From .45 automatics to 155-mm howitzers, most weapons are described in terms of caliber—the
diameter of their projectile.
These are the biggest of the biggest - pure demonstrations of extreme gunsmithing.
All of them pack a punch!
INTRO VIDEO INSERT 10 - Largest Muzzle-Loading Cannon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvvLvEIg4oQ&ab_channel=WhereWeWent Meet the oldest gun on our list.
Tsar Cannon was cast from bronze in 1586.
The history piece weighs 40 tons.
Its 35-inch bore and probably could fire about 1800 pounds of stone grapeshot, receiving
the nickname the Russian Shotgun.
But it was never fired in action and seems to have been intended primarily for display.
Regent Boris Godunov, Russian Tsar in the late 1580s and 90s, called it a way of overawing
the local population and scaring visiting ambassadors.
Napoleon wanted to take Tsar Cannon back to France when he captured Moscow in 1812 but
ran without it.
The big gun is now a famous tourist attraction outside the Kremlin arsenal.
9 - Largest Gun Used in Action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As3NzDQknVc&ab_channel=UltimateMilitaryChannel
In 1936, Adolph Hitler demanded artillery-maker Gustav Krupp to build an artillery piece to
defeat the new French Maginot Line.
Krupp's idea: a giant cannon with a 31-inch caliber.
Hitler was amazed and ordered two!
Named Gustav and Dora, recognizing Krupp and his wife, both 1350-ton cannon required their
own train to move it and took long three days to assemble!
They could fire concrete-piercing shells weighing seven tons, as much as a bus, over 25 miles.
The enormous cannons arrived too late for the war against France.
Still, Gustav devastated Sevastopol in the then-USSR during the siege, shooting up to
14 rounds a day.
Both cannons were broken up at the end of WWII.
8 - Largest Gun on a Battleship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpcsc1MHA0Y&ab_channel=WorldofWarshipsOfficialChannel
Japanese monster battleships Yamato and Musashi were implemented with nine 18.1-inch guns
apiece, making them the mightiest artillery afloat!
Although these guns had an effective range of around 26 miles, they were of little use
in actual combat.
By the time they launched at the beginning of World War II, aircraft carriers had begun
to bomb battleships.
The Yamato even got close enough to attack U.S. warships once at the Battle of Leyte
Gulf.
Still, submarine and aircraft bombardings forced its retreat.
Bombs and torpedoes sunk both ships.
7 - Largest Shotgun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzwbcVbE9rw&ab_channel=Field%26Stream
The scale of a shotgun goes down as the caliber goes up.
For example, the standard 12 gauge is equal to a 0.72-inch caliber.
Still, it is small fry compared to the giant 2-gauge punt guns utilized in the 19th century.
These formidable weapons were applied on commercial hunting, bringing down whole flocks of wildfowl
with a single blast.
They were ultimately taken up by sportsmen.
Too heavy to be raised, the punt gun was fired from rest in a one-man boat.
The barrel was equivalent to the 1.3-inch caliber and could fire a load equal to about
40 standard 12-gauge shells.
Punt gunning became so effective at killing flocks of birds that many states outlawed
it by 1860.
6 - Largest Handgun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBtNrJXkp9o&ab_channel=Cam%27sWildLife
The .600 Nitro Express cartridge was initially developed to hunt elephants but was generally
considered excessively powerful.
But, useless to say, someone had to build a handgun able of firing it.
Austrian company Pfeifer Waffen handcrafted this 13-pound revolver, especially for a Swiss
client.
It will make you one too, for approximately $17,000.
The bullets are six times the size of a usual 9-mm round, but the gun's weight causes the
recoil manageable.
5 - Largest Weapon on a Jeep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPtPDr59aDI&ab_channel=Megaprojects
The prize for packing the most effective punch onto a mobile platform goes to the celebrated
Davy Crockett recoilless spigot gun, the most minor nuclear weapon ever deployed.
The gun, created in the 1950s for a potential war against the Soviet Union, had a small-caliber
piston of 4 or 6 inches included into the barrel and joined to an 11-inch warhead.
The Davy Crockett got a range of 2-1/2 miles, with a yield measured to about 18 tons of
high explosives.
Contrary to myth, the crew was indeed outside the danger zone.
4 - Largest Caliber Rifle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WiLqPB4lU0&ab_channel=TappedOutHacks
When the largest existing caliber is not big enough, you have to create your own.
That's what the president of SSK Industries J.D. Jones did, developing a record-breaking
.950-caliber cartridge with bullets weighing about 8 ounces apiece.
This sort of round needs a monster rifle to fire it, and only three have been made.
The guns weigh 80 pounds or more based on the options, so they are fired only from a
rest or bipod.
With $40 per shot, firing a .950 JDJ is an expensive hobby but will draw a crowd.
3 - Largest Weapon in Saddam Hussein's Dreams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aL0aEKkak8&ab_channel=Military
Stuck with a third-rate air force and weak Scud missiles, Saddam Hussein selected an
alternative way of blasting his enemies at long range: a giant cannon.
The biggest version, known as Big Babylon, was created to have a barrel 39 inches in
diameter, being more than 500 feet long.
It could have weighed 200 tons and probably could hit anywhere on the planet or launch
projectiles into orbit.
But Saddam would never get it.
Gun components crafted in Spain and Switzerland were confiscated before they could be delivered.
Fortunately for some and unfortunately for Saddam, the largest-ever artillery piece was
never completed.
2 - Smallest Largest Pistol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSVlrc8NimE&ab_channel=DemolitionRanch
Some large-caliber weapons are crafted for practicality, such as the pocket pistols Henry
Deringer, debuting on 1825 onward.
Having two barrels instead of a revolver action meant a compact gun could fire a full-size
cartridge.
Since then, the challenging goal was to make such weapons as small as possible.
Heizer Defense declares that its titanium-frame Double Tap pistol is the tiniest and ligh
test to fire .45 Automatic Colt Pistol ammunition.
At only 14 ounces and 5.5 inches long, it is an actual pocket pistol!
BONUS - THUMBNAIL Wondering, what's the enormous gun from our
thumbnail?
Meet Land Ironclad - impractically giant nuclear battleship for a desert world!
Unfortunately, or luckily, it's only a concept.
Inspired by homeworld concepts by Brennan Massicotte, the idea is created by Alex Jay
Brady, the Freelance Concept Artist from AAA/Film Experience.
It's brilliant how a concept became so popular on the internet that everyone believed it's
an actual gun!
1 - Largest Caliber Handheld Weapon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW5oYlmc5-g&ab_channel=SPOTLIGHT
Caliber is a critical factor with shoulder-mounted antitank weapons.
A bigger diameter transfers into greater penetration by the warhead.
The largest in action is the Eryx shoulder-launched missile by European company MBDA, with a 5.3-inch
warhead.
Basically, Eryx is a guided missile with a range of over 600 yards.
MBDA claims it's the best against bunkers and other fortifications and even low-flying
helicopters!
The warhead will punch through about 7 feet of concrete or more than 35 inches of steel
plate, making it deadly dangerous against the heaviest tanks.