What happened to the guns after world war 2?

Answer 1

Do you mean the guns that actually served during the war?

If so, many were picked up by civilians, my friend's Grandma for example picked up a pistol that was left in a field in France just days after the war ended. Some soldiers would have smuggled their small arms (handguns) back home some might even had managed to got their main weapons back which could have been anything from semi automatic rifles (M1 grand), bolt action rifles (1916 Enfield) to sub machine guns (Thompson).

The majority of guns though would go to collectors, gun smiths and government weapons research facility. Some would end up being sold as working guns so only to people with licenses, others would be deactivated which means they would put a pin through the barrel and weld up the magazine or clip (the thing that holds the ammo) and they would remove the firing pin, that kind of thing so the gun was useless it was basically a big toy, so they could be sold to anyone. Weapon specialists would take them and muck around with them trying to improve accuracy, weight, recoil (kick back) sights basically everything that would make the gun perform better.

Any other questions gun related please ask; jazzomonkey@hotmail.co.uk

MistroJoe