More Ugly Guns

Most guns were made to be a functional piece of firearms as a duty weapon or as part of the everyday carry.
However, there are some handguns in the past that never really worked out.
Yes, it goes bang but the cosmetic and its purpose was just horrible.
Anyways, there’s probably over hundreds of firearms out there from various countries from the past that we haven’t seen yet, but here’s another of our ugly list of guns.

  • Warner Infallible

    The Davis-Warner Arms Corp of Assonet, Mass was a small gun company that specialized in selling imported German pistols at the first part of the 20th century. When that pesky World War 1 thing broke out and the Kaiser decided that he needed all the pistols he could get, the logistics of this arrangement no longer worked for the American company, so they started making their own little gatt, a super homely six-shot striker-fired .32ACP they called the Infallible. The thing is, if you cocked it wrong the breechblock had a nasty habit of leaving the gun at a high rate of speed. Guess no one consulted a dictionary before they named it infallible.
  • The Deer Gun

    Another war time liberator pistol, this one may be the only 20th century handgun even more ridiculous-looking than the FP-45. This single-shot pistol was just a pound and was chambered in 9mm. The poor design looks more like something you’d attach to the end of your garden hose, doesn’t it?
    In any case, the CIA developed these during the Vietnam War. The idea here was to distribute these to the South Vietnamese for the same purposes as the FP-45. They only made 1,000, and it’s uncertain if any were actually used for their intended purpose. One thing is for sure, it ended up as one of the strangest handguns in firearm history.
  • Soviet S4M

    The S4M is a pistol.
    The round is one of many Russia piston silenced rounds. The gas from the primer propels a piston (I doubt they contain any powder) which in turn propels a 123 grain bullet at 490 fps generating 66 lbs of muzzle energy. This is significantly less energy than a High Velocity .22 Long Rifle (130+ lbs). The piston then locks in the gas preventing muzzle noise.
    The bullet itself is similar to the 7.62x39mm (AK) bullet. In theory this is supposed to fool investigators into thinking the victim was shot by a conventional rifle. This may have worked when the cartridge was classified but any modern forensic expert would not be fooled by a rifle bullet that clearly left the muzzle slowly and had very poor penetration.
    A combination of very low power and a relatively large caliber bullet means the round is not capable of much apart from gangland style executions as demonstrated in the recent assassination.
  • Mateba Autorevolver

    The Mateba autorevolver looks more like something you’d see Sylvester Stallone wielding in some future dystopian movie than a firearm in existence today. But the Mateba is very real, semi-automatic revolver that’s chambered in .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum and .454 Casull.
    As an added bonus, the .357 can also shoot .38 Special, so I guess it has that going for it. But at nearly 3 pounds in weight, we’re wondering who this hefty handgun was marketed for and what practical use it could possibly have.
    There are a few different models, but they all look very strange. If this type of weird appeals to you, be prepared to pay a pretty penny. You can often find Matebas going for anywhere from $1,700-$2,500.
  • Welrod MkII

    The Welrod is one of the best-remembered pieces of real-life James Bond gear manufactured by Special Operations Executive. SOE was a clandestine department set up in 1940 in the UK to assist resistance movements in occupied Europe, and they came up with some very interesting gadgets.
    Welrod was built from the ground up as a silent weapon for shooting sentries, and this dramatically influenced its design. First, it was made as a manually-operated weapon, and not semiautomatic. The problem with semiautomatic guns in this application is that no matter how effective the silencer is as muffling the sound of the shot, you will still have noise from the action cycling—the bolt or slide slamming into the rear of the barrel as it chambers a new round.
  • Dardick Model 1500

    Good lord, what is going on here? This cartoonish-looking handgun was the brainchild of inventor David Dardick in 1958 when he patented a new type of round called the Dardick tround. Yes, that is “tround” with a T. The 1500 was designed to fire this new round out of an open chamber revolver design.
    Dardick continued patenting similar strange triangular round designs like this for decades, and released several different model types that shot different types of trounds. But, the handguns just never took off for quite obvious reasons. Sometimes it’s best to not try and re-invent the wheel, you know?
  • Dreyse Model 1907

    The Germans were actually responsible for many iconic firearms designs in the early part of the 20th century and through World War II. But the Dreyse Model 1907 was clearly not one of them. Also known as “The Needle Gun,” this ugly handgun was chambered in .32 ACP and featured a seven-round, single-stack magazine.
    The gun saw action in World War I when it was used by German and Austrian troops. It even saw a little bit of action in World War II with Nazi National Militias. Quite a few American troops found these strange handguns and brought them home as souvenirs following the war. As a result, you can still find these for sale today.
  • Stevens Vest Pistol

    Also known as the Kickup Model with an estimated 1,000 manufactured from 1864 to 1876. The grips and barrel are numbered to the gun.
    This single shot .22 pistol features a German silver blade front sight, a notch in the hammer spur serves as the rear sight, a tip up barrel and smooth odd shaped flared rosewood grips.

This is not the complete list of ugly guns, if you’ve seen one thats not on this list tell us about it below in the comment section.