Homemade African Poachers’ Guns

In this recently-uploaded video, Ian of Forgotten Weapons takes a look at some extremely crude homemade firearms, allegedly taken from African poachers who had made them for hunting.

I had a chance to visit Hire Arms in Johannesburg — a movie arms supply company. Among many other things in their collection, they had an assortment of extremely crude handmade firearms confiscated from poachers in Zimbabwe. As something we don’t see much of here in the USA, I thought they were pretty interesting, even if just in a train wreck sort of way. So I pulled out a couple of the most unusual to put on camera.

He takes a look at a breech-loader and a percussion-fired muzzleloader, and from a distance the muzzleloader looks pretty cool. With pistol grips for both hands on its wood shoulder stock and a lock that resembles an old British musket, it seems to represent an attempt to unite ancient and modern firearms design.

Once you get up close, however, you see just how crudely-made they really are.

He also shows us a muzzleloader that failed rather spectacularly.

Pretty cool… and a great preview of what we will see a lot more of once sales of legitimate firearms are banned.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.