I love weird guns. Sure, your 9mm, polymer frame, optics-ready, striker-fired pistol is effective, accurate, reliable, etc. However, it’s really boring, right? Who cares! Weird guns are the fun ones. They are far from boring, and while they might not always be the most effective firearms, they can be a hell of a lot of fun. Let’s dig in with the best weird guns I found at SHOT Show 2024.
Crossfire Viper Tac-Bat
Impact ones are great defensive tools, but do you know what makes them better? Turn it into a gun! What’s better than hitting something? Shooting it! The Viper Tac-Bat is just that. It’s a heavy-duty micro-sized bat that’s capable of firing a single shot of .22LR. I know what you’re thinking, “Does that make it an AOW?” Nope, because Crossfire installed that little grip on the bat, which makes it a pistol, at least according to Crossfire staff.
The tool can also be carried loaded and safely used as a bat without risk of the weapon firing. There is a three-position safety design. We have fire, but we also have safe, and locked. Once it’s locked, the gun cannot fire, or even be moved to fire. From safe, the weapon still can’t fire, but can be rotated to fire. The weapon is only loaded with a single round, and it’s fired by pulling the handle rearward and then releasing it.
It’s a slam-fire design, essentially. Reloading isn’t necessarily fast, and the gun doesn’t have sights. It’s a gun that’s accurate at the same range. You can use the weapon as an impact weapon. The Crossfire Tac-Bat is all kinds of weird, but they plan to make more models. They aim to produce a revolver design with an internal cylinder. They also mentioned making an NFA variant chambered in .410.
The Viper Tac-Bat is a very heavy bat. It’s surprisingly heavy and very dense and thick. You can most certainly hit something pretty damn hard without worrying about breaking the bat. There are non-firearm models of the bat as well, but those aren’t as cool.
Bond Arms LVRB
Bond Arms makes derringers; really well-made and designed derringers in a ton of calibers. This includes some nutty options like the .45-70. They are cool little guns, and Bond Arms has long remained in that market. It was pretty freaking radical that theDerringerr company would produce a lever gun. Moreso than that, it’s nuts that they would produce a tactical lever gun that uses AR magazines, M-LOK rails, fires 5.56, and uses Remington 870 stocks.
Yet, here we are. The LVRB is an optics-ready, AR-inspired lever action rifle that is prepared to be the most modern lever gun on the market. The lever action itself is super smooth, and the throw is fairly short. It’s so short that you can install a 30-round magazine, and the lever won’t hit it as you cycle the action. The LVRB design is very clever and effective.
When we start looking at the controls, you can tell a lot of time and energy was put into designing something ergonomic and adapted to meet the needs of modern shooters. The Bond Arms LVRB has a unique magazine release, as well as a cross-bolt safety and a grip safety with the lever. The lever can be swapped for a variety of sizes and a few configurations so the end user can work with a multitude of different Remington 870 stocks. The gun will come with the Magpul SGA stock, but it is compatible with the classic wood stocks that everyone loves.
The LVRB will be hitting the market this year, and it is probably the most effective of my weird guns of SHOT show.
American Tactical Alpha Maxx Pistol
American Tactical showed us an AR-15 in .410 bore at Range Day and promised they were making a pistol version of the .410 shotgun. Yep, an AR pistol in .410. How exactly does that work? How does it avoid being a short-barreled shotgun? That’s the question. It turns out that the barrel is rifled, so it’s a pistol, much like the Taurus Judge. The Alpha Maxx has an 8.75-inch barrel with a 1:20 rifled twist.
The rifling is quite light, as you’d imagine, and at the end of the barrel, what looks like a muzzle device is in play. That is actually a choke, and American Tactical has an entire choke kit for the gun. Hopefully, the presence of a choke can solve some of the problems rifled barrels have with shot. The gun comes with a brace, as long as the braces and the ATF remain on injunction terms.
The gun comes with a five-round magazine, but a fifteen-round magazine will be available. The Alpha Maxx pistol has an M-LOK rail, an optics rail, and a set of flip-up sights. The Alpha Maxx pistol will likely have very little recoil and be effective and easily handled. It could be a very nice weapon for those with an aversion to recoil. It’s not as loud or concussive as a 5.56 AR pistol, but a good dose of .410 buckshot is more effective than any pistol round.
Hydra Weapons Arm pistol
Way back in the day, what we know as Bushmaster was founded by a Green Beret named Mack Gwinn Jr.
Mr Gwinn created several firearms before Bushmaster became an AR brand, and one of those weapons was something called the “Arm Pistol.” The Bushmaster Arm pistol was a 5.56 platform that was originally designed as a weapon for pilots who bailed from their planes in occupied territory.
Hydra weaponry was founded by Mack Gwinn’s son, and they are bringing the Arm Pistol back! I’m incredibly excited to see this come back with modern production. The first batch promises to be retro-friendly and nearly identical to the original Arm Pistol. However, they mentioned that in the future, the Arm Pistol might become a bit more modern with rails for optics and the like.
The Hydra Arm Pistol still pivots to accommodate right or left-handed shooters with side-mounted sights for easy aiming. The sights are somewhat rudimentary, but the small pistol isn’t exactly going to be used for long-range shots. The Hydra Arm pistol is an awesome throwback to a weapon we’ve never had much access to. I can’t wait to grab one.
Steambow Stinger 2 M10
So this isn’t a gun, but it’s my article, and it’s at SHOT Show, so I’m going to cover it. The Steambow Stinger 2 M10 is a tactical crossbow. I mean that seriously, the company, which is European, created the M10 to resemble the AR as much as possible to help create excellent ergonomics. Beyond the AR stock and grip, the Steambow is also magazine-fed with a top-mounted, 10-round double-stack magazine.
The Steambow Stinger 2.0 M10 can use a multitude of different arms to generate different weights and, therefore, velocities. The cocking mechanism is also unique. It’s best described as a lever action. The rear of the gun can be cocked away from the front of the gun. This acts as a lever which makes it easy to cock the gun, even when it uses the heaviest arm.
The M10 is optics-ready, and the optic can sit nice and low to avoid height-over-bore adjustments. A crossbow isn’t a long-range weapon, and it is a small crossbow, so that adjustment is important. It does have iron sights, and you can swap the stock with any AR stock you desire. It’s weird, but it also looks like a ton of fun, and I’ll be picking one up sooner rather than later.
Keep 2024 Weird
This isn’t the only weirdness out there, but these were my favorite picks. If you in the audience are a bit more curious about these weird guns, let us know below which ones we should get our hands on. I want them all personally, so maybe you’ll see a few more of these pop up.
