7 “Shut Up and Take My Money” Guns
Matt Korovesis 11.13.14
Two days ago, Autoblog published an amazing article called “Six ‘shut up and take my money’ cars.” When one of the staff members here at OutdoorHub saw that and shared it with the team, we couldn’t help but start thinking of dream guns we’ve had the exact same reaction to. We set to work compiling lists of firearms we’d unquestioningly throw piles of cash at, and here’s what we’ve come up with.
In short, the following is a list of guns that either don’t exist, never made it beyond the prototype stage, or exist only in a manner that makes them effectively unobtanium to the gun-having public—and we want them so, so, so bad.
If you’re not familiar with the “Shut up and take my money” meme, watch the video below before proceeding.
1. A single-stack subcompact Glock in 9x19mm
Glock heard the cries of gun owners everywhere: “give us an awesome single-stack subcompact, O Glock, and verily we shall buy it.” Glock-on-high heard the pleas of the masses, and delivered…a single-stack subcompact chambered in .380 ACP. By all accounts, the Glock 42 is a great gun, it’s just not really what a lot of people wanted cartridge-wise. Most people view .380 ACP as great for a backup gun or if a person can’t handle anything with more snappy recoil, but it’s hard to find many positives about the round beyond that.
2. A commercially produced AK in 300 BLK
ARs are boring. 300 BLK is exciting. AKs are exciting. An AK in 300 BLK would be doubly exciting.
Images of one-off 300 BLK AK builds, along with the odd forum or blog post about them, have floated around the internet for a while. But no manufacturer seems to have judged the concept worthy enough to toss some serious money behind it. Sure there are some issues with AKs not suppressing very well, but who cares? Just give us a lot of 300 BLK AKs and we’ll figure out the rest as we go. And can you imagine pairing something like a Definitive Arms AR-15 magwell with a 300 BLK Kalashnikov? We can.
3. A Mosin-Nagant rifle in .45-70
Some enterprising gunsmiths actually made their own custom Mosins in .45-70 a few years ago. If someone could take the clunky, reliable, and cheap Mosin-Nagant and pair it with a classic, powerful American caliber like .45-70, it’s hard to see how it wouldn’t be a winner. If it was kept to carbine dimensions, it’d make for an awesome bush gun or cheap big game boomstick. It’d also just be a frickin’ awesome blaster.
4. Short-barreled rifles (SBRs) with real stocks that don’t require you to jump through federal legal hoops to acquire
Okay, this one’s cheating a bit for two reasons. First, it’s not a specific model. Second, it’d require some serious changes in federal gun law. However, if the explosive popularity of the Sig SB15 brace is any indicator, Americans fricking love short rifles. It’s hard to stop by the local shooting pit these days without running into a “pistol” version of an AR or AK equipped with an SB15. And that makes sense—modern carbines have many of the benefits of full-length rifles while still being very ergonomic and maneuverable.
This might be the most pipe-dreamy of all the entries on the list, but hey, dreams can sometimes come true, right?
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5. The Magpul PDR
The Magpul PDR (Personal Defense Rifle) was an ultra-compact bullpup carbine first unveiled to the world in the mid-2000s. Unfortunately, it never left the prototype stage and nothing’s really been heard about it since 2011. It was going to be chambered in 5.56 NATO, use standard AR-15 magazines, and feature dreamy ergonomics (it was designed by Magpul, what would you expect?). It’s been featured in many video games, but with each passing year it becomes more and more of a unicorn. There’s an airsoft version of it available, but airsoft just doesn’t do it for us.
6. 10mm anything
10mm Auto is the predecessor of the more popular .40 S&W cartridge. Though it was adopted by the FBI in 1989 to give their agents’ sidearms a little more punch, it was quickly withdrawn from service after complaints surfaced about its recoil being too excessive. Despite that setback, the legacy of 10mm has persisted and many shooters laud its performance over comparable rounds like 9x19mm and .45 ACP. Nowadays, finding a gun in 10mm is uncommon, and new-production guns are few and far in-between. We think it’d be awesome to shoot something like a Kel-Tec SUB-2000 in 10mm.
7. HK anything (that isn’t a handgun)
Everyone knows the “joke” about Heckler and Koch, and their supposed hesitance to introduce semiautomatic-only versions of their iconic firearms (“Because you suck, and we hate you”). However, there are lot more serious economic and political factors that affect the types of firearms that can be exported from Germany and imported into the United States. All that notwithstanding, there are thousands of American gun owners who are chomping at the bit to own new, semiautomatic, all-HK-made versions of G36s, MP7s, and G3s that are true to their mil-spec origins.
We’re also still waiting for a semiautomatic G11—and throw in some original, boxy MK 23 Laser Aiming Modules while you’re at it. Don’t worry, we’re patient.
Those are seven of our picks. What’d we miss?
I've been a history and gun enthusiast since I was a kid. I love to shoot just about anything, from silenced bolt-action .22s to fully automatic heavy machine guns, and I love even more when I get to write about them. My main interests are modern small arms and the military small arms of World War II and prior conflicts, with a particular focus on Russian and Finnish firearms. Reading about guns like the Mosin-Nagant rifle in books and on the internet got me interested in collecting, shooting, and writing about them, and I hope to do the same for others through my work.
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