Guns: Top Five Impractical-But-Cool Firearms

Some ground rules first:

I'm only including firearms that the average Joe could go out and actually purchase here in the United States, without going through too many hoops. That means no NFA stuff, no exotic guns that never went into production (I'm looking at you, Jackhammer automatic shotgun), and no imports that never made their way to these shores.

CZ VZ 61 Skorpion semiautomatic pistol

I find it telling that the CZ USA website mentions that the Skorpion has been "featured in many of today's popular video games." How else would you market a 2-1/2 pound .32 ACP pistol with a 30 round magazine? It's an interesting design, sure (the blowback system fits around the barrel, helping to reduce the length of the gun), but what would you use it for? The cartridge is marginal for self-defense, and the gun is hard-to-conceal and ridiculously heavy for the caliber.

Well, I want one anyway, if only as a companion to my CZ-27. Plus, there's definitely a lot of "cool" involved with owning a version of the gun featured in "The Matrix" lobby shootout:



Wildey Magnum

Before the Desert Eagle started hogging the spotlight, there was another gas-operated magnum caliber semiautomatic that was the darling of the silver screen - the Wildey Magnum. Charles Bronson's character, the vigilante Paul Kersey, cut a deadly swath with it in "Death Wish 3":



It's expensive and totally impractical compared to a relatively staid magnum revolver like a Ruger Redhawk, but come on! If you're measuring silver screen cool, you can't get much better than Charles Bronson wasting some drug dealers with a Wildey.

AWP

Anyone who's ever played "Counter-Strike" will recognize this one. In that game, the AWP was able to kill anyone with one hit; it quickly became the most popular weapon. Naturally, the one-shot nature of the beast led to a fun, only-on-the-Internet term for AWP users - AWP whores:



In real life, the AWP is actually a darn good rifle, but the "impractical" part comes from the massive financial outlay you will need to put down to own one of these. The rifle, the glass, the ammo - it's all way out of the average person's price range. I'm pretty sure, once it's all said and done, that you'll spend enough on the AWP and its accessories to buy a decent used car.

Saiga .410

The Saiga line of AK-style shotguns are good buys if you're in the market for a semiautomatic shotgun, but I fail to see the point of a .410 version. For one thing, a .410 bore shotshell is anemic; the .410 is awful for defense, especially considering that 12 and 20 gauge Saigas are readily available. Still, this is the coolest of all the Saigas to use for shooting trap and skeet, and if you ever did encounter a poisonous snake on the trail with this sucker, the resulting fusillade from your gun would be hilarious.

Browning 1919 semiauto

The semiauto 1919 kits are at once cool and impractical. Getting the links to work in most versions is a major pain in the patoot, but once you get everything sorted out, you'll have one of the most efficient ways to waste rifle ammo that man has yet devised. Rather than the original .30-06 Springfield, many variants are chambered in .308 and 8mm (much cheaper to get surplus ammo), like this one: