I was wondering, since pipe weapons literally look like they were made from parts scavenged from the ruins of a Home Depot, if anyone made a real replica of one?

A potato cannon, sure. Easy to make and loads of fun. On a note of how times have changed. Back when I was in high school we made a cannon in shop class that shot 12 gauge shotgun rounds, and even got a grade on it.

Has been made plenty of pipe guns over the years, in parts of the world its pretty common, downside is that most are single shot and smothbore.

Fallout 4 pipe guns are a step up, not made of random junk but at an small metal workshop, then you can get thing like this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten#/media/File:Pistolet_maszynowy_STEN,_Muzeum_Or%C5%82a_Bia%C5%82ego.jpg

Yes its an machine pistol used during WW2, lots of them was made in occupied europe.

Look a lot like an pipe gun except no wooden parts.

They are also referred to as "zip" guns.

sten is far cry from zip gun. zip guns were one shot, single use only.

http://thumbnail.image.rakuten.co.jp/@0_mall/takei/cabinet/products/02451536/img57429727.jpg

It was my understanding that cottage-made https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khyber_Pass_Copy type weapons have been a "not insignificant" part of the armaments fielded by "militants" in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last ~1.5 decades. 50 or 100 year old factory-made Soviet or European weapons are probably the most common types used by the various "tribal" forces in that region (Kalashnikovs like older model AKs and RPKs are probably the _most_ common, or at least the most sought after), but ones made by local gunsmiths were not unheard of.

Are we talking a functioning replica? Because that is illegal on like all the levels.

Not sure, what you mean, but guessing you mean "in U.S. law." In truth, laws regulating such things are often at the state level so it might be legal in some states and not in others. There are a number of Federal statutes in the U.S. that were put into place from about 1935 through 1988, and which effectively make "destructive devices" like fully-automatics, sawed off shotguns, flamethrowers, etc., financially inaccessible to the common person; but they are still "legal" and merely require a standard background check and a $200 "ATF Form 4" which also serves as a notice to local law enforcement that a citizen in their jurisdiction is a legal holder of a NFA firearm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw-ydGfsrbY

Ahh, "potato" cannons, one of our favorites back when kids were allowed to run with scissors, though we used tennis balls for ammo; much more consistent than a random tater. Easy to build, but more likely to injure the user than the target.(keep yer hand clear of backfire!) Not really a "deadly" weapon, though it could certainly be adapted to such.

Then we got into compressed air, and playing with gunpowder; lemme tell ya, it's all fun and games 'til somebody loses an eye.

I recently saw a docu about some tribe activists on Papua New Geniua who fought against multinational companies with home made guns. Some of them looked very much like the ones in Fallout 4.

Here's a pic from there: http://www.asiapacificnazarene.org/wp-content/uploads/22-fusil.jpg

and here also: http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/4811292-3x2-700x467.jpg

I meant literal replicas of the ones in the game, but I guess I forgot improvised weapons are a thing in real life ^^;

My first thought on the subject was "Carbine Williams": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muwHSj0682E

The most difficult part of making a pipe gun to perform anywhere near like a modern mass-produced weapon is the rifling. An experienced gunsmith might be able to work out how to do that, but the large majority of amateur gun makers wouldn't. And that's the whole point of pipe guns: anyone can make one. The trouble is that at best, 95+% of those amateurs would turn out a glorified blunderbuss with accuracy for ****.

There's a reason why shotguns have always been so popular. And why there is no such thing as a shotgun sniper rifle.

Speaking of which, why is there no pipe shotgun in the game?

Remember making one who shot marbles with an firecracker, but it was designed more lika an miniature cannon.

An good idea as we only had the breach supported by two screws down in a wooden block. Put in marbel, put in firecracker, put fuse in the grove in the barrel and slide the block in behind.

Well at one point one screw came loose and the cannon went recoil-less.

An rocket launcher based on an plastic pipe and an old rifle stock was much safer,

It's the other way around.

The Fallout "Pipe" weapons seem to be based on various Pipe-based weapons made be inmates in U.S. prisons.

https://www.google.com/search?q=prison+weapons&espv=2&biw=731&bih=514&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQgae7trrKAhVMPT4KHZlMBcsQsAQIGw#tbm=isch&q=prison+guns

Because a shotgun IS a pipe gun. But instead of firing a single bullet -- with the exception of using slugs, which defeat the purpose of using a shotgun -- it fires a handful of pellets, on the theory that at least some of them will hit the target... if it's not too far away... and it's large enough.

Authorities regularly take homemade weapons that are very similar to pipe weapons from gangs and bikers in places like Australia and Brazil.

I cannot even imagine how one would do rifling without some very large, heavy, high-power, and expensive equipment.

I guess it is reasonable to conclude that "pipe weapons" are functionally distinctive from the various pre-war models (and thus "weaker) primarily as a result of their:

a. primitive or non-existent rifling

b. imprecise articulation of moving parts, seals, clasps, etc.??

ADDIT: and actually, your comment raises a question for me as a gamer and very amatuer gun enthusiast . . . In some games (System Shock 2 comes to mind, I believe Jagged Alliance 2 as well, maybe others) we are led to believe that a "shotgun slug" is a fearsome weapon-ammo combination, at least in so far as a slug does a comparatively large amount of damage.

Is this a myth? I was aware that the vast majority of shotun ammo are pellet cases with a charge that propels all the pellets down the barrel pell-pell, and the unpredictable trajectories as they escape the barrel are what lead to the pellet dispersion and thus the weapons utility for close-quarters conditions where time is of the essence. It also struck me that, given these "strengths" of the weapon, that putting a slug in place of the pellets seems strange. I would guess it then functions more or less like a "precision-tooled" musket? i.e., low effective range and a slug trajectory that makes it an inherently highly inaccurate weapon?

I guess a slug can probably penetrate armor at point blank range better, or perhaps is good for other things like blasting off locks?

You can make rifling with an lathe I think, rifled muskets was common before the US civil war.

But no its not something you do without an decent workshop.


Shotgun slugs have good damage. most are rifled so they spin but they are not for sniping. Now in an game you could imagine an miniature grenade, that would be an devastating weapon.

The Sten is no where near a "pipe" gun. It's made out stamped steel but the barrel is rifled.

What you are really looking for is the FP-45 Liberator that was designed during WWII. It's literally a piece of pipe with a stamped steel body around it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator

Actually, in most "free" states it's perfectly legal to make a non-nfa gun. As in you can build a semi-automatic or bolt operated firearm from a 0% hunk of metal. Most people build guns from 80% hunk of metal and they bring them up to 100%.

NFA items are a completely different animal.

Yes I know the sten uses an rifled barrel, the bolt is machined the rest is stamped steel.

However the FO4 pipe weapons are more like an stengun than something made in an garage. They have decent accuracy and you can get them i n full auto.

The liberator is more like the garage stuff, yes its factory made but it has no rifling and is single shot.

A shotgun slug can be devastating... in comparison to other shotgun ammo. There is also the aspect that unless the shotgun is also rifled, the slug is less likely to hit the target than a spray of pellet shot. Rifling a shotgun is a short-term consideration, reasonable only if that shotgun is used for ONLY firing slugs. Frequently using regular shotgun shells would gradually destroy the rifling.

Going into the ACW "rifled muskets" were somewhere between "common" and "rare". Most rifled muskets in the USA pre-1860 were in private ownership. (The government was too cheap to pay the higher cost for a superior weapon.) By the end of the war, nearly all muskets in use were rifled. And, yes, it takes some specialized equipment to apply rifling to a musket barrel.

From the FP-45 page Tallest linked . . .

That sounds rermarkably similar to the scenarios at the start of many shooter games. In particular, I'm reminded of one of my favorites mods for Arma 2: "Lost" in which, you spawn into one of the maps alone. You are a special forces soldier and the rest of your team has been killed. What you have to do is: survive long enough to get some better weapons (though granted you will generally start out with something like an M-4 or a 1970's AK, you are limited in ammo and the like) and recruit locals to piece together a resistance movement.

Very cool posts, Tallest! I figured it was legal to make such things as long as they remain semi-auto and/or do not breach any of the other factors in the "NFA" scheme (barrel length, etc. right?).

What do you mean by 0% and 80% hunk?