DIY Ultralight Pipe Gun

In places where they are legal people might consider making one of these eg for protection from predators of various sorts, survival situations or to secure food for the pot. They can be stowed safely in two pieces and take up very little space and weight.

When separated in its two pieces (eg in separate bags) there is very little to tell that it is a gun at all. In the one pictured below for example, if one was to weld a wheel nut sized socket on the end of the ‘handle’ I think it would pass most people’s inspection as a tool for assisting with removing flat tyres from vehicles when traveling eg around Australia.

One made in .410 gauge (which has a number of shell options including solids) would be flexible, useful, reasonably lightweight without the obvious dangers of the bigger 12 gauge brother which in many cases would be ‘overkill’ – at least for the ultralight hiker.

I believe it is sadly illegal (now) in Australia for me to post instructions as to exactly how these can be made, (though when I was young the construction of home-made guns of various types was a popular hobby) but they can be found via an internet search or via links. Basically the simplest consist of two (explosion-proof extruded) metal tubes which slide snugly inside each other.

The ‘barrel’ tube is honed out to take the shell (each end is a good idea for quick reloads). The ‘receiver’ tube has a solid bar welded into the end of it to which a firing pin is attached. In the simplest versions one simply quickly forces the barrel down into the receiver (whilst holding the whole thing pointed carefully away!) Most people would want to make a slightly more sophisticated model incorporating a spring (or other safety mechanism) to prevent accidental discharge.

The tubing can be acquired cheaply enough eg from Aliexpress or eBay as a search for eg ‘explosion-proof tube’ or ‘seamless hydraulic/mechanical tube’ will reveal. Less than A$100 of materials should make one or two. Suggestions of tube sizes can be found eg here.

If you made one consisting just of two pieces of tubing (less than 1′ long if that is legal in your jurisdiction the whole thing should not weigh much more than one pound or half a kilogram, so a useful addendum to your pack in the backcountry.

Mostly they can be made with simple home workshop tools such as a vice, drill, MIG welder etc but the more sophisticated ones might require modest skills with a metal lathe. Anyway well within the skill-set of the average bush mechanic!

In some countries you can buy DIY kits such as this one. Another interesting conversion kit still legal in some countries eg where flare guns can still be sold is this one. They should (probably) not be made from normal plumbing pipe and/or fittings (though there are plenty of instructions about how to do so) because of the danger of material failure.

There are any number of instructables and Youtubes about them if you care to look, eg this one or this. Try a search for ‘pipe gun’.

Of course I have no need to make one having been given this beautiful ‘pack rifle’ by Della for Xmas: