Crazy Russian Armorer Makes Working Mouse-Scale Guns

[Te Anau]

You've got to see the amazing detail of these miniature guns.Each gun takes about 8 months to create.I would go nuts trying to do this.

http://www.guns.com/crazy-russian-armorer-makes-working-mouse-scale-guns.html

 

[sigcurious]

Those are pretty neat. I wonder what compelled him to make them. On the downside, now we have to fear the rodent revolution!

 

[SDC]

That is some real precision work; I've got a visitor's book from the Tula State Weapons Museum that shows some of their miniatures as well, and the detail is amazing. Up through the 1940's, they were apparently Tula's "final exam" for apprentice gunmakers, and each candidate had to finish a working scale model of the firearm of their choice. Miniature Arsenal out of Russia also does some amazing miniatures of all sorts of firearms, antique and modern, military and civilian; see http://www.miniaturearsenal.ru/

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Neat! My daughter went to study in Italy and brought me back a collectible Beretta 92 minimodel. Not workable but cute.

 

[Fishing_Cabin]

They are kinda cute! I wonder if Tula or other factories, have any factory tours available to foreign nationals? I may try to visit at some point if they do.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I think you have confused the meaning of "amazing" with "crazy."

 

[Old Grump]

If he did that here the BATFE would be all over him. Can't be having those miniature working guns without the proper stamps and fees paid for. Probably make him get a miniature safe too and considering how many he has they might just arrest him for having a dangerously large arsenal of military weapons whose only purpose is to kill people and have no sporting use.

I saw another article on this guy awhile back and he just flat amazes me but he better stay out of the land of the free or he will get got. If the TSA doesn't like bullet key chains and NRA hats think what they would do to this guy.

 

[raftman]

Very cool, to the point of being hard to believe. I honestly have a hard time imagining they're as functional as the blog/article describes. They really do have functioning little firing pins? Magazines? Etc... Maybe they're single shot or something, but fully functioning, hard to imagine.

 

[44 AMP]

Sure, they would work.....

Over the years I have seen several examples of finely crafted miniature guns. Completely reproduced in every detail.

They would be functional, with ammunition scaled to fit them. The guys who have made these are artists and major modelers. From famous pistols to belf fed machineguns and cannon, all have been reproduced in miniature by some very serious hobbists.

But as far as I know, nobody has ever produced any functional scale ammo for any of them. I'm not sure it is technically possible, and even if it was, the extreme tiny size of the bullets would really limit their effectiveness. After all, its MASS at speed. And that is what makes bullets effective.

As to the legal issues of a micro Tommygun, (for example), I think even the worst fanatic at the ATF would have a hard time getting a prosecutor to take it to court. I see it going something like this...
DA: The defendent manufactured an unregistered fully automatic weapon, if violation of US law!
Defense: The law states a fully automatic weapon fires more than one shot from a single pull of the trigger. (holds up exibit A, in the palm of his hand, and offers it to the DA)

PROOVE IT!

DA: (gaze dropped), stammers uh...um...we were unable to fire the exibit, but his intent is obvious!

Defense: You can't shoot it?
DA: Uh..no..
Defense:Why not?
DA: ...no ammuntion exists for this gun...
Defense: So, it cannot fire more than one round for a single pull of the trigger?
DA: uh, it could....
Defense: Did IT?
DA:...no...
Defense: Move to dismiss on the grounds the item does not meet the legal defintion of machine gun, therefore my client did not violate the law...

If the ATF can get your gun to "fire more than once with a single pull of the trigger", no matter how they do it, they can build a case. Not a good case sometimes, but somthing anyway.

If they cannot get it to do it, even once, they have NOTHING to build a case on.

At least not for manufacturing and posesssing an illegal machinegun.. as to anything else you might have done....in your entire life.......

 

[Nickel Plated]

Maybe try a charge for building a SBR. But idk if the stocks on those guns count as stocks since theyre too small for anyone to use from the shoulder. So maybe he can just count them as pistols.

 

[EdInk]

Very cool. I wonder what thy would sell for in the US and how they would be classified.

 

[Crazy88Fingers]

Someone did something similar with a mini-Ferrari a few years back. It ran and everything! Of course, it's difficult to train a mouse to drive a car. Most people seem to have difficulty grasping the concept.

 

[raftman]

But as far as I know, nobody has ever produced any functional scale ammo for any of them. I'm not sure it is technically possible

But that's kinda what I am saying... if it may not be technically possible to build appropriately scaled ammunition, it would be extremely difficult to make a 100% fully functioning firearm of the sized portrayed in those pictures. I mean, with most actual, full-sized firearms, something like an extractor spring is already tiny; to scale it down to a tiny fraction of that size would make it pretty much microscopic.

 

[egor20]

Now all I need is tiny little holsters and some tiny little ammo and equip all my barn cats. No need for all my fancy security stuff after that.

 

[44 AMP]

I recall hearing of a case many years ago, where a guy made a perfect, full scale repro Tommygun. Everything was there, and would have been fully functional, except the entire gun, save for the springs was made of wood.

Rifled barrel, proper cut chamber, all parts made to spec, but made of wood.

According to the story I heard, the ATF did take him to court. After all, he did make an unlicensed machinegun!

The judge, after testimony stating that a single round of live ammo would shatter the gun (if it even went off), threw the case out.

The amazing fact to me is that it went to court at all. I don't doubt that someone in the system would try to take one of these miniature machineguns to court as well. After all, it is a violation of the law....isn't it?

 

[SDC]

Here's a photo of some of those Tula miniatures that I mentioned, from their website; these show a PTRS anti-tank rifle, a Krnka breechloader, a Berdan II breechloader, several different scales of M1891 Mosin-Nagants, and a couple of Lefaucheux pinfire revolvers. For an idea of scale, the PTRS is in 1/6th scale, meaning the miniature is about 13 inches long.