The MAC Stinger

I’ve actually met a spy or two. They seemed almost unsettlingly normal. However, some in the espionage business seemed to have read too many Ian Fleming novels.
The flamboyant Mitch WerBell III was a good example. A veteran of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) in WWII, WerBell was a legit spy. After the war, when he wasn’t out toppling governments for money, he dabbled in firearms design.

WerBell allied himself with the Military Armament Corporation, the same mob that brought us the Ingram submachine gun. He actually designed the distinctive two-stage MAC submachine gun suppressor. He also fathered the MAC Stinger, patterned after a curious WWII-era spy gun called the T-2.

Disposable Single Shot

The T-2 fired a single .22 rimfire round and was actually disposable. It looked like a pen in dim light and included a pocket clip. WerBell’s MAC Stinger was a bit more substantial, but only just barely. These adorable little firearms were about the size of a tube of lipstick and were turned out of aluminum. They could be had either in anodized gold or painted black. The Stinger was 3.25″ long and weighed 2.25 oz.

Each Stinger came with a short leather carrying strap. This was designed to help keep the tiny gun oriented in a pocket or to secure it in your armpit or crotch. The logic there being that these might be the last places you would be searched. Just imagining packing a loaded version this way gives me the heebie-jeebies.
The Stinger shipped in a clear plastic case along with two stubby little barrels. One tube was intended for practice, while the other was sealed on the end to exclude pocket lint when carried for real. These guns originally retailed for a whopping $36 apiece — about $200 today.

MAC offered some curious accessories to include a 16″ barrel. Thusly configured, the gun could pass for a swagger stick.

WerBell also designed sound suppressors for these little guns. The earliest versions were twice the diameter of the weapon and three times as long. A second prototype was the same diameter as the gun but was still long-ish. The final production version was 9″ in length and roughly 1.5 times the gun’s diameter. MAC didn’t produce a great many of these things, as the suppressor made the overall package fairly bulky. However, I would think the Stinger was a great deal safer with a can installed.

Practical Tactical

The barrel is 0.25″ long and smoothbore. I’d admittedly sooner not find myself on the receiving end of one of these monsters. However, given the option when selecting a deep cover defensive tool, I’d probably just pick a decent knife.

The manual of arms is as weird as is the gun itself. Unscrew the barrel and ensure that there is no ammo within easy reach. Then unscrew the back cap until it comes free. Pull the cap back until it locks in place. This will expose the little trigger bar. Once cocked, push the end cap back into place and thread it tight.

There is a hole to accept a small wire safety. However, mine has been lost. There is purportedly a sordid set of circumstances wherein you can load the gun and have it misfire with the safety wire in place. Then the weapon will supposedly go off once the wire is removed.

Once the gun is cocked, drop a round in the barrel and thread it in place. Remove the wire safety, point the gun in the general direction of something you dislike, and squeeze. There are no sights, and it essentially has no barrel. This is a point and click last-ditch survival gun designed to be used at contact range. Curiously, the firing pin strikes the base of the case in two places on opposite sides of the rim.

WerBell did mean well. In addition to the wire safety, there is a knurled ring up front that rotates to secure the trigger in place. However, mine seems to be seized in place. No amount of vigorous contortion or verbal remonstration on my part could break it free. I don’t love you guys enough to put my weird little aluminum gun in a vise. As a result, my example is deadly as soon as it is cocked. I’m terrified of it.

Mitch WerBell’s son supposedly once accidentally shot himself with one of his Dad’s Stingers. I’m told he pulled through. However, I wouldn’t carry one of these for real for love or money.

Legal Considerations

As you might imagine, Uncle Sam found the little Stinger to be just super confusing. It doesn’t look or act like a conventional gun. The Stinger does indeed technically throw bullets, but it otherwise certainly doesn’t fit into any handy morphological firearm category. As a result, the BATF declared it an AOW (Any Other Weapon). AOWs include conventional handguns with vertical foregrips, novelty guns that look like canes, umbrellas, cell phones or calculators, or pen guns that still resemble pens when they are fired.

The Braverman Stinger pen gun was a different beastie that was marketed much later. To fire the Braverman Stinger, you cracked the weapon along its middle so it looked kind of pistol-ish. That way Braverman could sell the weapon as a conventional handgun and avoid any National Firearms Act (NFA) considerations.

AOWs are regulated in the same manner as are machineguns, sound suppressors, and destructive devices like cannons and grenade launchers. The paperwork and transfer processes are identical. However, where the typical transfer tax is $200 for those other cool-guy toys, the AOW tax is only five bucks. In the case of this MAC Stinger, it was worth the hassle and the $5 transfer tax just for the novelty of the thing.

Ruminations

There are persistent rumors that the Stinger was designed to be encased in a condom, lubed up with KY jelly, and discreetly hidden in the sorts of places where only the most diligent searcher might find it. I think that, should I find myself in such dire circumstances, I might just willingly give up and die. Regardless, the MAC Stinger is an interesting footnote to a very different time.

During the height of the Cold War, a WWII veteran spy designed a terribly impractical little gun that was really a solution in search of a problem. Somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 copies were purportedly produced, some of which were supposedly given away as promotional gimmicks by the MAC company. In practical application, they were all likely about as dangerous to their firers as their targets. However, the MAC Stinger nonetheless still drips with Cold War cool points.

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