Zip gun

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Zip gun disguised as a flashlight

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.

1 Basic zip gun designs
2 More elaborate versions
3 Cultural references
4 External links

[edit] 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.

In Harlan Ellison's Memos from Purgatory (chapter four), he describes his experience with zip guns while working with kid gangs:

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.

[edit] 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. Several zip guns have been found that are built into flashlights, ranging from small models firing .22 Long Rifle to larger ones chambered for .410 bore shotgun shells.

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

[edit] 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", slang for a 6-shot revolver).[1].
The musicals West Side Story and Grease contain references 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, "When Pete was only in the seventh grade he stabbed a cop,/He's real R.A. material, and he was glad to swap/His switchblade and his old Zip gun/For a bayonet and a new M1"