartridge. Zip guns generally use .22 Long Rifle ammunition, due to its low cost, easy availability, and most importantly, its low operating pressure. Use of a larger, more powerful cartridge would require heavier tubing with thicker walls to withstand higher pressures. Since zip guns almost never have rifling, the bullets invariably tumble en route to the target, allowing even a non-expanding bullet to produce significant damage (see terminal ballistics). Shotgun shells are often used in zip guns as well. Shotguns operate at low pressures, and produce far more energy than handgun cartridges. The old steel cable of a colliery winding tower Steel is an alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon content between 0. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Look up primer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The firing pin is a very hard steel rod with a one small, rounded end for striking the primer of a cartridge. ... .22 Long Rifle - Subsonic Hollowpoint (Left), Standard Velocity (Center), Hyper-Velocity Stinger Hollowpoint (Right). ... Rifling of a Canon de 75 modèle 1897 A 35 caliber Remington, with a microgrove rifled barrel with a right hand twist. ... Terminal ballistics, a sub-field of ballistics, is the study of the behavior of a projectile when it hits its target. ... A shotgun shell is a self-contained cartridge loaded with shot or a slug designed to be fired from a shotgun. ... A pump-action and two semi-automatic action Remington 1100 shotguns, 20 boxes of shotgun shells, a clay trap, and three boxes of clay pigeons. ...

In Harlan Ellison's Memos from Purgatory (chapter four), he describes his experience with zip guns while working with kid gangs: Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is a prolific American writer of short stories, novellas, essays, and criticism. ... Memos from Purgatory is Harlan Ellisons account of his experience with kid gangs in a period where he joined one to research them for a book. ...

Or how about that homemade cannon, the zip-gun, about which you've heard so much? Have you any idea how simple they are to make? Not the detailed and involved weapons made by kids who only want to sport a deadly-looking piece, but the quickly-made item to be used in a killing.

The tube-rod in a coffee percolator is the barrel. Did you know it's exactly right for a .22 calibre slug? Or perhaps it's not the stem of from a coffee pot. Perhaps it's a snapped-off car radio antenna. Either one will do the job. They mount it on a block of wood for a grip, with friction tape, and then they rig a rubber-band-and-metal-firing-pin device that will drive the .22 bullet down that percolator stem or antenna shell, and kill another teen-ager. What they don't bother to tell you is that a zip-gun is the most inaccurate, poorly-designed, dangerous weapon of the streets. Not only dangerous to the victim, but equally dangerous to the assailant, for too often the zip will explode in the firer's hand, too often the inaccuracy of the home-made handgun will cause an innocent bystander to be shot. It is a booby trap of the most innocent-seeming sort, and there are many kids in Brooklyn (or in Queens, Long Island City and Astoria, where the Kicks, another club much given to the use of the zip, roam) with only two or three fingers on a hand, from having snapped that rubber band against the metal firing pin.

Slightly more advanced are zip guns that leverage other items for the trigger mechanism. A popular method is to use a cap gun for the grip and trigger mechanism. A piece of tubing, such as a car's radio antenna, is added to provide the barrel and chamber, and the cap gun hammer is modified to provide a firing pin to strike the cartridge primer. While still highly unsafe, these zip guns may offer better accuracy due to their more gun-like shape and operation. The firing pin is a very hard steel rod with a one small, rounded end for striking the primer of a cartridge. ... Cap gun This is a display of Nichols Industries cap guns, inclusing some of the rarest models. ... A yagi antenna Most simply, an antenna is an electronic component designed to send or receive radio waves. ...

More elaborate versions

While most zip guns are single shot, multiple shot zip guns are also encountered. The simplest multi-shot zip guns are derringer-like, and consist of a number of single shot zip guns attached together. In late 2000, European police encountered a four shot .22 LR zip gun disguised as a cellphone, where different keys on the keypad fire different barrels. Because of this discovery, cellphones are now x-rayed by airport screeners worldwide. They are believed to be manufactured in Croatia, and were still being found in Europe as late as 2004, according to a report by Time magazine. Another example has been found which is machined to resemble a large bolt; the bolt shaft unscrews to reveal the breech of the barrel, and the bolt head is pulled back to operate the firing pin. The term derringer is a genericized misspelling of the last name of Henry Deringer, a famous maker of small pocket pistols in the 1800s. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... This article is about the continent. ... Cellular redirects here. ... In the NATO phonetic alphabet, X-ray represents the letter X. An X-ray picture (radiograph) taken by Röntgen An X-ray is a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength approximately in the range of 5 pm to 10 nanometers (corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... (Clockwise from upper left) Time magazine covers from May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. ... Screws come in a variety of shapes and sizes for different purposes. ...

Privately manufactured weapons which require a significant amount of machining, high quality springs and so forth, are not generally considered zip guns.

Cultural references

• The song "I Fought the Law" as originally written by Sonny Curtis and performed by The Crickets includes the line: "...Robbin' people with a zip gun.." (Many later versions, including the famous Bobby Fuller rendition, mistakenly changed the wording to "six-gun").[1].
• The musical West Side Story contains reference to zip guns.
• In the Steven Spielberg movie Munich, Israeli agents use zip guns to kill an assassin.
• In the movie Death Wish 3, the Hispanic neighbor and friend of Paul Kersey uses a zip gun against the street thugs.
• In the movie Carlito's Way, Benny Blanco uses a zip gun to kill another character.
• The band Royal Crown Revue has recorded multiple versions of their song, "Zip Gun Bop". Another of their songs, "Hey Pachuco", references a zip gun.
• In the movie Lethal Weapon 4, the captain comments on how old he is, saying he was once shot by a zip gun.
• In the 1993 film In The Line of Fire, John Malkovich's character attempts to assassinate the President with an elaborately made zip gun made from composite materials.
• In the movie U.S. Marshals, an assassination attempt is made on Wesley Snipes' character using a zip gun made out of a toilet paper roller.
• In the song St. Jimmy by Green Day, from the album American Idiot, the opening lines are: "St. Jimmy's coming down across the alleyway/ Upon the boulevard like a zip gun on parade."
• In the song It Makes a Fellow Proud to be a Soldier by Tom Lehrer, one of the lines is, "...He's real R.A. material, and he was glad to swap, his switchblade and his old zip gun..."

Single cover of the Bobby Fuller version of I Fought the Law I Fought the Law is a much-covered song originally recorded by Sonny Curtis of The Crickets. ... Sonny Curtis (born May 9, 1937, in Meadow, Texas) is an American singer and songwriter. ... The Crickets The Crickets were the backing band formed by singer/songwriter Buddy Holly in the 1950s. ... Bobby Fuller on the single cover of I Fought the Law Bobby Fuller (October 22, 1942 – July 18, 1966) was an American rock singer and guitarist best known for his classic I Fought the Law. // Early career Born in Baytown, Texas, Fuller spent most of his youth in El Paso... For The Games song, see Westside Story (song). ... Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director and producer. ... Munich is a 2005 Academy Award-nominated film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth. ... The Death Wish series consists of five movies starring Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, who becomes a vigilante after his wife is murdered and his daughter raped. ... Carlitos Way is a 1993 gangster film based on the novels Carlitos Way and After Hours by Judge Edwin Torres. ... The Royal Crown Revue is a band formed in the early 1990s. ... Lethal Weapon 4 is a 1998 film starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Chris Rock and Jet Li. ... In the Line of Fire is a 1993 film about a psychopath who attempts to assassinate the President of the United States. ... John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor, producer and director. ... This page refers to a motion picture. ... St. ... Green Day is an American rock band consisting of three core members: Billie Joe Armstrong (guitar, lead vocals), Mike Dirnt (bass) and Tré Cool (drums). ... American Idiot is Green Days seventh studio album, released in 2004. ... Tom Lehrer in 1960. ...

External links

• Report about cellphone gun, with pictures and a link to the Time magazine article dated 2004.
  • Video of cellphone gun firing.
• Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science article on zip guns.

• The Gun Zone article on a bolt-shaped zip gun.