Coins as Bullets

Most of us have seen scenes of a sharpshooter (usually an actor who doesn’t know a trigger from a hammer) nailing a poor coin tossed in the air. Not that they really shot it … it was special effects or a real sharpshooter. And not the nicest way to treat an ’89-CC Morgan.

But did ya know, ya can skip regular ammo. Yup, there have been pistols that fired coins as slugs. Many were used in arcades. You fired your coin at a target. If you missed (the usual case, of course), the coin stayed in the booth. The most famous is the McGlashan pistol which fired nickels and was spring powered. See pics below. A link is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGlashan_Coin_Shooting_Pistol. There were others that fired pennies; see the pics. Some more recent designs were for shooting coins into toll booth baskets … not sure any were actually sold. Imagine if a cop is behind you when you pull out a gun and aim it toward the coin-collection machine.

I’m sure coins have been used as lethal projectiles. Easy to imagine one tossed in with grape shot in a cannon or put on top of a land mine for luck.

If you search for “coin gun” on youtube, you’ll find lots of vids on making you own. Most are either rubber band or repulsion coil powered. Some of the latter can accelerate a coin to dangerous muzzle velocities. If you make one, be careful using it and where you take it … you don’t want to miss your flight while trying to explain to TSA that it’s not really dangerous.

Cal

 

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There were rumors and stories of using dimes in shotguns in the old days. Not sure if it is true.

 

In the Tom Hanks movie “News of the World” his character shoots coins out of a shotgun.

 

That is a cool gun, but I doubt coins would make a good projectile haha.

Back when they were in use, blunderbuss shotguns could use improvised ammunition for use when typical ammo was unavailable. Normally you'd see things like rocks, nails, broken glass, etc used. I suppose coins could be used (if you dont mind using cob reales as ammo)

 

When we were kids, we used to make our own zip guns using a car aerial, two blocks of wood, a strong rubber band and a nail. The diameter of the aerial was the exact size for a .22 caliber bullet. It was accurate for 10-15 feet. We'd shoot at rats at the dump. I don't recall ever hitting one, but I'm sure we scared the crap out of a few of them.