page_title: Improvised firearm
section_title: Repurposed or conversions
hierarchical_section_title: Improvised firearm / Types / Repurposed or conversions
caption_attribution_description: English: Two young boys, 14 and 15 years of age, were arrested while shooting a zip gun in the vicinity of police target ranges in a eastern U.S. city. A third boy, aged 15, was also arrested when it was learned that the other two had obtained the homemade weapon from him. The zip gun was constructed from a cap pistol of the usual type. A steel barrel had been inserted inside the soft metal barrel and bound with friction tape. The hammer had been filed down and given additional force by a wire spring wound under the firing chamber. The gun is capable of shooting a .22 caliber shell. The three boys were turned over to juvenile court.
context_page_description: Improvised firearms are firearms manufactured other than by a firearms manufacturer or a gunsmith, and are typically constructed by adapting existing materials to the purpose. They range in quality from crude weapons that are as much a danger to the user as the target to high-quality arms produced by cottage industries using salvaged and repurposed materials.
  Improvised firearms are commonly used as tools by criminals and insurgents and are often associated with such groups; other uses include self-defense in lawless areas and hunting game in poor rural areas.
context_section_description: Flare guns have also been converted to firearms. This may be accomplished by replacing the (often plastic) barrel of the flare gun with a metal pipe strong enough to chamber a shotgun shell, or by inserting a smaller-bore barrel into the existing barrel (such as with a caliber conversion sleeve) to chamber a firearm cartridge, such as a .22 Long Rifle.
  More advanced improvised guns can use parts from other gun-like products. One example is the cap gun. A cap gun can be disassembled, and a barrel added, turning the toy gun into a real one. A firing pin can then be added to the hammer, to concentrate the force onto the primer of the cartridge. If the cap gun has a strong enough hammer spring, the existing trigger mechanism can be used as-is; otherwise, rubber bands may be added to increase the power of the hammer.
  Air guns have also been modified to convert them to firearms. The Brocock Air Cartridge System, for example, uses a self-contained "cartridge" roughly the size of a .38 Special cartridge, which contains an air reservoir, valve, and a .22 caliber (5.5 mm) pellet. Examples of BACS airguns converted to firearms, either by drilling the barrel out to fire a .38 Special cartridge or by altering the cylinder to accept .22 caliber cartridges, have been used in a number of crimes. Blank-firing guns can also be converted by adding a barrel, although the low-quality alloys used for cheaper blank-firing guns may break with the pressures and stresses of a real bullet being fired.
caption: A zip gun constructed from a toy cap gun. The gun is capable of shooting a .22 caliber round.
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