This is probably the best photo of the assassination gun that I have seen:
Witness reports stated that there were large puffs of white smoke. Between that and the photo, this is my guess:
What we are looking at is a completely homemade gun. The base of the barrels appear to be capped off with threaded caps. Wires are going into the caps. Under the barrel are what appear to be either batteries or capacitors. In short, that is a two-shot hand-cannon; a marriage of 13th Century weapons technology and 20/21st Century electronics.
The ignition system is likely some sort of electric lashup. The simplest way to electrically ignite the charge would be by using model rocket engine igniters. The battery/capacity lashup was likely designed to send a fair amount of current to the igniter, in order to achieve near-instant ignition. Another method might be to use light-bulb bases (remove the glass bulb and leave the filament intact).
The powder charge was almost certainly black powder. Black powder can be obtained by several methods. It is fairly easy to make, given that gunpowder was first manufactured well over a thousand years ago. It can also be obtained by buying firecrackers, opening them up and pouring out the powder. I cannot overstate how dangerous this is.
There are basicly two grades of black powder: A and G. A grade is used in fireworks, G grade is used in guns. Guns use variants of Fg black powder. The "F" stands for fineness, graded by the mesh size of the sieve that the powder will pass. The more Fs there are in the powder designation, the finer the powder and the more quickly the grains ignite. FFg powder is commonly used in large-caliber rifles and handguns. FFFg is used in smaller-caliber rifles and handguns. FFFFg is used to prime the pan on flintlocks and wheellocks. My suspicion is that, historically, the soldiers just used the same powder for priming, as they'd bite open the paper cartriddge, sprinkle some powder in the pan, close the pan and then load the gun.
Black powder, unlike smokeless powder, is an explosive. A properly loaded blck powder firearm has no airspace betetween the propellant and the projectile(s). When the powder is ignited, the pressure builds up and pushes the projectile down the bore. But if there is a gap between the projectile and the powder, the pressure builds up far more rapidly because there is is somewhere for the pressure to go. In that event, the gun might blow up.
Firecracker powder is very fine, the pressure spike from a charge of that might be pretty dangerous. The reporting seems to imply that the assassin did some testing, so he may have been aware of this.
On another note, take a look at the belt holster of the bodyguard:
That appears to be a revolver holster for a gun that's not very large. My guess would be something along the lines of a S&W Model 60 with a 3" barrel.
6 comments:
I'm curious as to how he practiced or experimented. He would have had to go a long way into the country to not be heard.
That's as much work as distilling alcohol. Same measure of desperation.
There's an old story among firefighters about the fire-watch that started the fire. Could be legend, maybe not: old boy ended up spending the summer on fire-watch, the idea being keep him as far away from alcohol as possible ~ top of a mountain seems like a good spot but ... he was just too far gone. Spent his time building a still out of everything he could find and was brewing moonshine out of moss when it blew up, started a fire. Big fire, pretty famous.
Desperation ... is the Mother of Invention. Something to think about ...
Very interesting article. Years ago whenever I cut apart a firecracker it was full of a silver powder instead of black. But I did learn a few years ago when I made a blank by removing the shot from a shell, the powder and wad didn't go bang it went "phoot". Wrong kind of powder, I guess. Couldn't someone of used caps like used to be used in toy pistols for a ignition source or maybe they are not available?
The silver may have been added iron or aluminum for flash effect.
I will not speculate on design but the basic ideas has been
on the net for decades. Electric ignition makes for mechanical
simplicity reducing the whole mess to a closed at one end tube.
That and with enough shot (pellets or grapeshot) and modest
velocity damage will be massively deadly. And it was.
Eck!
The perp was reported to have tested the device in the mountains, of which there are plenty, in Japan. There is limited hunting, especially with shotguns, in Japan, so the noise wouldn’t have been completely out of line.
Perp reportedly switched to a gun attack from explosive to more carefully target the possible injuries to Abe.
Given Japan had, as I recall, just 10 criminal gun discharge incidents in 2021 (and 8 of those 10 were criminal syndicate related), the use of revolvers or smaller SA’s by local police types would not be unusual. Modern, high-capacity SA’s are probably the province of Japanese Secret Service equivalent and the military.
If you've ever read the Richard Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornell, he goes into great detail about loading and firing the flintlock Brown Bess musket during the Napoleonic wars. The hero, Richard Sharpe, is the leader of a unit of riflemen using the Baker Rifle. But he says just what you did; they tear open the paper cartridge, sprinkle some in the pan, close the frizzen, and then ram the paper, ball, and the rest of the powder down the barrel. They do refer to carrying a different powder for the rifle, but that's for special shots at long range and so on. Wonderful books, I've read they all three times!)
Also, puttering around on YouTube (Forgotten Weapons, old airplanes, history, and so on), one of the things that's popped up is a video on "Japanese Mega-Cannon Firework, the most powerful in the world!" So obviously all kinds of powder are available
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