Tag Archives: Any Other Weapon

RIP: Serbu Super Shorty, We Hardly Pumped You

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The Willy Wonka of gun craft has officially waved goodbye to one of his most famous offerings. The production of the Serbu Super Shorty has ended.

Tampa, Florida’s Mark Serbu announced on Monday that the final four Super Shorty models were being sent out, some of which had been on the waiting list going back three years. “The main reason we discontinued them is because they take our limited resources away from our main products, the BFG-50, RN-50, and BFG-50A,” said Serbu.

The final four Serbu Super Shorties headed out the door, all crafted from Remington 870 models including a Police Magnum and an 870 Tactical. (Photo: Serbu Firearms)

During a visit to Serbu’s plant in 2019, he told me a bit about the compact scattergun’s evolution.

“There was a group I was involved with– we’d gone to different events– and this one guy I always hung out with we rented cars together we rented hotel rooms, and I owed him a bunch of money. It was like $500 or $600 bucks,” regaled Serbu. “And he says, eh, ‘instead of giving me money why don’t you just make me a really short Mossberg shotgun, make it the shortest you can.”

After a year of tinkering around with the concept (“Because I hated it and thought it was the dumbest idea in the world. You know, if you have something you just hate, and you can’t do it?”) Serbu gave the world the Super Shorty.

For better or worse, the Super Shorty proved his biggest hit for a long time, with the guns going on to show up in dozens of movies and games including the “Crank,” “Fast,” and “Terminator” franchises. Over the past 20 years, Serbu modded both Mossberg 500 and Remington 870 shotguns in both 20 and 12 gauge to produce the Shorty.

“Now, years later, this is like my ‘Freebird,’ my ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ one of those songs that, while it’s a hit, the artists are just so sick of it,” he said.

Back in 2019, Serbu let me run one of his Super Shorty models in his shop– about two feet away from his office!

Another nail in the coffin of the gun was the fact that it was an NFA item due to the fact it started life as a shotgun and was modified into an Any Other Weapon (AOW). While it only required a Form 4 and a $5 tax stamp, it still was wrapped up in ATF waiting periods and red tape. When firearms like the Mossberg Shockwave and Remington TAC-14 came along after 2017, allowing almost the Super Shorty experience without the ATF having you listed in the NFRTR until the end of time, the market dried up a bit.

While the Super Shorty was more of a hacked production shotgun made by other folks, Serbu wants to spend his time on making his own guns such as the BFG-50, RN-50, and BFG-50A. There is only so much space on the workbench. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

Still, you gotta love the old-school cool that is the Serbu Super Shorty.

Looking for a few thousand rare and sometimes downright weird guns?

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While traveling around Northern Alabama, I stopped in at the Berman Museum of World History in Anniston and were blown away.

In 1992, Farley and Germaine Berman began loaning their extensive personal art collection built over a lifetime to the city of Anniston. The two were made for each other it seems — Farley was an Army colonel who worked in military intelligence during World War II while Germaine was in French intelligence.

“I was spying on her, and she was spying on me,” Farley once said. After marrying and returning to the states, the two traveled extensively, reportedly filling up four passports. In 1999, after their death, the 6,000-piece collection was bequeathed to the city, who now has it on display in a two-story complex.

And there is a tremendous amount or rare, martial, curious and unique guns on display.

For example:

And:

Take two of these and call me in the morning…

More in my column at Guns.com

Getting shot while you are getting stabbed

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In the late 1990s, the Global Research and Development (GRAD) Company designed the world’s first production fixed blade knife that held a multi-shot firearm inside its grip.

GRAD produced four knives, three of which contained working 22LR double-action revolvers.  The knife in each case was a high-quality 440C heat-treated high carbon stainless steel single edged fixed blade. Inside the grips lay the cylinder for the revolver with a 1.75-inch rifled barrel. In the lower half of the knife handle a spring-loaded trigger lever could be pulled down and when depressed would fire the revolver. The barrel’s muzzle was shrouded by the top half of the grip and fired over the top of the blade through the hilt of the knife.

To load and clean the revolver, the grips separated and folded open, allowing access to the concealed gun.

They came in several variants.

The Hybrid Standard Edition of the knife had black aluminum checkered grip panels and held a 5-shot revolver.  A deluxe 22-karat gold-plated Millennium version of the Standard had a highly hand polished blade and frame.

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The Hybrid Bayonet held a 6-shot revolver and mounted to the standard NATO bayonet lug carried on the M16/AR-15 style rifle. The bayonet version could be fired either mounted or unmounted to the rifle. The knife only version, the Model RS1N, was the base knife with no barrel or firing assembly.

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Across all versions, less than a thousand of these weapons were made. The company history is murky; they seem to have folded around 2007 and as such have no warranty or production to fall back upon.

The firearms versions are all NFA Title II weapons and are transferable under the $5 Any Other Weapon clause. When new and still in production they sold from $699 for the Standard models to $1999 for the gold-plated series. Today if you can find one today, they basically worth whatever the market will pay and are rare at any price.

And the ATF generally frowns upon keeping and/or selling them or any other neat AOW such as cane guns without the proper paperwork, as exemplified by a pair of Big Pine Key FFL holders last week.