I love it when movies take real guns and dress them up as futuristic firearms. Sure, you can just make a plastic prop, but it’s always cooler when they dress real guns up. Like when James Cameron dressed up Mini 14s in Terminator or the in Aliens Colonial Marines rifles and machine guns. With that in mind, it’s neat to see what the future of small arms will hold. How long til we get ulcers? What about Gauss rifles or rail guns? Well, all that seems to be fairly far away for practical use.
With that in mind, what Sci-Fi guns do we have today? That’s the question I aim to answer. Who is straying from the classic short recoil handgun design or the gas-operated rifle? If you need props for your next sci-fi flick, which guns could just fall into place? Let’s look at the top five guns that would easily squeeze into your next sci-fi flick.
The Laugo Alien
They call this gun the Alien, so it kind of fits by default, right? The Alien name comes from the fact the slide kinda looks like the head of a xenomorph from the Alien films. The Laugo Alien is a 9mm handgun that feeds from a box magazine. That’s about as normal as this gun gets. The Laugo Alien uses a gas-delayed blowback system complete with a gas piston system.
The gun features a very low-mounted barrel, and that barrel is fixed which helps with accuracy. Additionally, the low bore axis helps reduce muzzle rise by aligning the recoil with the wrist. Additionally, the reciprocating slide mass is very low, and the less weight you have swinging back at you, the better. This reduces recoil.
The Alien also uses a top strap and sighting system that is fixed. If your sights aren’t moving, they are faster to track and easier to pick up between shots. With a red dot, this system is insanely easy to keep on target and to shoot rapidly with total control. Let’s leave off with just one other weird feature… The gun is hammer-fired, but the hammer is top-mounted.
The RIA 5.0
At less than a grand, the RIA 5.0 is a weird handgun that won’t exactly break the bank. The RIA 5.0 is a big gun, a full-sized duty design, that chambers the 9mm cartridge. At first glance, it has some 1911 vibes, but it’s a very different weapon. The RIA 5.0 uses a novel operating system they call the RVS. The Ram Valve System uses a valve to keep the action closed until the pressure drops to safe levels.
Since the system doesn’t use a rotating barrel, the mass of the barrel can be maximized. This results in a square-shaped barrel design that’s massive in size and aids in accuracy. The RVS design creates linear recoil movement. It’s all coming rearward, which results in less flip and recoil. The gun handles like an absolute gem. It’s very light shooting, and the sights seem to barely move between shots.
Helping with that is the massive frame. It appears chunky but provides extra weight to keep the muzzle low and the gun on target. The RIA 5.0 comes with an optics-ready option and appears to be one of the most practical options for real-life sci-fi guns.
FK BRNO
I promise we’ll get out of sci-fi handguns soon. The FK BRNO is something we can most certainly talk about. FK calls it a field pistol, and when combined with its proprietary 7.5 FK cartridge, the weapon can reach out to 150 meters effectively. This flat shooting gun can even be equipped with a field stock for additional support and an optic to make the most of its max range capability. Obviously, the stock will require a tax stamp.
The FK BRNO uses a very CZ 75-like design to provide excellent ergonomics and a proven and reliable platform. The gun is short-recoil operated, and that’s about as normal as it gets. The big gun has little recoil, and the round isn’t like the 5.7. It is larger and more effective. It’s capable of reaching almost 2,000 feet per second. The energy is comparable to a .357 Magnum or a 10mm.
To make the most of that range, the gun uses a unique sight setup. It’s called a butterfly sight and uses something akin to a large peep sight. This makes it easy to use iron sights at long ranges. As you’d imagine, the 7.5 FK ammo is expensive, but the model released to the general public can also fire the classic 10mm automatic and 40 S&W.
Fry Tech Brujeria
The Fry Tech Brujeria takes a fairly normal AR platform and turns it into something else. Fry Tech brought one to SHOT 2023 to show off, and it was a 3D-printed frame around the insides of a 9mm AR design. The Brujeria uses a system of magnets to reduce recoil and improve control over the platform.
How much? Well, according to Fry Tech, a significant amount. The system is said to be tunable, so you can make it match a variety of recoil and ammo profiles. This system will feature an onboard battery that will be recharged by the movement of the bolt. This onboard battery will also power the red dot and maybe even lights in the future.
I can’t tell you how to pronounce Brujeria or really how the system works, but I can tell you it’s fascinating. I like the far-from-normal implementation of electronics to make this a self-contained system worth noting.
KelTec KS7
The KelTec KS7 is the simplest, most futuristic-looking weapon out there. It’s also by far the most affordable gun on this list and likely the easiest to purchase. At its core, it’s a pump action shotgun, a 12 gauge, to be specific. What makes it odd is the bullpup layout. This gun holds seven rounds and features a stock, but it is shorter than the Mossberg Shockwave.
The gun features a retro-style carry handle design with a big single triangle sight sitting in the center. It’s odd but usable. That carry handle also features M-LOK slots to add accessories too. To make it usable for right and left-handed shooters, the gun loads and ejects from the bottom, much like an Ithaca 37.
The KS7 might operate simply, but it looks like it stepped out of the Stargate. It’s ready for close encounters and is well worth keeping handy. It’s an odd duck, but the focus on being a traditional pump action design makes it very reliable and simple to operate.
Sci-Fi Balsters For You and I
I love a good sci-fi wanna-be blaster. They are often odd enough looking to catch my attention visually but then weird enough to warrant my interest in their mechanics. While some are just odd to be odd, others are making real strides in firearms technology. If we can’t have lasers and rail guns, I can settle for these sci-fi blasters.
