While you would expect London’s waterways to be filled with all kinds of strange and bizarre objects, I am sure many of you wouldn’t have included sub-machine guns on the list.
36-year-old Gareth Bryer from Manchester certainly didn’t expect to find one while he was magnet fishing in Enfield, North London.
Gareth, who has been magnet fishing since January this year, visited the Enfield Lock near the Royal Small Arms Factory, which closed down in 1988, two months ago in the hope he would discover some historical finds.
As you can see in the video below though, he was shocked when he pulled a Mac-10 sub-machine gun out of the river:
Finding a small stretch of water which was clear of weeds, Gareth popped his magnet in and started pulling out various items including an old medal, a drain cover and a motorbike part.
Close to walking away from the area, admitting he wasn’t ‘finding much’, Gareth decided to try one more time expecting to pull up another manhole cover when he realised his magnet had caught something.
As he pulled the gun out of the water, Gareth’s surprise and excitement is clear as he exclaimed, ‘Oh my f*cking God’.
Speaking exclusively to UNILAD, Gareth said the sub-machine gun is his best find to date.
He told us:
I started magnet fishing after seeing videos on YouTube about a rugby player called James Haskell doing it.
I curious to see what I could find in my local canal in Manchester and I started with a small ferrite magnet, which are cheap but not very powerful, but even with the lack of power it wasn’t long before I started pulling out knives.
I was hooked so I bought a more powerful neodymium magnet and it wasn’t long before I was pulling up more interesting items like cash boxes, safes and even a crossbow.
So far I’ve found three guns, a crossbow, a samurai sword and at least 50 other weapons ranging from knives to a knuckle duster but this is my best find.
While Gareth thought he may find old items related to the factory, he didn’t expect to find ‘a modern gun’ which is a potential murder weapon’.
Popping the gun in his kit bag, Gareth rang the non-emergency police number to inform the authorities about his discovery.
Returning to fishing, he then pulled out the magazine for the gun which was attached to a large kitchen knife.
Meeting up with armed response officers later that day, Gareth handed in the weapons.
Documenting his magnet fishing adventures on his YouTube channel, Gareth put up a video of his amazing find which has received over 110,000 views at time of writing (September 7).
Guns of course are a rare find, let alone submachine ones, so it is no wonder the video went viral.
If you do find a gun or other weapon while magnet fishing, make sure you hand it in to the police immediately.
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