Paltik

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Paltik in Filipino means "homemade gun". It originated late in the Philippine-American War when guns and ammunition had become scarce. The most common form of the weapon was a gas pipe attached to a rifle stock. Usually some sort of wire was wrapped around the barrel to keep the pipe from expanding from the fire. There was a small hole at the bottom end of the barrel that a cigarette or match was placed to ignite the primer, which made aiming difficult. This also gave it the nickname the "Cigarette Gun". It was muzzleloaded and fired a medium sized bullet or musket ball.

The accuracy was poor and the mechanism of firing the weapon made it even worse. On many occasions, due to poor craftsmanship, the weapon was more dangerous to the shooter than the actual target. Some Filipino gunsmiths however, did make reliable percussion cap rifles that performed similar to a nineteenth century musket.

"Paltik" are still made illegally in the Philippines today (replaced by a popular sumpak gun). Although they are more sophisticated than their nineteenth century counterpart, they are still on most occasions unreliable and dangerous.