"Four strong winds that blow lonely... Seven seas that run high..."

Here's the latest Glam Shot of the (as yet, unfired) ...improvised shotgun.
It's already out of date, the photo. The 1/8" X 3/4" steel, artfully wound round the breech (confining those expanding gasses you know - we'll cover that later) has gone the way of the albatross.
That idea looked lots better in my head than it did once all was said and done, so I cut it off and welded a piece of 1,1/4" pipe over the breech instead.
In retrospect though, this older one looks better. It's just got more of that "ultimate funk" thing going on. I don't know.
Perfect segue time:
Speaking of funk; below, please find all the information needed to build The Four-Winds-Shotgun.
If the JPG's are a pain to read, it's available as a PDF here - along with lots of other bitchin gun info.
I'll not burden the program with anything regarding the author other than; he supposedly coined the term "survivalist" and his info is on the web.
Kurt Saxon.
The name of the weapon is nice, very romantic - quasi-oriental.
Hence the silly weather references I made at the beginning of this post.
However, the meaning of the name is made clear in the text and it's less "aesthetically pleasing" but far more informative.
This thing is very bare-bones; even for me, which is going some ways.
I don't know if I've got the balls (read: reckless stupidity) to put one of these together and fire it although one would gather that old Kurt has done so, and retained enough digits to type.
It does seem to answer a lot of questions that will be coming up in our safety briefing (soon).
Seemingly, those same questions (to wit: "can off-the-rack plumbing parts contain the massive force of a shotshell detonation?" etc.) may be answerable by our friend, Dexter at the close of the page.
Now, safety issues aside, faced with an evil zombie army to arm, on a limited budget, this is the thing.
Or, if your level of fear was pathological enough, you could guarantee that every door in your house had a sawed-off shotgun behind it... for like, a hundred bucks.

The idea's got nothing but appeal but the nagging safety questions remain:
Did Kurt dictate?
Did he buy special "survivalist-grade" pipe?
Or, and here's the rub, is this, maybe - just maybe - a crock of horseshit?
We'll leave that hanging along with a general EEWWW over all of Kurt's "disposal of the murder weapon" scenarios.
My personal fave is the "home-defense" scenario (I'm in no way arguing against the defense of one's home) wherein he says: "This is great for home defense... and then you can scatter the parts around the neighborhood."
I can see it now.
It would play like this:
"Officer, that guy, the one whose head is splattered all over my breakfast nook? Well, he was a bad guy, so I shot him."
"I shot him... but...
I lost the gun! Or, wait!
I didn't have a gun.
His head just 'blew up.'"
"Will you need me to go down to the station?"
Here's where Kurt didn't think this through.
"Fight the power", but sometimes the power's on your side.


Let's go to the owner of a real-world bardog.
Help us out here, Dexter.
You see, the rather chastened looking young man to the right (he's the one in the handcuffs) appears to be the owner of a Sumpak (See, it's in the caption!).
Reading for context here, Dexter appears to be the prisoner of Arsenio, the rather formidable, older gentleman to the right.
He's the one fondling Dexter's Sumpak with less-than-reverent admiration.
The one ol'e Dex needs to be calling "Sir".
Obviously, Dexter here has trodden upon his Oscar-Meyer and done so big-time. Therefore, he is not seeing the humor of this situation.
But, he's young, 23 - it was in the text of the article - he can go to business school...
The sky's the limit.
Dream the impossible, Dexter!
Anyway; He planned to use his Sumpak somewhere in the process of his "carnapping" (Could ya' die?),
Ergo: He must have had: A. Experience with it. Or
B.reasonable intelligence that it would work - and not leave him bleeding profusely in the street while his would-be "carnapp-ees" go their way saying, "What the hell was that?".
Or he was just an idiot.
Stay tuned.

A Bardog By Any Other Name...

I'll preface this with another few quaint, homemade shotguns. I have no Idea where this first one came from. It is ingenious. As near as I can see, it mostly consists of what appears to be a piece of steering linkage.
The next, the end result of Dr. Seuss' psychotic break while at Home Depot.

Bricolage, French, from the verb bricoler – the core meaning being, "fiddle, tinker" and, by extension, "make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are to hand (regardless of their original purpose)."
That's what I'm talking about.

Back now to "The Land of the Morning" the place you read about more consistently than others if Googling "improvised shotgun".
These are probably worldwide. I've read of one confiscated in Ireland.
Another poor putz was fined $9000 Aus for trying to smuggle one into Australia from Papua New Guinea. He didn't want to figure out how to make one once he got home I guess.
It is pretty challenging.
Anyway, since the PI is so amply represented in this my newest obsession - and I've been nostalgic for the place of late I'm going to salt in a few tourist pics.
Gotta kill time. I was all set to photograph my own Paltik, Sumpak, Palinitod, Bardog (My current favorite name. I think I read that this word came from the Visayas, the belt of islands in the middle of the archipelago. My sweetie from back in the day was from E. Samar in the same area - and it, Bardog is a kickass name.
I digress; I was all ready to photograph my creation, even though it's still rather pangit (Tagalog for guess what?).
Anyway, the camera had a dead battery crisis. Killing time...

Pictured above, one of my co-workers from the Nav.
As I recall this is Peter Lantagne from Connecticut, I think. If you know him, tell him I said, Hey.
I should recall her name as well but, alas.
They're sitting on the rear step of an example the Philippine's indigenous vehicle, the Jeepney.
Originally cobbled together, postwar from surplus US jeeps, they've since morphed into something else again. Click link above for Google pics.
In the '70's most of them were still actual wartime jeeps - but they were also on their last legs.
It appears that not many of the old ones are left and the design has wandered afield now that they're no longer locked into the old 1/4 ton, short-wheelbase model.
I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Anyway, in the picture, I think I see a taillight/tail-fin chunk that looks to be vintage Detroit iron - or at least so inspired.
Speaking of which, one of those pictures you only take when you're 19 and have never had a decent camera before.
Anyway, the command's duty vehicle, a 1 1/4 ton "weapons carrier", Jeep Gladiator. Fuck the Hummvee.
Well, the light quit blinking at me.
Be aware, it's a "work in progress" as I said earlier, pangit.

It does look properly third-world, just a little too funky for, even my standards.
I've got to shave some more off the stock, blue or blacken all the metal parts and streamline the receiver/stock interface; ie lose the big gnarly nuts.
Anyway, there she sits. Unfired as yet. The weather's been horrible.
Prior to such time, we'll certainly address the safety concerns uppermost on every grownup's mind.
In closing, still legal. It can lose almost five inches of barrel to get to 18" and 26" overall.

Meet Marilyn...

This young lady, aged 27 as photographed, circa 1973-4, was famous in a small way in the tiny community of Subic City, located a few miles north of the military installation formerly known as "the largest American base outside of the U.S." AKA: Subic Bay/Cubi Point, Republic of the Philippines.
Her name was Marilyn and, at the time pictured "worked" at the El Pariaso Inn in the aforementioned town.
She later operated one bar of her own ("Marilyn's") that I recall and, from info on soon-to-be-linked-to-website she then mayhaps have moved even farther up in the world.
What all this is in aid of is...
Waxing nostalgic over the home-made shotgun and the place from which it, at most notoriously, seems to originate, I went a'Googling and found this site.
I can't get the e-mail link to work being as I'm both Mac-impaired and behind the technological curve.
Even so, given my straitened circumstances, I'd like to bless the good Sgt. USMC (ret) with a photo of the famous lass herself so, if one of y'uns could either send me the good Sgt's e-mail or e-mail him to contact me, I'd count it as a huge favor.

No more Bettie Page

KRAFT KORNER

Here's a nice little, living-history project from...
I always like the low-tech solutions that third-world folk come up with.
Pictured below is a postwar, production shotgun. Named "The Philippine Guerrilla Gun", it was made by Richardson Industries of New Haven, Connecticut, founded by Naval Reserve officer Iliff D. Richardson.

As a young ensign, Richardson had his PT boat shot out from under him early in the war.
He found himself trapped in the occupied Philippines.
An attempt to build a raft and sail it to Australia ended badly. After swimming for twenty-four hours he washed up back in PI, where he spent the remainder of the war.
During these three years or so he made quite a name for himself with the Philippine guerrillas - including a silver star.
He was the subject of a biography, "American Guerrilla in the Philippines" by Ira Wolfert and was played by Tyrone Power in the film version.
This info is available in the Wiki entry linked to above and in his obituary from the LA Times which can be found here.
This is about the gun.
First off, I'm sorry for the poor picture quality. These photos all came from gun collector auction sites (where they commanded figures in the $700-$800 range) where "gallery quality" pics aren't a big deal. Anyway, one of them was photographed on red velvet so I just did away with the color entirely.
The gun Richardson copied and tried to market was in essence an old Filipino firearm called variously a sumpak, paliuntod, or paltik.
It's just what it looks like, two pieces of pipe with a wood stock.
The longer of the two, the barrel is 3/4" pipe (on the Philippine wartime ones) which fits a 12g shell.
The shorter 1" pipe, the receiver is plugged by a breech block with a fixed firing pin.
Load shell into end of barrel, slide into receiver, point at something and slam the barrel back.
BaBoom
Richardson's "Philippine Guerrilla Gun" wasn't very successful. It probably fired just fine and, since it was made from appropriate steel was perfectly safe. Still none of the writings I found tell what it was like to shoot.
I suspect that when all the boys overseas were thinking "When I get back to the world, I'm getting a new shotgun." that this wasn't what they had in mind.
Sad. It might have sold like hotcakes fifteen years earlier.
Its lack of success certainly wasn't due to over complication although overly complex it was.

Gettin' above its raisin'... it's got a front sight for Christ's sake.
Oh the tangled web. Check out the blow-back from this "upgrade" below. Since the sight absolutely has to be on top, the lug you see on the bottom of the barrel and corresponding slot in the receiver become necessary.
How fiddly and fussy can you get?
The thumbscrew on the side of the barrel is the safety (Yes, it's got a safety).

Anyway, all this pandering to the "civilized" gun buyer negated the Filipino "rapid fire" option.
This technique went as follows:
After firing the first shot, the second round is put into the end of the barrel, the barrel is swapped end-for-end and the empty casing is blown out by the second shot.
Repeat as necessary.
But this post is titled "Kraft Korner".
Yes it is. Final photo, my unit in mid-production.
Now of course this is merely an academic exercise. I would never take silly chances making such a thing and all ya'll should consider yourself discouraged from attempting same.
As stated earlier, being my projected barrel length is around 22" so it should be legal - if stupid. The stupidity issue will remain to be seen.
I bought a 24" length of 3/4" black iron and a 12" nipple of 1".
Now, 3/4" pipe doesn't really just slide into 1"
I ended up sanding the barrel piece and driving it through the red-hot receiver to make a fit.
The odd little chunk is a few inches cut from the end of the crank-shaft from a wood-chipper. It's 1" in diameter so it, along with the mounting hole in the end and corresponding, hardened bolt will make up what I'll affectionately refer to as "the breech block and firing pin group".

"Military History" Gotten Wrong... Spectacularly so.

And we promise to remember
the seventh of December
'cause we're the Seabees of the Navy,
The Bees of the Seven Seas!

The Seabee Hymn

On this date - minus twenty-years and three months - September 7, 1988, thus quoth George H. W. Bush:

"Today you remember - I wonder how many Americans remember - today is Pearl Harbor Day. Forty-seven years ago, to this very day, we were hit and hit hard at Pearl Harbor... Did I say September, 7th? Sorry about that. December 7th, 1941."

...I also wonder.
George, just for the record, this was a war you were in.
And you didn't just misspeak the date, you put yourself in the wrong month - and season - for a date that everyone in your generation recalls.
Or so I thought.
Reference: "The Clothes Have No Emperor" by Paul Lansky