The Colt IMP, an example of an arm gun
An arm gun is a type of firearm in which the stock or butt of the weapon is designed to rest along the user's forearm rather than against their shoulder. Such guns are usually built in a bullpup configuration and are designed to be lightweight and compact.
Although several examples of this concept have been developed, none to this day have achieved noteworthy commercial success.
Examples[]
- Delacre Modèle 1936 - Perhaps the first "arm gun", patented in France in the mid-1930s, although possibly never actually built.
- Sarvis arm gun - An arm-mounted variant of the M2 carbine, developed in the mid-1950s and proposed to the US Army but never adopted.
- Colt IMP - An experimental gas-operated arm gun chambered for a proprietary cartridge, developed for the USAF as a personal defense weapon for pilots.
- Bushmaster - A development of the IMP gun, chambered for 5.56×45mm NATO. A semi-automatic variant was offered on the US civilian market and saw limited sales.
- Stoehr machine pistol - A .22-calibre, recoil-operated submachine gun fed from a top-mounted spiraling pan magazine, built as a prototype only.
- Hayden arm gun - An arm mounted pistol/smg concept, both as single/twin barrel variants.