CIA Heart Attack Gun

[trenchfoot]

A few members of the cone shell family would be my first guess. No fang, it's more of a barbed calcium flechette. Symptoms can show up within a few minutes or a few days. No anti venom.


"The geography cone, or Conus geographus, is the deadliest, with more than 100 toxins in its six-inch body. It’s even colloquially known as the “cigarette snail,” because if you’re stung by one, you’ll only have enough time left to smoke a cigarette before you die.

I've handled a few of those while doing a research project for an Oceanography class I took. Spooky thing about it was having them in an aquarium and watching them extend their proboscis, spear small fish swimming by and simply engulf them whole. The ones I did research on are found in the tidal zone of sandy beaches. Considering how well used that section of the beach is I'm amazed I've not read about or personally witnessed such an occurrence here in Hawaii, thinking about how often I've traversed that zone while entering or exiting the water to surf, dive and swim.

 

[pmv]

Not sure that the delivery mechanism is really the big problem. The Bulgarians/KGB found a way to do it, after all.

Georgi Markov - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The disturbing part of the OP's story is the fact that such a means of killing (unlike ricin?) could be easily confused with a death by natural causes.

 

[kage69]

Mass is the problem. When you're the size of a grain of rice getting a lot of range just isn't in the cards, regardless of propulsion method. This is why it was put in the end of an umbrella, which is point down when carried. Already in the neighbor of the intended target zone. Having enough power to penetrate clothing and skin meant the tip of the barrel had to be pressed up against the target for best results. I'd be surprised if it had an effective range beyond 1m. Think the effect of distance on #8 bird shot. 12bore clay or bird loads at 10ft it will fuck you up like a high pressure water cutting hose. At 250ft? Feels more like rain.

I've always kinda doubted the reported range on the CIA gun. Frozen liquids aren't great ballistic materials. Minute air bubbles ensure you won't be getting a balanced projectile, and it's a smoothbore I believe. You've got to go to extreme pressures and velocities to make rifling not matter, so that's not happening. You can add things to the poison solution to make it freeze harder, but it's still brittle. Adding material to strengthen it likely leave material traces. Keeping fragile ammo frozen until use sounds like an epic pain the ass btw.

 

[pmv]

Mass is the problem. When you're the size of a grain of rice getting a lot of range just isn't in the cards, regardless of propulsion method. This is why it was put in the end of an umbrella, which is point down when carried. Already in the neighbor of the intended target zone. Having enough power to penetrate clothing and skin meant the tip of the barrel had to be pressed up against the target for best results. I'd be surprised if it had an effective range beyond 1m. Think the effect of distance on #8 bird shot. 12bore clay or bird loads at 10ft it will fuck you up like a high pressure water cutting hose. At 150ft? Feels more like rain.

I've always kinda doubted the reported range on the CIA gun. Frozen liquids aren't great ballistic materials. Minute air bubbles ensure you won't be getting a balanced projectile, it's a smoothbore I believe, and then there is pressure and friction issue of exiting the weapon. You can add things to the poison solution to make it freeze harder, but it's still brittle unless you add something to strengthen it but then that would leave material traces.

The Markov example is the sort of use-case I'd be worrying about. It's not the 'gun' part - the shooting from a distance - that's troubling (to my mind) so much as the ability to kill people in a deniable way, so nobody knows it was foul play.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

The Markov example is the sort of use-case I'd be worrying about. It's not the 'gun' part - the shooting from a distance - that's troubling (to my mind) so much as the ability to kill people in a deniable way, so nobody knows it was foul play.

It's easier to just give a pistol and a hundred bucks to a crackhead, you've got plenty of plausible deniability there.

 

[Greenman]

I mean, I guess it could be pressurized gas behind an electronic trigger, that's still a hard sell though. Modern (read, last 20-30 years) air rifles are quite powerful, 1000fps+ which is in tickle distance from a .22, but
a) that's still .22 with hard water which doesn't carry much mass/kinetic energy compared to lead
b) I don't know that an engineered pistol could have hit those numbers in the 50s
c) I don't even know that you could use an air rifle to accelerate a frozen water bullet that fast. You'd have tons of efficiency losses from air leaking around the bullet as it fired.

Again, could be wrong about the above but it just smells more like propaganda to rile up some political enemies to me.

Edit: hell, if you're going to go through the trouble of modifying a freaking 1911 of all firearms, and stick a scope the size of the entire handgun on top of it, your not really trying to be inconspicuous at that point. Might as well just use a folding rifle, you'll get more power and accuracy, regardless of how you're firing the round.

Seems like the range number is grossly exaggerated. Fifty feet would be my tugged out of my backside guess.

 

[cytg111]

I mean, I guess it could be pressurized gas behind an electronic trigger, that's still a hard sell though. Modern (read, last 20-30 years) air rifles are quite powerful, 1000fps+ which is in tickle distance from a .22, but
a) that's still .22 with hard water which doesn't carry much mass/kinetic energy compared to lead
b) I don't know that an engineered pistol could have hit those numbers in the 50s
c) I don't even know that you could use an air rifle to accelerate a frozen water bullet that fast. You'd have tons of efficiency losses from air leaking around the bullet as it fired.

Again, could be wrong about the above but it just smells more like propaganda to rile up some political enemies to me.

Edit: hell, if you're going to go through the trouble of modifying a freaking 1911 of all firearms, and stick a scope the size of the entire handgun on top of it, your not really trying to be inconspicuous at that point. Might as well just use a folding rifle, you'll get more power and accuracy, regardless of how you're firing the round.

I have a .177 PCP air rifle with a 4-12 scope on it, think its 1200fps. Its good for pest control AND its legal to fire in your own back yard, neighbors be damned. It wont kill you but you *will* need to see the doc to dig the pellets out. As a delivery mechanism for a poison I'd say this is good out to ~100 meters.

 

[mikeymikec]

However, the hilarious part is recorded below, in which "some conspiracy theorists" have speculated that it was . . . somehow . . . used to assassinate, JKF, MLK and RFK.

(JFK) Isn't it obvious that if you fire a heart attack gun at someone's head then they'll get a head attack?

 

[Greenman]

I have a .177 PCP air rifle with a 4-12 scope on it, think its 1200fps. Its good for pest control AND its legal to fire in your own back yard, neighbors be damned. It wont kill you but you *will* need to see the doc to dig the pellets out. As a delivery mechanism for a poison I'd say this is good out to ~100 meters.

Not many people can hit a target at a hundred yards with a hand gun. I also wonder if acceleration would shatter the projectile.