A mechanical pencil in blued steel with a mahogany grip (checkered, 30 lines per inch, skipline); on the end is a recoil-absorbing eraser.
Sliding the grip through its cycle (admittedly a longer stroke than most pencils require) produces the distinctive sound of a Remington 870 pump action shotgun (the action, not the shot) (yes, it's quieter than the real thing, but it works well held up to a microphone or cell phone).
A 1911 model might also be possible.-- lurch, Jun 23 2012 1880. I bet it's a muzzle loader... http://www.worthpoi...il-rifle-agate-butt [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 23 2012] Bic 0.5mm http://s14.postimag...0120624_00007_2.jpgGas powered microrifle. [rcarty, Jun 24 2012, last modified Jun 25 2012] I have no idea what a Remington 870 sound is (I thought they just made electric razors), but I will buy one of these if only for the grip.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 23 2012 We do; and this is a charming idea.-- 8th of 7, Jun 23 2012 Is this an idea for a bic lighter / bic pencil zip gun? How fast and how far can a standard mechanical pencil lead be fired from chambered butane?
Use lighter for buttstock, use loading end of mechanical pencil for chamber. Use mechnical action of penicl to pump lead. Gas detonates in same chamber as the pencil lead is stored, but is muzzle fired. A muzzle from a depleted bic pen tube will carry the round the rest of the way, once being pumped all the way out. Keep pumping mechanism compressed to fire.-- rcarty, Jun 23 2012 Q's got nuthin on you [rcarty].
You might like this one [lurch].[link]-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 23 2012 I would just like to have a blued steel pencil.-- DIYMatt, Jun 23 2012 If that fails the spring loaded flint in the bic lighter shoots pretty far on its own.-- rcarty, Jun 24 2012 // I have no idea what a Remington 870 sound is //
If you've ever watched a movie in which a character uses any brand or model of pump-action shotgun, you know what a Rem 870 sounds like. It has the classic 'clackety- clack' pump sound, as opposed to the smooth triple-click of the superb Binelli Nova or the excessively harsh racheting of the monstrous and utterly useless Franchi SPAS- 12 (which is the pump shotgun you most often _see_ in movies, because it looks ridiculously bad-ass).
Foley artists and firearms enthusiasts alike love the sound of the venerable 870. Actually, we love everything about it. When my Mom asked me to buy her a shotgun for home defense, I bought her an 870/Tac-20 and made a slight modification that tightened up the action, making it extra-clackety as a bonus. The sound of it alone should be enough to make all but the most hardened home intruders immediately void their bowels.
<An aside to [8th of 7], [21 Quest], [MikeD], [2fries], possibly [Flying Toaster], and any other gun nuts who want to correct me: yes, I know the SPAS-12 is technically a dual- action, but it's so bloody complicated that nobody can figure out how to put into semi-auto, so in reality it's a pump-action, and not a very good one. So put your hands down, the teacher is _not_ going to call on you.>-- Alterother, Jun 24 2012 //a bic lighter / bic pencil zip gun? //
In 1942, the British developed an apparently innocuous Zippo-style cigarette lighter which was intended to help PoWs. The lighters looked perfectly normal, but contained about an ounce of RDX explosive. They were included in Red Cross parcels.
The lighters had a normal-looking wick and were lit in the usual way. The wick could be allowed to burn harmlessly for about ten seconds at a time (in case guards were suspicious). After that, the heat would ignite a fuse (concealed inside the wick) and, about five seconds later, the explosive would be detonated.
About 2000 of these lighters were produced, and they were all sent out at around the same time (since once they had been used, the Germans would no doubt be alerted to their existence in future shipments).
The only oversight was that nobody had thought to notify the PoWs that these "lighters" were being sent. Apparently most of the casualties were pipe smokers. After the war, there was actually a "Zippo Club" of men who had lost variable numbers of fingers and facial accoutrements to these devices.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 24 2012 [21], it may surprise you to learn that I've _never_ posted an idea about firearms, though I've dabbled in light ordnance.-- Alterother, Jun 24 2012 [Max] - on the offchance that you're not pulling our collective legs, did these little bundles of joy have a common name by which one could search, and then source further reading?
Being an ounce payload, I surmise they were intended to be used for 1) distraction or 2) for demolition of fuel tanks, munitions, etc, or maybe 3) very light demolition, possibly cutting through a steel bar, etc, although 1 ounce probably wouldn't do the latter. I doubt that they could be expected to be effective antipersonnel or assassination devices.
It does raise the idea of the utility of something similar, but with an inbuilt shaped charge, such that it could be employed in cutting or penetration. If it were plastique not straight RDX they could be dissasembled, the paylload combined, the fuses appended and a useful device could be concocted.
...interesting.-- Custardguts, Jun 25 2012 The lighter bombs were real; the OSS and its Allied counterparts came up with a number of surprises to slip into Red Cross packages over the course of the war, most simply intended to cause general havoc in and around the POW camps, drawing enemy resources away from the front. The lighters were a spectacular failure both for the reason [Max] mentioned and because many of them were defective, but other devices smuggled in were more effective, such as cigarette flashbombs and sealed cans of powdered milk that also contained a pair of miniature wire cutters.-- Alterother, Jun 25 2012 //did these little bundles of joy have a common name// The project was given the code name "Popeye", but I don't know if the lighters themselves had a special name. Most often they were referred to simply as Zippos - this was OK, because British servicemen didn't usually have genuine (American) Zippo lighters, so the meaning was unambiguous.
As for their intended use, this was never stipulated - it was just thought to be a Jolly Good Idea to give PoWs handy explosive devices. It's not known how many were used to good effect, but it is known that the prisoners who built the Colditz glider planned to use six of them - two to distract the guards and draw them over to the far side of the camp, and then four more to break away the supports which held the wooden fascia that concealed the glider, allowing it to be launched.
It is recorded, however, that four British aircrew were compassionately repatriated from various German PoW camps following accidents with the "Zippos", so the project was not a complete failure. Also, two German guards were maimed after confiscating and attempting to use the lighters. The only known Zippo casualty on British soil occurred when the Red Cross (who had to be informed of the plan) asked for a demonstration to prove that the lighters would not detonate accidentally.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 27 2012 Incidentally, regarding the //sealed cans of powdered milk that also contained a pair of miniature wire cutters//, these were also not a complete success (although, as the [Alterother] points out, they were quite effective).
The wire-cutters had to be sealed into the tins at the factory, since it was difficult to replicate the seal without the canning machinery. For secrecy (since careless talk costs lives), the "dodgers and wheezers" erected a sort of tent over part of the production line and, as the tins went past, dropped a pair of wire- cutters into each one, the tins having already been filled with powdered milk. The wire cutters were taped to cardboard to stop them rattling against the sides of the tin. A batch of five hundred tins were thus filled on the first day.
Unfortunately, the factory produced about 30,000 tins of powdered milk per day. Moreover, the same powdered milk was sent not only to PoWs via Red Cross parcels, but also to the Great British Public, where it was a mainstay of wartime rations.
By the end of the day, it became apparent that nobody had thought to track these "special" tins, all of which had gone through the sealing and labelling process and now sat scattered amongst several hundred cases of powdered milk in the factory's store room.
It was decided that it was not possible to find the five hundred lucky winners without alerting many of the factory's staff to their contents, which would have risked the story leaking out. Accordingly, over the next few weeks, many housewives up and down the land were surprised to find a pair of wire cutters, neatly taped to a blank piece of stiff card, inside their tins of powdered milk.
Subsequent batches were properly tracked and earmarked for Red Cross parcels, and a great many of them found their way to PoWs before the Germans got wise.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 27 2012 I didn't know that part of the story. Fun!-- Alterother, Jun 27 2012 It would have been easier to weigh the tins and put aside the heavy ones.-- UnaBubba, Jun 28 2012 random, halfbakery