Guns of Papua New Guinea

[EmbarkChief]

Saw this article today and thought the pics of the homemade pistols were pretty neat. I even noticed some "customized" 1911's in there, wonder if the cover's were to keep from losing brass or just to hold the slide to the frame?


http://lightbox.time.com/2012/10/22/raskols-stephen-duponts-portraits-of-papua-new-guinea-gangsters/?iid=lb-gal-viewagn#1

 

[SharpsDressedMan]

That must me one poor section of the world. My dad fought his first battle of WWII on New Guinea in either late 1942 or early 1943., I know the guns of the Japanese, and I'm sure some of ours, were left over then. These seem to all be "zip" guns of some type. Just goes to show that even when gujns aren't readily available, the ingenious will find a way to make them from practically nothing.

 

[eldon519]

It is extremely poor. One of the last places on earth where they are still believed to practice cannibalism. Until somewhere between WWI and WWII, they used seashells as currency.

 

[Radagast]

PNG has gone down hill since independence. A shooting buddy grew up on a mission there. 10 years later he went back to find the mission surrounded by razor wire, the perimeter patrolled by attack dogs and the women did not leave the compound without a man carrying a long arm.
Another ran a gas station. To take the days takings to the bank he would handcuff the cash box to his clerks wrist and they would go together, with him carrying a shotgun. One day the clerk got out of the car before the manager. A raskol ran up with a machete, lopped off the girls hand and took off with the cash tin.
Raskols hi-jacked a helicopter and used it in a robbery. Police shot it down.
Pedestrian killed in a traffic accident, goes back to accident scene with coroners court. Relatives of the dead man appear and hack him to death.
Its a dystopian paradise.

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

I read an article years ago in one of the gun rags about homemade guns of the Philippines. Mostly they were copies of Smith & Wesson revolvers. The workmanship on some of them was quite good considering they were mostly hammered and filed into shape.

 

[MagnumDweeb]

It's amazing what can be accomplished with modern steel. Patience, files, and time. The Phillipines and Pakistan (for the longest time the TT33 was a favored handgun amongst makers and consumers which makes sense given it's a block of steel and can be made to shoot 9mm) have long histories of producing firearms with some of the most primitive means available to them. If you had to choose between spending all day breaking your body on a farm or sitting down and hammering and filing away at metal, what would you choose? Oh and making guns would net you a great deal more money in the end as well.

Well I'm never going to PNG, hope that independence was worth it. If you look at history, it seems when the colonial powers left, the places went to heck in a hand basket most of the time with some minor exceptions.