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Leeds Royal Armouries Museum - 'Patterns' Room: 28000 firearms and I touched as many as I possibly could


TheFull9

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Sadly right now photobucket is down, but then I wasn't allowed a camera in the good part anyway, so for now, here's the world's most innocent looking door:

 

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Behind that is another door, and then a security lobby with another steel multi-reinforced and locked door, and then a metal detector, and then another door and then... well, for a gun geek like me it was a 'god rays shining down, angels singing' moment. 28,000 guns of every variety, from the tiniest little matchlock pistol to 40mm+ aircraft cannon and literally everything inbetween, from the earliest breech loading muskets to the L129A1 sharpshooter rifle.

 

As I mentioned before, very, very sadly we were only allowed phones/cameras inside the public museum part, but for now while it's still fresh in my mind, here's a list of some of the guns I had a play with this morning:

 

-5 barreled breech loader Navy boarding rifle

-Quad and triple barreled matchlock pistols

-A pair of front loading revolvers given as a gift by Mr Colt himself, intricately detailed with images of sailing ships all over

-One rifled muzzle loader used by Sharpe's infamous unit

-A wide array of muzzle and breech loading matchlock rifles and pistols, sadly not my area of expertise but really beautiful objects

-Pair of fluted breech loaders used when dueling was still in the Olympics (up to 1909)

-H&K MP5k with Saudi markings

-Gold plated MP5k

-Gold plated Stirling SMG with Ivory grips

-Gold AKs-47

-UMP chambered in 9mm

-L1A1 from the NI era

-L85A2 with DD rail, GPS Grip-pod and SUSAT

-L129A1 with irons, folding VFG, Harris bi-pod, LMT crane stock, ERGO type grip, Magpul 20 rounder and TangoDown rail covers

-MP44 with corner-shot device (mental thing)

-Something that looked exactly like an AK, but was actually a crazy 7mm bolt action

-Some Sterling SMGs and Thompsons knocked up by an IRA bloke using nothing but a Black & Decker drill, a hand file and materials from a DIY shop

-RPG-7

-Carl Gustav

-Glock 17

-7.5" M4A1 with a free-floating rail, made by a company I've never heard of and can't remember

-20s dated Tommy gun with 50 round drum, radiated barrel and the classic wooden VFG

-M1A1 Thompson

-USAS-12 (omg so hawt)

-M700 with probably the smoothest bolt in the world and an electronic trigger

 

Also, a small part of the stuff I saw but didn't get a chance to play with:

 

-M3 Grease gun with corner-shot attachment

-40mm ground attack aircraft cannon from WWI

-About 200 Bren guns and the various ancestors/derivatives

-M82A1 and A3

-16" L119A1 with H&K UGL

-M60s

-G3s

-Various iterations of the Uzi

-Pretty much every MP5 ever and some that I've never seen before, including one with a 40mm launcher

-Lord know how many AKs from every country that makes them

-AR-15s and AR-10s from the very beginning with the cocking handle on top all the way through to now

-US WWII 'trench' shotguns

-SPAS-12s

-A breech loader taller than me and quite possibly heavier

-Some concealable stabbing/cutting weapons that could easily slip through stringent airport security and just as easily kill someone, won't go in to details on those though; sufficed to say a 10p, a fork and a hairbrush can make quite an arsenal

-L96

-Plenty of Lee-Enfields

-Shed loads of Browning HPs and Sigs

-FG42s

-PPSHs

-M79

-Multi-chambered grenade launchers

-HK53/33

-Steyr AUG

-G36s

-Absolutely *suitcase* loads of stuff that I couldn't identify

-Absolutely *suitcase* loads that I can't even remember now because there was so damn manyyyyy

 

So yes, we'll be paying that place another visit in not too long. Who can say no to getting a free trip on works' time to look at that sort of a collection?

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