The oddest guns......

[Ray]

What were the oddest, unexpected guns you ran across in your military careers ?

When I was in uncle ronnie's yacht club in the 1980's I saw .38 special ruger service sixes available for the SH-2 and SH-60 chopper pilots if they so desired but most just carried 1911 .45......

On most ships, there is an area known as officer's country that is usually verbotten for enlisted to pass through unless you had specific business to be there....I happened to be passing through one day (or night) when the gunners mates were inventorying the m-16 locker....the gunners mates did not even possess the keys to this locker. According to GM2 Holley who had to come through my shop to access the main ship's small arms locker where the with m-14s, 12 ga. pumps and 1911 .45s were, only the C.O., X.O., and WEPS had access to the m-16 locker in case of mutiny or an enemy boarding.....

and all of the electric boats (submarines) back then had in their small arms lockers and were carried in port by both the petty officer of the watch on the quarter deck and on the pier by duty security, both swedish k m-45 and smith and wesson m76 9mm submachine guns.....

[marlinman93]

Well since I was a Loadmaster on cargo jets in the USAF, I rarely saw guns of any kind unless we were shipping them as parts. But I recall one shipment of M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling guns we had as a cargo load one trip. I thought that was about as cool a military gun as I'd ever seen!

[Pete44ru]

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Being USAF, the strangest/coolest firearm I ever ran across while in the service was the .22 Hornet M4 Survival Rifle, under a slick pilot's seat. (ca. 19640)





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[piller]

While NCOIC of the shift on Freedom Bridge, the ROK soldiers with us had the DaeWoo pistols where the cocked hammer could be pushed forward to rest on the slide. It was still cocked, and it was sort of a hybrid between single and double action. Their rifles were a 5.56 caliber that was obviously based on the AK short stroke gas piston idea. They were equiped with an adjustable stock.

[765x53]

In Korea in 1970, we still had M3 A1 sub-machine guns on our Sheridan's.
A really cool device was the Indian-Head Howitzer. A base plate to witch an M79 could be clamped, turning it into a 40mm mortar. It had been designed by a 2nd Division armorer and was deployed throughout the division. It gave pre-targeted night support within the DMZ where crew served weapons were not permitted.

[jeepnik]

While by no means odd I did see a few that weren't GI issue. Among them were Hi-Powers & Ruger, Smith and Colt revolvers. But the most modified thing I saw started life as an M-2 carbine. The barrel had been cut off at the end of the fore end and recrowned. The buttstock was cut off just past the pistol grip. It had no sights but did have a thirty round magazine.

[Bill in Oregon]

Pete, I had heard of the M4, but yours is the first image I have seen of one. I wonder how accurate they were.

[Pete44ru]

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Well…………………………………... We actually took it from the aircraft (it was in for a fuel system repair in 1964, about two days) & shot it in the boonies (with some ammo we bought), and were able to hit whatever we aimed at (no paper targets).

Soooooo, IDK if it was accurate or we were lucky.

In any event, it was returned to it's place, it's absence gone un-noted, well before the aircraft was returned to service.

If we had gotten caught, we were going to claim that we were checking it's operation readiness, for the sake of the aircrew...…


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[HawkCreek]

Not the oddest gun... but in the second battle for Fallujah in 2004 while clearing houses a friend of mine yelled at me to come look at what he found... Turned out to be a beautiful blued 2" Colt Python! I couldn't see a scratch on it anywhere. I wish I could have brought it home.

[jeepnik]

Not the oddest gun... but in the second battle for Fallujah in 2004 while clearing houses a friend of mine yelled at me to come look at what he found... Turned out to be a beautiful blued 2" Colt Python! I couldn't see a scratch on it anywhere. I wish I could have brought it home.

Interesting. I happen to know, very well, a young Marine who found a 4" engraved Python during the first battle of Fallujah. He too would like to have brought it home. During the second battle he liberated a Hi Power. Nothing fancy, but he had to leave that behind too.

I do wonder if some of those nicer pieces managed to come home in some officers baggage. Although by all accounts the Python was quite so pristine after its hard use.

[jnyork]

I loved watching Spooky rain down .30 caliber death , he worked around the perimeter of our base quite a bit, you could hear the roar and see the red tracers come down like someone up there with a garden hose. A sight I will not forget.

Hauled a small contingent of Marines from Da Nang up to An Hoa, 3 or 4 of them had target type rifles with scopes, cant now recall if they were Remington 700's or Winchester Model 70's. Tried to engage them in conversation about their rifles, etc, but they were a pretty grim and tight-lipped bunch.

Landed at a small dirt strip , Special Forces camp along with some artillery . They checked fire when we were in the pattern but as soon as our wheels touched down they cut loose with 155 mm right over our heads as we were rolling out. Concussion shook the air craft, scared the bejeezis out of all of us.

[Paladin]

What I would have considered the oddest was a Winchester 1873 in 44-40 an Afghan was carrying in Kabul in 2008. Keep in mind this is a photo of my hotel room on one job we did. The RPGs in the corner were ours also.