In profile, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was just another AK variant, perhaps one with strange looking furniture or built a little differently but for the most part it just looks like an AK.

The real oddity of it can be seen best, externally at least, from down below, where the magazine is essentially rotated 15 degrees and comes out from the bottom-side of the gun rather than the actual bottom itself. This is because the gun essentially has two actions stuffed into one AK, and the double shooting option needs to be able to function with the ammo on the left side of the magazine stack as well as the right.

In theory, the magazines could be pressed into the shooter's left wrist, which would add some stabilization. In reality, to horribly mis-quote the summary of the field trial you can find online, your left wrist naturally torques a bit left when holding the gun underneath anyway and getting that position to work wouldn't be worth the retraining effort required for troops already trained to shoot AK's. That said, if that doctrine can be instilled from new (i.e. this platform used for an entire new unit or given to another country) some value could be had by training from square like that.

The rifle, shown here being shot by a former KGB and a former FBI agent at a raid for a news article for FirearmsNews.com, was originally intended to end up being a full scale replacement for the AK-74, but when they began tooling up to fully replace the production lines they realized the immense complexity and tight tolerances of the new system were not going to be feasible at scale. They did, however, see a fair amount of "special purpose" use, in particular with the KGB kremlin security teams ... who were PHOTOGRAPHED with them a lot, leading to the impression of more existing.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, we have the Avtomat Nikonova AN-94, a 1980 attempt to replace the AK-74 designed to fire two bullets fast enough that the second left the barrel before the recoil hit the shooter.

The gun from the side. You can see the bolt action rifle stock underneath. The gun was criticized for not having a great way to hold it when standing as the grips were essentially the same ones from the bolt action Ross rifle, which worked fine for a single shot but not so much for sustained fire.

The rifle, pointed left, on a white background. With the action hidden, the profile looks kind of like an AI rifle with the receiver going as far back as it does. At the time one of the big criticisms was the lack of a good cheek weld for the shooter.

The action from above. Note that the top cover has been removed to reveal the action's inner workings. That switch on the right side (in the center of the image) is visible with the cover in place, and has a rather large physical lever of a switch safety with the word "safe" on one side and the word "ready" on the other side. You rotate that a full 180 degrees to engage or disengage the safety.

The sights were offset to the left in order to allow the action of the firearm to physically function. You would think shooting one would be more difficult as a result, but it's important to remember that an automatic rifle in WW1 was not expected to be a precision weapon and some amount of spread was actually considered a good thing in a number of circumstances.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game. This week, the 1917 Huot Automatic Rifle, a conversion for (then) common Ross bolt rifles. It was chambered in .303 British, w/ 25 round springless magazines. French field trials showed they were reliable but hard to shoot. Few were made.

The gun in profile from the left side. Two buttons on the side reveal a bit about how it functions. There is a safety, and a magazine release at the heel, but there is also a button that can be pressed to change the gun from semi-automatic to manually operated, increasing how quiet it is for a single shot.

The silhouette from the right reveals it is mostly a normal pistol in operation. The side stops much farther back than you might expect. A number of Type 64's were brought into Vietnam to fight the US invasion and genocide.

The gun, fully disassembled. The integrated suppressor takes up the majority of the space in the slide.

The left is .32 ACP. The right is the proprietary cartridge that the chinese developed. Note that due to the rim designs and the difference in thickness, .32 will jam in Type 64's and Type 64's ammo will likely fit in the chamber but not headspace properly on the bolt.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, the Chinese Type 64. A semiauto pistol carrying nine plus one rounds of a proprietary cartridge comparable to .32 ACP, it was used by the PLA from 1964 onwards by political officers.

A person pointing a gun down a hallway around a corner, looking at a camera feed from the gun's camera which appears mounted to the top of the gun.

The gun has a camera feed that can be strapped to an arm and a brace enabling the recoil to be minimal.

The pieces of the kit including the camera system, the pistol itself, the unique brace system, and the light that can be mounted to the PM as well as an additional surround for the suppressor.

The gun, sitting on the floor, without the brace. The brace minimizes recoil but also adds length to the back and can make some corner options harder. Note the flashlight on the side of the gun.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week it's the Skolkovo PMC75 experiment. Using a PM pistol in 9 Makarov, a brace made out of bike parts and a live camera, a handful of these models were put together for Russian Spetznaz.

The XM-25 from profile. You can see how it sort of looks like a bullpup with all the details fudged and weirdly proportioned.

In use, the optic looks peculiar and the barrel appears perhaps either extra cooled or with some sort of shroud but your brain reads it as a normal bullpup.

A soldier aiming the weapon, which also allows for a good view of the weapon's optic arrangement. Note that there is the visual lens and a separate "compute" lens to calculate distance with. This allowed the user to point it at a target, press a button, and have that distance plus five feet programmed in.

The idea was you can shoot a grenade just past where the cover is and theoretically make the concept irrelevant. That said, it was realized both that the weapon had a relatively small but non-zero chance to misfire into itself and damage the gun and the user, or (more importantly) if the round impacted a combatant then it would be a war crime as that would be "exploding ammunition" which is explicitly banned in the Geneva Convention on War.

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This week, the XM-25 CDTE. Firing a 25mm "airburst" round, the weapon was able to shoot a grenade past cover. It was deployed to Afghanistan but a mix of in-field failures and potential for war crimes killed the program.

The shotgun from the side showing the two barrels

From the side, kitted out

The gun from the bottom revealing the two feeding mouths

A closeup of the two muzzles

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This week, the Standard Manufacturing DP-12. Chambered in 12 gauge, with two six round magazines, the DP-12 is a pump action double barrel shotgun that fires two shells with each pump, the pin switching between barrels.

The original Revolver in profile. Outside of the somewhat oversized cylinder the gun looks relatively normal in profile.

Two barrels pointing down the front.

The gun was hinged on the top and broke open for reloading.

Both hammers would come down with each shot, but only one would be lined up with a new round.

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This week, we have a Nico Werke "Wild West" Revolver, a 20 shot, double barreled revolver chambered in .25 ACP. Made in 1910 in Belgium, it fired from alternating barrels and were sold for home defense.

The Curve, from the front, showing the pistol looking like it got melted in a hot sun and the integrated flashlight on.

The gun has a belt clip integrated on the right side. Also on the right side you can see the button for activating the laser and the flashlight.

The gun properly from the front and back highlighting the curve of the gun. It has wave and a flat part at the top.

Because it had a belt clip, but no safety, "holsters" for this basically covered the trigger and attached to your belt, and were designed to fall off as you drew the gun.

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This week, we have the Taurus Curve. A polymer semiauto pistol with integrated flashlight and laser, it has no proper iron sights, a curved body "for carry comfort" and an integrated belt clip. Held 6+1 rounds of .380.

The final gun includes the conversion kit and a front carry handle front sight, although the positioning of it makes carrying it with it genuinely difficult.

The guns are as reliable as the base guns are, which can vary wildly depending on which Draco you use as a base.

The gun takes standard AK magazines.

The parts that are highlighted here are the conversion kit, everything that isn't from this is the original AK. Note this one is shown in 5.56.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, we have the Stuff and Things BPK-762, a bullpup conversion for the Draco pistol that manages to maintain it's legal status as a pistol by purposefully misshaping the trigger cover.

Sucks.

Looks like something GarandThumb would wake up next to after a 2 week bender post third Divorce

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The Fightlight Herring Bandito has a profile that vaguely looks like you took an AR and a mare's leg lever action pistol and smushed them together in an obscene way.

The right side has a lot of similar characteristics to a standard AR including a deflector for the brass, a cover that opens when the bolt moves past it, and a mag release that should look and feel very familiar to most AR reloading techniques.

The real "secret sauce" is contained in the lower, where the extractor/ejector and loading mechanism have to be adapted to work with an AR style magazine.

The Herring line is going to include lever action rifles, but I'd like for the "Fucks or Sucks" conversation to focus on the pistols pictured earlier. That said, if the concept hits better with an actual rifle this might intrigue you and be worth knowing about.

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This week, the Fightlite Herring Bandito, a lever action pistol chambered in either 5.56 or 300 blackout. Equipped with a 7.5 inch barrel, STANAG magazines and a "mare's leg" grip, they were just announced at Shot Show.

The Bullpup shotgun from the side. You can see that the pump has become a front grip similar to an AR grip.

The side of the shotgun says "Shoot from right shoulder only, store gun and ammunition separately, patent pending." The "store ammo safely" mark was an attempt to short circuit what they saw as incoming legislation around liability for stored firearms that did not come to fruition. The shoulder requirement comes from the shotgun spitting hot brass directly into your face if you tried to rock it from a strong bladed lefty stance.

The gun had a grip safety and the trigger couldn't fire if you didn't have a firm grip on the pistol grip attachment.

You can see in this image that the sights are strange in the carry handle, the front sight takes up nearly the entire channel while the rear is almost entirely empty.

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This week we have the Mossberg 500B. A factory bullpup shotgun from the 80's, it was made in a limited run and sold through the catalog as a tacticool model. It has a carry handle with integrated sights and a grip safety.

The carbine from the left, showing the wood stock and revolving cylinder.

The rear sight was physically embedded into the rear receiver.

A close up of the left side, showing the sling look and the cylinder that made it so unpopular. You see, the cylinder gave you five or six shots of single action fire, but it ALSO had a tendency to spit hot gas forward around the barrel, which is frequently where you'd want to put your hand.

An 1855 equipped with a sling and shown with the optional bayonet.

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This week the 1855 Colt New Model Carbine. Looking like a revolver and a rifle had a baby, the rifle was chambered in a variety of black powder rounds from .36 to .64, they were widely used in the era but were unpopular.

The gun, when folded, could serve as a compact, 12 gauge, although the hook would get in the way of the sights.

Extended the hook had a flat metal plate that acted as an uncomfortable stock. These guns were both semi-automatic for when using full loads and pump-action when cycling bean bag and door breaching rounds.

The hook was meant to be use as the ... original brace, you can kind of think of it?

Because the intention was the hook would support the shooter when being used in an Italian drive by.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules - guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, we have the Franchi SPAS-12, a semi/pump action 12 gauge shotgun made for the Italian police with a slew of strange features including a hook so it could be fired hung out a window.

The gun's profile is similar to a derringer, as is it's .32 extra short chambering.

The barrel sits above a removable tubular magazine.

There are two hammers of sorts, you pulled one back to eject the last cartridge and load the new one, and it left the firing hammer pulled back ready to go.

The gun was fed by a tubular five round magazine that existed below the gun.

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This week, we have the 1878 Remington Rider Magazine Pistol. Chambered in .32 Extra Short and fed by a five round tube mag below the barrel, it required manually cocking each round and was known as a "gentleman's pistol."

The Beretta MB59 Para with the stock folded. The gun is pointing right on a white background. Note that despite often being stored without a magazine for safety reasons adding one adds very little space below the folded stock.

The stock, when unfolded, gives a relatively normal shooting purchase, if a bit of a strange outline.

The idea for deployment was the gun could have the stock folded and strapped down to create a very small package. This was partially because the Italian Paratrooper units were formed fresh after WW2 and were not battle tested when this style of deployment was chosen. The style was later abandoned as troops learned that if you have a gun disconnected from your body it's a great way to lose it on the way down.

All of the guns had bipods integrated into the design. At the time, the idea was adding mobility to fixed defensive positions rather than true full mobility, it was a style of combat that hasn't been completely abandoned but has changed wildly under mechanization.

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This week, the Beretta BM59 Paratrooper. The BM59 was made alongside the M14 as a .308 M1 Garand derivative, and rather than a find second more "mobile" rifle the Italians made a folding/'compact' variant of their rifle.

The rifle with a scope mounted. Note that apart from the gigantic air tank on the bottom the rifle is essentially a normal precision shooting chassis system style.

The guns are single shot and the bolt lacks an ejector.

The guns are shipped without any optic. The ammo is also a pellet. The safety also functions as an ejector of sorts for if rounds either aren’t needed or are in a malfunctioning gun.

These guns don’t have a long military pedigree although supposedly spicy-type special forces groups have experimented with them. That said, they are not nearly as quiet as people think they are, they don’t make quite as normal of a gunshot sound but it is still a large volume of air being moved.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a Christmas game with merry rules.

This Yule: the Hatsan Piledriver. The ultimate Red Ryder, the Piledriver is a single shot bullpup PCP air rifle that shoots .456, .50, or .62 metal slugs at 1100 feet per second.

It will definitely shoot your eye out.

The kit, when fully assembled, produces a shotgun chambered in .410 that looks, well, like a bunch of pipes stuck together.

The finished gun creates two pieces, you load the chamber on the top, slide it inside the receiver in the bottom with the safety pin in, pull the pin, and then when you fully push the barrel into the receiver it'll go bang. There is no trigger.

You can see here how the general idea is supposed to function. Nail in the back as a firing pin, set to the right depth so when closed it plunges as far as it should without piercing, on a separate piece attached to the back of the shotgun.

The two pieces on the left are the actual pieces you buy, and they include a strip of picatinny on the barrel segment that is zeroed to the barrel and allow for you to add a laser as a sight system. The rest of the pipes are the 1/2-inch pipe parts you need to buy to make the shotgun's stock and grips.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, the Poppa 410 DIY Shotgun kit. Purchasable over the internet for ~$130, this kit make a functional if primitive shotgun chambered in .410 out of common plumbing pipes and fittings.

Arguably the "truest intention" version is the SBR with the folding stock. This is also the rarest arrangement. Also note the 2.2" shotgun shells that are specially made for the Mag-7.

More common were versions like this, the SBR with the wood stock.

Far more common in the real world are models like this, with an extended barrel to make it not an NFA item and significantly easier to transfer in exchange for losing a lot of the utility.

The real difficulty is it uses 12 Gauge "60 mm" shells, shown here, which are 2.2 inches. "Real" ammo feeds properly. You can make your own similar ammo by cutting down 2.75" shells, or you can buy 1.75" shells and accept it won't run 100% when feeding, but you can't buy new 60mm shells in the US at the moment.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules - guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, the Techno Arms Mag-7, a pump action shotgun with pistol grip magazines designed to run shortened 2.2" shells. Available with folding or wood stock, the guns were meant for CQB.

A .50 BMG rifle, pointed to the right, with a very short barrel and a very large muzzle brake.

The Mini 50 with a folded brace and a 12" barrel.

The version with a 12" barrel and no stock.

The Noreen bolt gets completely removed from the gun in order to change the cartridge.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, we have the Noreen ULR Mini 50. A single shot, removable-bolt action chambered in .50 BMG, it is available with either a 16.5" barrel or with a 12" barrel in a "pistol" configuration.

The Winchester industrial Kiln gun, mounted on a demonstration platform

A person demonstrating the operation of the Kiln gun.

Real world mounting platforms usually have a large secure base relatively close to the gun, as otherwise the stress of firing 8 gauge repeatedly tends to warp stands and metal.

Industrial Kiln Guns have been around since we've had Shotguns for the most part, but were largely standardized in the run up to WW2.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, we have the Winchester 8 Gauge Industrial Kiln gun. On a fixed platform, with a bolt action that has no magazine, Kiln guns are used to blast the walls clean.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The gun itself and the matching watch, which both look like props from a science fiction movie set a few years in the future.

The light on the back glows green when the gun is unlocked and will fire.

If a non-authorized user were to use it, the gun would disable and the light would turn red to indicate the gun is locked.

Early hacks for these guns included broadcasting a jam code from a receiver preventing the gun from being fired, even by the authorized user, and copying the authorized user's code to rebroadcast, making it work essentially in a large fixed area.

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This week, we have the Armatix iP1, a semiautomatic handgun chambered in .22 LR and marketed as a "smart gun" with a matching watch required to unlock it. It's existence triggered fears of smart gun laws across the US.

One of the original guns, lying on top of it's removed magazine, with the ammunition it fires next to it. The cartridges look almost like spent cases with no bullets, it's only from the top that you can see that the bullet is flush with the lip of the cartridge.

Most of the original guns look almost like gangster specials given the build quality, while high, because it shows obvious machine tool marks, and all of the guns lack most standard serialization because the guns were explicitly designed for assassinations where they likely would have to be abandoned after use.

You can think of the ammo as a gunpowder actuated pneumatic cylinder. The gunpowder goes off and expands a metal cap forward, which pushes on the bullet. The bullet will fly forward but the cap will get caught by the ends of the cylinder, and as such all of the gas from the explosion will be contained inside the brass. Because the whole bang has to STAY contained, pressures and resulting bullet speeds are lower than even .380 ACP but they're still considered effective at close range.

The barrel is fixed to the frame, and the cartridge pushes to near the end of the frame. There is not much in the way of barrel, as other than imparting spin barrel length will do nothing but slow down the bullet, it reaches it's full speed as soon as it leaves the cartridge.

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This week we have the PSS, a Russian semiautomatic pistol containing 6+1 of a suppressed 7.62x41 ammo. The cartridge contains the full explosion force. Relatively weak but close to silent, they have been found in Ukraine and elsewhere.

The gun from the side, it's profile is not THAT unique.

The gun has four barrels parallel to each other and, as you can see at the back of the pistol, four firing pins, one for each barrel.

In a hand you can see why this was considered a "backup" sized gun, in .357 the gun was a massive handful. It was designed by Robert Hillberg, the designer of the Whitney Wolverine and Liberator Shotgun.

Compared to a modern gun that does the same job it's roughly the same size of a Ruger LCP II, but it lacks replacable magazines, has two rounds fewer, and has far more recoil

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, the COP .357 Derringer. A four barrel striker fired derringer chambered in .357 Magnum, it had four separate firing pins and a double action trigger changing which was interacted with.

The gun can be thought of as a Browning style locking mechanism shrunk down. This makes sense, they took a common popular design from twenty years ago and shrunk the round so it would have less recoil force as a safety mechanism.

The left side had a lanyard clip so soldiers could tie their pistol to their gear in the event of a hasty retreat. That said, you can also see through these three examples that different makers would finish them basically as they saw fit, which resulted in different shapes and as a result magazines often would not match between different guns, let alone springs and small parts.

Decentralized production did have a major advantage though - speed and adaptability. When pistols were needed, they were produced rapidly, and small batches could be made by skilled manufacturers so the BATCHES would be able to share parts. Plus, despite having different shapes, the guns were the same general shape and had the same handling practices. Also, this week I choose an anarchosocialist pistol specifically for my friend and roommate Ariel whose birthday was yesterday. Happy birthday!

Ruby pistols were chambered in .32 ACP. A common round in WW1, even back then it was understood to be somewhat anemic and largely requiring either an abundance of impacts or careful aim to truly stop a threat with it. In modern times .32 ACP is considered too weak by pretty much every fighting force.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week - the Eibar Ruby. Built in decentralized workshops during the Spanish Civil War they were made VERY quickly for the war effort but lacked truly standardized parts, including magazines.

The gun, seen from the left with a standard ten round magazine fitted. Note the picatinny rail specifically up and right for mounting lights to. Also note that the gun looks almost strange with the original magazines.

An upgraded model. This one has a new muzzle device added, an EoTech optic added, and the magazine has been replaced with the 15 round extended magazine. Note that in this setup the charging handle has been implemented on the other side, as you can switch it back and forth with minimal work.

This conversion has the forward grip normally fitted to the version of the Hi Point Carbine that comes with one from the factory added to the bullpup.

The gun broken open so you can see where the origins came from. The receiver and barrel are the normal Hi Point Carbine receiver shrouded with injection molded plastic pieces.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, we have the Hi Tower Armory MBS-95 Bullpup conversion for the Hi Point Carbine. A tactical modernization of the cheapest 9mm rifle available, it uses normal Hi Point Carbine magazines.

The gun, standing next to a single 76mm cartridge.

The gun being operated in a field test by a French soldier. The gun was originally intended to be marketed to the French military, and existence of it disappeared which means either it was adopted by a "black" military budget or that the project was scrapped.

The grip operates as a sort of gigantic safety. The grip being pushed forward means that the weapon is "primed." Without that, the gun is physically incapable of firing.

The gun used a long-recoil system to mitigate the incredible recoil forces of such a large round, at the end of which the case for the fired round would be ejected.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, we have the Lacroix Samurai "High Impact Weapon System," or HIWS. A single shot 76mm shoulder mounted launcher developed in 2006, it had no backblast but tended to knock shooters over.

The gun, which looks like a mechanism strapped to the back of a normal work glove because, well, that's what it is for the most part.

The patent that demonstrates the firing mechanism as well as how it's expected to be used as a punch kill weapon.

The break open action swung open showing how to load a round.

The most famous use of one is in fiction, this is the gun that was highlighted by Inglorious Bastards. It should be noted that that was a work of fiction and there is zero evidence of one ever having been fired in the field.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules: guns fuck, or they suck.

This week, we have the Sedgley Mk 2. Also called the OSS 38, it is a single shot, smooth bore, .38 special pistol designed by Naval Intelligence specifically to commit perfidy (a war crime) with.

The gun, with the small single shot chamber and barrel assembly removed.

You aim down the sights that also make up the guard and hilt of the knife. This results in aiming with the knife pointed at your face.

The gun mechanism is relatively simple. The ammunition was actually integrally suppressed, the ammo itself would contain the bang and as such suppressors weren't needed to make it quiet.

The cocking mechanism can be seen when you lift it from the side.

Hi there, and welcome to #FridayFucksorSucks, a weekly game with simple rules - guns fuck, or they suck. This week, we have the NRS-2. A survival knife from Russia armed with a single shot of 7.62×42 mm SP-4 suppressed ammunition. Meant to be used as a survival tool for downed airmen. Few were made.

This gun’s the ex I REALLY get along with but can’t continue with from their terrible habit of sapping my rent money dry…!

Im so sorry, Gyrojet… but… Jesus Christ… I love you but…
FFS! This is the hardest #FridayFucksorSucks yet! I gotta say #Fucks since EVERYONE went through the Gyrojet phase!