(WARNING : I am not a lawyer.  I have no idea if any of the devices or products discussed below are legal where you live.  To find out, hire a real lawyer and ask.)

I think it was in the early 1980’s when I first heard of a conversion kit available for the Ruger 10/22, a semi-auto rifle chambered for the .22 Long Rifle cartridge.

All one had to do was take the stocks off of two of the rifles, attach the after market parts, and the result was an engine of destruction that was a sight to behold!

The kit turned your two rifles into a hand cranked Gatling gun.  Still legal in most places in the United States since the guns were nothing more than semi-auto, while turning the crank caused the triggers to be repeatedly massaged.

What did I think?  Considering the underpowered round used, I figured the .22 Gatling was just the thing if I ever had to defend a static position against hordes of rampaging squirrels.

(Not me, obviously.  I mean, a comb over?  Get real!)

I wasn’t that impressed, although it would make a neat toy if I ever got rich enough to spend money on stuff that didn’t have a clear use.  But then I heard of even more gimmicks to get your rifle to mimic a machine gun.

I think most of you know the proper way to hold a rifle.  The stock is seated firmly on the shoulder, with the forward hand pressing the rifle back into the body to increase stability.  The trigger is squeezed by the index finger of the non-supporting hand.

Someone got the bright idea to avoid squeezing the trigger, and instead have the finger which usually does that job curl into a hook.  The supporting hand would then push the rifle forward, towards the target, until the trigger bumped into the finger and the rifle was fired.

If this was done right, if the pressure on the trigger was just light enough, then the recoil from the fired cartridge would cause enough force to be taken off the trigger so it would reset.  But the supporting hand would still be moving the gun forward, so the pressure on the trigger would increase, and another round would be sent downrange.  The cycle repeats.

I know I am not explaining this very well.  Here is a video where some guys use common office rubber bands to help them rip off their magazines in an amazingly short period of time.  I hope that makes the whole process  more clear.

This process is known as “bump firing“, and I pretty much had the same thoughts about this method as I did about the Gatling 10/22.  Neat to do once or twice, but of very limited use in the real world.

Milo was kind enough to send me this link, which shows someone using a bump stock.  This is an aftermarket stock one can attach to a number of standard semi-auto rifles in order to bump fire them more easily.  It seems the days of using a rubber band one pilfered at work are long gone.

So how do these stocks work, and do they actually perform as advertised?  I can’t answer either question with any degree of authority, since I have never used one.  But this video is pretty good at showing what is going on, and they have a side-by-side test with an actual legal full auto rifle.  Worth a look.