Weird Guns- Wasp Knife

I first heard about the Wasp knife few months back from our fear mongering friends
in the British media. They seem to feel this will be a major problem in the streets of England soon. Since carrying a little pocketknife like the one I have with me every day is a social sin more serious than attempting to buy nuclear material in the United States, they get pretty upset about anything that might upset the Orwellian state they seem to love so much. This is the country that is attempting to force people to buy a $150 kitchen knife with no point, because, you know, if you had no pointy kitchen knives, no one would ever get hurt.

Anyway...


The Wasp knife is a personal defense knife for divers. The idea is that you would stab a shark with it and then inject a large volume of CO2 gas pressurized to 800 psi into the shark, presumably blowing it up or something. They state that it will cause the fish or whatever to rise to the surface before blood begins to leak out of the animal. I really wonder if the wasp knife's inventor has ever attempted to use this. Due to the restriction of a wet suit and the water, making a real stabbing motion is not easy and anything you need to defend yourself against underwater is a lot faster and meaner than you are. Being that they are more than $400 a piece, I am pretty sure you could get a more effective weapon for that price. Like a 12 gauge bangstick for example. At least that gives you a little distance from your attacker. I'm pretty sure this is just a gadget for people who wear $15,000 watches and like to pretend to be tough. Their website seems to think otherwise though and makes the case that most of the military need a $400 knife.




Frankly, this seems like a really stupid idea to me. It is worth mentioning that sharks very rarely attack people, and that the chances of using this on a shark that would attack you is vanishingly small. Most shark species want nothing to do with a person and the ones that do can pretty much tear a chunk out of you before you know what is happening. Sharks have not survived for 300 million years to be killed by a neoprene covered monkey with a knife full of cold air. And if the inventors of this little toy would like to prove me wrong, they can jump in the ocean and kill a Great White with it to show me how wrong I am. The guy who invented the modern bullet proof vest shot himself in the chest like 1000 times. Consider the gauntlet thrown.

Weird guns- Device "D"

I seem to have a special liking for the Cold War- era equipment of the Soviet Spetsnaz. The items are all rugged, simple, and effective. They usually don't win any points for aesthetics, but hey, they don't make them for sitting around and looking pretty.


On to Device "D". The basic plan in the event of a conventional WWIII was that many highly trained and fairly independent Spetsnaz teams would infiltrate NATO lines and do as much damage as possible, preferably to high value targets. Fuel and ammunition dumps, Command and Control sites, Radar installations and aircraft on the ground were high on the list. Above all, missile sites, whether they be anti-air, tactical, or medium range nuclear weapons would be the target of the Spetsnaz teams. As all of those targets are lightly armored, Soviet planners decided that a 30mm grenade would be sufficient to destroy or severely damage them. A combined high explosive and incendiary warhead would be able to destroy or disable a large variety of targets.

Device "D" without grenade cup launcher, bipod, and butt stock

To maximize the tactical surprise of the attack and increase the chances of success (and escape), it was decided the new grenade launcher would be sound and flash suppressed. To make the weapon more versatile, It was also given an armor piercing, internally silenced 9mm round to be used against enemy personnel. The firearm itself is a fairly crude, single shot, bolt action pistol. To achieve the maximum range and accuracy, the user needs to use the bipod and and the holster can be attached to use as a butt stock in the manner of the Mauser C96. When in grenade launch mode, a cup is attached to the muzzle and the grenade is loaded from the front. There is a manual extractor for unloading any unfired grenades and the grenade sight is attached to the left side of the weapon. Range is stated to be about 300m. The 9mm AP round is said to be able to penetrate 5mm of mild steel at 100 meters but the bullet is very heavy and slow at about about 430 grains and 830 FPS. It achieves its penetrative power by virtue of its dense steel construction. The (9x93mm) noiseless cartridge is similar to the 7.62x63mm noiseless cartridge we have already discussed. It has a thick steel case with a small charge of powder and a piston which pushes the projectile out of the case and then captures the excess gases, which is the cause of most the gunshot report and muzzle flash. The PMAM "Mundshtuck" cartridge has a push rod which transfers the energy of the piston to the muzzle-loaded grenade, seen below.

PMAM 30mm HE/Incindiary grenade and noiseless cartridge

PFAM 9x93mm AP cartridge

Weird Guns (part 4) Neostead Dual tube shotgun

Here is another strange one that you might not have ever seen.
It is the Neostead 12 gauge shotgun from South Africa. It is unique due to its dual top mounted magazine tubes. It been available since 2001 and is manufactured by Truvelo Armory.

The Neostead pump action shotgun with fixed breech face and movable barrel. The Neostead was designed with a forward then back-style pump action like on the Russian RMB-93. It has a bullpup style layout which results in a shorter overall weapon with a longer barrel. The frame is made from high impact polymer and features a top carrying handle with sights built in. The Neostead has a safety selector inside the trigger guard, directly in front of the trigger. The dual, selective magazine gives the Neostead a 12 round capacity and tactical flexibility. You could have one tube loaded with less lethal rounds and the other with buckshot for example. Mounted on the rear of the magazines there is a magazine selector which can be set to enable the feeding from one or another magazine, or from both, alternately. The magazine tubes are loaded and then slid into the frame of the weapon as you can see below.



Lets say that the gun has just been fired and the breech has an empty case in it. The operator would then pump forward and then backward. This causes the barrel to move forward, and the empty case will be held against the breech face by the extractor, then ejected down through an opening in the frame. When the pump slide is pulled forward, the new cartridge is released from the magazine tube above the barrel, and then a feed ramp lowers it so that it is aligned with the barrel and the breech face simultaneously. When the pump is returned to the starting position, it takes the barrel back, so the barrel will enclose the cartridge and be in battery with the fixed breech face. The weapon can now be fired.


The Neostead has so far failed to set the world on fire and I am not aware of any police or military that has adopted it. It is a good idea although I would think there could be many opportunities for problems with the dual tubes. It would be very easier under stress to forget you had one type of load in the chamber or which tube was which and think you were firing a beanbag and fire a 1 ounce slug instead.

Weird Guns -(part4)- Spetznaz Ballistic Knife

Well, it is not really a gun, but since it fires things that hurt, I figured I would include it to the list.

The Ballistic Knife was developed for Soviet Special Forces as a weapon for use when the report of a gunshot was undesirable, like when neutralizing a sentry. They were issued to the Spetznaz in large numbers in the 1980s.

The knife works by using a powerful spring to launch the blade about 20 feet. When combined with the standard, overhand knife throwing motion, the power behind the weapon is very great and would likely pierce soft body armor.

To fire, one would remove the pin (like on a grenade) and depress the firing button.

Another weird gun, another idea that didn't really make it.

Weird Guns (part 3) Double Revolver

Not much info on this one, Evidently from the Nineteenth Century, an attempt to increase the ammunition capacity and rate of fire of a revolver by giving it a cylinder with two rows of cartridges and a over under double barrel. From the looks of the hammer, both barrels may have fired at once. I'm not sure if that would have made a greater impression of the one firing the weapon or the target. The barrels' diameter would lead me to guess that it was chambered for a .45 or .44 caliber bullet and it looks like it was made for centerfire ammunition. As with most firearm technology that is not common or stolen by other manufacturers, it probably didn't work very well. I can't imagine that this gun had any kind of balance at all, which likely made it only accurate at food throwing distances. From the clumsy looks to the rather insane design, I also am going to guess this weapon was made in France.
(sorry, France, you are good at other things)

If anyone has more info on this weapon, let me know.

Weird Guns (part2) Apache Revolver

This strangle little weapon is known variously as the deadly flower, Apache revolver and a few others most likely.
It Consists of a 6 shot, .27 caliber, black powder pinfire revolver, with a swing out mini Kris bayonet, and when folded, the grip can be used a knuckle duster.
The revolver likely had an effective range of about oh, 3 feet due to the lack of a barrel and I highly doubt that the other features were much more useful. Still it is pretty neat.
The Apache name does not actually have anything to do with the Native American tribe, but instead a group of 19th Century Parisian criminals who called themselves " Les Apaches".
Sacre Bleu!

A weapon like this was also used in the excellent sci-fi book, The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester.

Weird guns (part1) SwissMiniGun

Swiss Mini Gun




The SwissMiniGun has a total length of 5.5 cm and is 2.34 millimetres in caliber. This firearm is a scaled-down model of the Colt Python. It's a keychain with a bang.










I once saw a gun like this in a museum in St. Augustine. It was described as a "lady's gun" and that it was designed to deliver a fatal blow by being shot down the ear canal.
Ouch.