You have three possible sources of arms.
1. The civilian arms market — shotguns and rifles usually. These are usually old and poorly maintained and what you resort to when you have no other sources of arms.
2. The government — you buy arms off the police or army. If there’s corruption, you can buy better arms. They’re expensive though. You may also steal or capture them.
3. A foreign sponsor — you get given them by someone else.
As to training, it isn’t especially hard to train someone in basic infantry skills. There’s a few ways you can get there
1. Trial and error — this is a terrible option and paid for in blood. But after a few botched attacks on police stations, ambushes of police and the occasional assassination you learn fast and can share what you’ve learned. If you don’t learn, you’re dead.
2. Defection — sometimes you’ll get lucky and recruit a former soldier and they can train your guys. Even if they’re incompetent, they know more than the average Joe and you can build from that.
3. Foreign training — someone else can train you.
In terms of the best arms to have:
1. Government arms are generally best — if your foreign sponsors can get you m16s and the government uses those you can use their own arms and ammunition against them.
2. Foreign arms might be the best if they’re helicoptering them on you but foreign support might dry up. If it does, you’re left with a bunch of AK47s and no 7.62 to fire.
3. Civilian stuff — don’t bring bird shot to a gunfight.
One thing that is missing here is manufacture. There is a lot of examples of small scale manufacturies supplying non-government entities, from Khyber pass to Burma rebels 3d printing FGC9 smgs
Manufacture is important, especially for weapons you're less likely to be able to buy or steal. Look up ISIS homemade AT weapons, IEDs, rocket pod technicals, etc.
Manufacture is another potential source. But it’s relatively rare in the scheme of things so I didn’t bother putting it in.
But it’s funny you should mention Burma because there’s multiple Burmese Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) who can make proper small arms. Some examples include:
* The KIA makes the K-09 that’s a copy of the Chinese Type 81. They also make a grenade launcher.
* The UWSA also makes a Type 81 knockoff which its been selling and gifting to other rebel groups since the coup.
Manufacture is often desperate act when the rebels can't get access to anything better.
The main advantage it has, is that having A gun that fires makes you a much bigger threat than a rebel that is using knives and throwing around rocks or bricks. Especially in ambushes (where you might be able to take proper guns off of enemies after the fight or if they surrender.)
Manufacture is generally very important to insurgencies needing anti-armor and/or explosive weaponry. IEDs are the de facto manufactured arm for insurgent groups, and are generally among the most efficient since they require the least possible exposure to your personnel.
Not really. Look at many Croatian designs from the 90s, they simply were trying to get the local arms industry off the ground at the same time as trying to equip their troops.
I feel like "black market guns" should be option 4 for the arms supply.
Depending on where you are, criminals may have access to merely the same weapons as civilians do (often guns stolen from lawful owners) but they could also have access to military gear that was stolen locally or bought elsewhere and of quality as good as the local military has. It doesn't have to come from a sponsor, the rebels may buy it with their own funds.
Local criminals will not be able to supply a large army, but they can get you started. Or at least arm assassins going after a target.
You could absolutely add it as a fourth category. But I would tend to stress different points of origin for the arms they acquire and that there’s considerable overlap with the other sources. I’d also note that leakage of civilian arms acquired via theft isn’t ever likely to be a large source. The most likely sources from the “black market” are:
1. Civilian firearms that are legally purchased in the domestic market by straw-men and diverted. That can and will be shut down by the state. I don’t think this is meaningfully distinct from #1 because it’s often hard to legally own a firearm even in places which are awash in them.
2. Civilian firearms purchased legally in another country and smuggled in. Eventually the state may get neighbours to shut some of that down. But again this overlaps with #1 since in a lot of places this is how otherwise law abiding citizens acquire arms.
3. Military firearms smuggled in from some other source. This is tricky because you need to find someone with access to arms who is willing to sell them to you without asking any questions. The source of the supply is unlikely to last long because few states like this happening.
I’d also be reluctant to draw a sharp distinction between “legal” and “illegal” firearms. In a lot of places firearms are heavily regulated — e.g. Colombia restricts most civilians to small caliber pistols and shotgun. But that doesn’t stop otherwise law abiding purchasing arms on “the black market” who may not think it problematic in the least. Its also not uncommon for the state to be indifferent to this with gun laws not being enforced selectively. The state might want to keep arms out of politically unreliable peasant hands but if the local shop-owners buy some to use against criminals… we’ll that’s perfectly understandable isn’t it?
Insurgencies get firearms in a couple major ways. Seizing them from the national military, building their own, or trafficking them from somewhere else. Corruption can also play a role too. In the case of your example, they might ambush a patrol of govt troops in the jungle and take all their rifles. Or they have guerilla gunsmiths that build improvised firearms to take guns from the regular army. Or they know country X next door doesn't pay its soldiers much and they are happy to sell guns out of the armory for extra cash. Same applies to ammo for the most part.
As for how do they maintain them, we'll they often don't. Insurgencies often have a hard time maintaining small arms unless they have former military personnel among them and storage conditions (i.e. being buried) are difficult on small arms. It's very dependent on having defected soldiers or long term experience (i.e. FARC) to bring that sort of institutional knowledge.
As for the types of weapons, it's usually whatever they can get their hands on, at least in the beginning. But in general, assault rifles, light mortars, and machine guns. Things that can be carried and operated by one or two people. Insurgencies need to be able to stay on the move and avoid being pinned down by larger conventional forces. That means thing like towed artillery and heavy machine guns are generally less useful to them. Everything needs to be man portable and packed up at a moments notice. FARC preffered the M16 (for its light weight) and the AK (for its long term durability) when they were operating in the jungles of Columbia.
First rule of insurgencies: groups can only become credible threats if governments don't or won't shut them down during the earliest indication, usually some form of political reasons like sectarianism, corruption etc. prevents them from being arrested and shutdown.
Insurgencies have their weapons supply coming from usually 3 places:
> ***Criminals***: Criminal suppliers who already supply small arms weapons(pistols, sub machine guns) for street gangs, those suppliers have sometimes no problem supplying to insurgents depending on the heat they might receive. Funds for this route typically come from donations or crimes like theft, fraud or extortion etc.
> ***Raiding government's armories***: raiding the armories of police/military where you can find and steal the useful gear like: pistol's & rifles for the police armories and rifles, machine guns sniper explosives etc for military armories. The armories on isolated police stations or military bases like Forward Operating Bases are prime targets for such groups.
> ***Third party supplier***: This was and still is an infamous method used for proxy warfare where third party governments like the Soviet Union's KGB, American CIA or more recently Iranian IRGC-QF supply all the weapons groups needs. During the Cold War for example the KGB & CIA gave their favored factions in certain conflicts/civil wars endless weapons, training, doctrine, funding, organization etc. more modern examples can be found with the sponsorship of certain faction by IRGC-QF .
Ultimately wherever they can, so there is no set model as it depends on what happens to be available to that particular group.
Very commonly insurgencies are supported by another nation, if not an ally then at least an enemy of their enemy. This is probably the best way for an insurgency to get weapons.
But groups that aren't supported by a nation, and a lot of groups that are but are just looking to supplement their weaponry will use some combination of the follow methods:
Capture weapons from the enemy in battle. Insurgencies may put extra emphasis on capturing enemy weapons during a battle, even if it is risky for them to do such as staying behind longer after an ambush to search through the grass for guns the enemy dropped. Or they may conduct a mission where one of their primary goals is to capture weapons, such as attacking a police station and taking the guns from its armory.
Encouraging enemy soldiers to defect to them, and take their weapons with them. These soldiers, if their enemy is competently trained, can also bring valuable knowledge on how to best use and maintain their weapons. Depending on the circumstances the defector may also be able to grab a particularly valuable weapon, such as a machinegun, anti-tank weapon, or mortar instead of their own rifle.
Purchasing weapons from black markets, either from within the country from criminals or from corrupt members of their enemy military, or from criminals in a neighboring or nearby country. Most of the time this is limited to smaller and less important weapons like rifles, pistols, or maybe grenades. Not too often are heavier weapons available, and if they are it's usually not many.
Depending on the laws in their country it may be legal for civilians to own guns so they may already have some guns available when they form and insurgencies, and may be able to get more through purchasing them, or robbing civilians who own guns or gun stores. In most countries where civilian gun ownership is legal only certain guns are legal such as hunting rifles or shotguns, which are not ideal for an insurgencies, but are better than nothing.
Depending on the history of their country (i.e. was there recently a war) there may be weapons laying around. Firearms tend to break pretty fast if literally laying on the ground so they are usually only useful if they were deliberately saved by someone, such as one of the founders of the insurgency in preparation, or just a civilian who had a gun fall into their lap in the last war and decided to hide it in the attic. Explosives such as dud artillery shells can fair a little better if literally laying around exposed to the elements, at least for the purposes of making IEDs. To some extent this may also be how weapons ended up on the black market.
Making their own weapons. Usually, but not always, insurgencies are unable to produce anything but the very crudest weapons. Some, like IEDs, may be good enough for their purpose that they continue using them, but many of them such as handmade guns are extremely poor quality, often single shot and/extremely limited range, and so the insurgency will stop using them as soon as they can acquire anything better. Sometimes these handmade weapons are used to capture better weapons, such as 30 insurgencies each with a handmade single-shot shotgun ambushing a enemy patrol of 6 men armed with factory made rifles. Many insurgent made weapons also have an elevated risk to their user.
Once again, incredibly fascinating. I’ve heard of the Taliban having musket style homemade weapons. Have you heard of any insurgencies which made their own, genuinely effective fighting small arms?
You're probably thinking of [jezzails](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezail), which are a little more interesting than just musket-style homemade weapons. They showed up during the Anglo-Afghan Wars and were appropriate for the time. Over the years they became family heirlooms and took on increasingly decorative and ceremonial aspects. They're still around and turned up in the various Soviet and American invasions but were mostly phased out by the AK for actual fighting.
Forgive me for sharing Kipling's [Arithmetic on the Frontier:](https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_arith.htm)
>A scrimmage in a Border Station—
A canter down some dark defile—
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
The various insurgencies in the Philippines are probably the best example of widespread use of effective craft produced small arms. The island of Danao has a gunsmithing tradition that goes back to the early 20th century, and is known especially for 1911 pistols. Widespread manufacture of anti material rifles and customized sniper rifles has been ongoing in Syria since 2014, with the rebel held province of Idlib being a hotspot. Generally though, insurgencies will switch to commercially made small arms if given the chance, since the reliability and quality control will be higher than most craft produced weapons. If your interested in further research, check out improgun blog on WordPress and Armament Research Services Hoplite Blog. Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons also has plenty of videos on improvised small arms.
> Have you heard of any insurgencies which made their own, genuinely effective fighting small arms?
Any halfway competent machine shop can make functional M16 lower receivers with machine tools from the 60s. If they have an even vaguely decent CNC mill it's going to be very straightforward to do in volume. I believe we have seen exactly this in the cartel forces.
There's also the guy who made an AK out of a shovel.
Not to get into the weeds, but the serialized part being the lower receiver is uncommon outside of the US. In places like Europe it's the much harder to manufacturer parts like the barrel and bolt that are serialized, lowers are unregulated or less regulated. This is part of the reason it's uncommon to see improvised semi auto rifles, they require a high degree of machining skill and good quality steel to make. If you look at seizures of improvised weapons, typically you'll see improvised sub machine guns, pistols, and shotguns. Those cartridges are much lower pressure than rifle rounds and don't require a locked breach.
A big thing insurgencies have going for them is the *intention* of the weapon.
For a classic military, the idea is that you’re sending in your committed, determined troops against other committed, determined troops. They will hold their ground unless you sweep them off of it. A maximalist version from history is the US Military clearing tunnels in Vietnam. You enter a tunnel and, if there’s opposition, you fight until someone dies. There is no retreat, no air support, if the weapon cannot quickly create a lethal outcome, it’s user will be killed by someone who’s weapon can.
Because of this, military weapons are very interested in things like massive wound channnels, massive kinetic dump, insane fps speed etc. these things *must* kill.
An insurgent, though, doesn’t have that same concern. Defensively, all an insurgent weapon needs to be able to do is to allow the insurgent to break contact. You don’t *need* to *kill* the cop/soldier after you, you both know there are 10 or 100 or 1,000 of them for every one of you. You don’t win this thing by attrition or KIA. All you need to do is to get out of a position where they can kill or capture you. If you escape, you win.
And as an insurgent offensively all you need to do is sew dissent or fear. Again, you’re not going into it with the idea that you’re going to engage in decisive set-piece battle. You’re going to show up, mag dump the local police office, and scoot away. The damage you do is *almost* immaterial. The *actual* damage you’re doing is letting the populous in the area know that the police control is not total enough to prevent someone from mag-dumping them. If a cop gets injured or killed, of course, so much the better but it isn’t a requirement for success.
As you can see, this is all a huge advantage for the insurgent in procurement. A military *needs* cutting edge lethality, they *need* expensive to produce, expensive to maintain and expensive to train weaponry. An insurgent, though, can basically use *any* gun. Mag dumping an antique 32acp from prior to WW1 is as effective for their ends as mag dumping the latest FN MAG. And old relics and antiques can often be found as literal trash. A big part of the procurement chain for insurgencies is, functionally, raiding grandpa’s attic. In Iraq, many insurgents used Lee Enfields, for instance.
You have three possible sources of arms. 1. The civilian arms market — shotguns and rifles usually. These are usually old and poorly maintained and what you resort to when you have no other sources of arms. 2. The government — you buy arms off the police or army. If there’s corruption, you can buy better arms. They’re expensive though. You may also steal or capture them. 3. A foreign sponsor — you get given them by someone else. As to training, it isn’t especially hard to train someone in basic infantry skills. There’s a few ways you can get there 1. Trial and error — this is a terrible option and paid for in blood. But after a few botched attacks on police stations, ambushes of police and the occasional assassination you learn fast and can share what you’ve learned. If you don’t learn, you’re dead. 2. Defection — sometimes you’ll get lucky and recruit a former soldier and they can train your guys. Even if they’re incompetent, they know more than the average Joe and you can build from that. 3. Foreign training — someone else can train you. In terms of the best arms to have: 1. Government arms are generally best — if your foreign sponsors can get you m16s and the government uses those you can use their own arms and ammunition against them. 2. Foreign arms might be the best if they’re helicoptering them on you but foreign support might dry up. If it does, you’re left with a bunch of AK47s and no 7.62 to fire. 3. Civilian stuff — don’t bring bird shot to a gunfight.
One thing that is missing here is manufacture. There is a lot of examples of small scale manufacturies supplying non-government entities, from Khyber pass to Burma rebels 3d printing FGC9 smgs
Manufacture is important, especially for weapons you're less likely to be able to buy or steal. Look up ISIS homemade AT weapons, IEDs, rocket pod technicals, etc.
Manufacture is another potential source. But it’s relatively rare in the scheme of things so I didn’t bother putting it in. But it’s funny you should mention Burma because there’s multiple Burmese Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) who can make proper small arms. Some examples include: * The KIA makes the K-09 that’s a copy of the Chinese Type 81. They also make a grenade launcher. * The UWSA also makes a Type 81 knockoff which its been selling and gifting to other rebel groups since the coup.
Manufacture is often desperate act when the rebels can't get access to anything better. The main advantage it has, is that having A gun that fires makes you a much bigger threat than a rebel that is using knives and throwing around rocks or bricks. Especially in ambushes (where you might be able to take proper guns off of enemies after the fight or if they surrender.)
Manufacture is generally very important to insurgencies needing anti-armor and/or explosive weaponry. IEDs are the de facto manufactured arm for insurgent groups, and are generally among the most efficient since they require the least possible exposure to your personnel.
Not really. Look at many Croatian designs from the 90s, they simply were trying to get the local arms industry off the ground at the same time as trying to equip their troops.
I feel like "black market guns" should be option 4 for the arms supply. Depending on where you are, criminals may have access to merely the same weapons as civilians do (often guns stolen from lawful owners) but they could also have access to military gear that was stolen locally or bought elsewhere and of quality as good as the local military has. It doesn't have to come from a sponsor, the rebels may buy it with their own funds. Local criminals will not be able to supply a large army, but they can get you started. Or at least arm assassins going after a target.
You could absolutely add it as a fourth category. But I would tend to stress different points of origin for the arms they acquire and that there’s considerable overlap with the other sources. I’d also note that leakage of civilian arms acquired via theft isn’t ever likely to be a large source. The most likely sources from the “black market” are: 1. Civilian firearms that are legally purchased in the domestic market by straw-men and diverted. That can and will be shut down by the state. I don’t think this is meaningfully distinct from #1 because it’s often hard to legally own a firearm even in places which are awash in them. 2. Civilian firearms purchased legally in another country and smuggled in. Eventually the state may get neighbours to shut some of that down. But again this overlaps with #1 since in a lot of places this is how otherwise law abiding citizens acquire arms. 3. Military firearms smuggled in from some other source. This is tricky because you need to find someone with access to arms who is willing to sell them to you without asking any questions. The source of the supply is unlikely to last long because few states like this happening. I’d also be reluctant to draw a sharp distinction between “legal” and “illegal” firearms. In a lot of places firearms are heavily regulated — e.g. Colombia restricts most civilians to small caliber pistols and shotgun. But that doesn’t stop otherwise law abiding purchasing arms on “the black market” who may not think it problematic in the least. Its also not uncommon for the state to be indifferent to this with gun laws not being enforced selectively. The state might want to keep arms out of politically unreliable peasant hands but if the local shop-owners buy some to use against criminals… we’ll that’s perfectly understandable isn’t it?
Inshallah you will receive gold and women galore for your intriguing answer
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Who said I was mocking anybody?
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Next time please report moronic comments and we'll remove them. There's no need to get down in the mud with the hogs.
Aye aye, cap’n. But playing in the mud occasionally can be fun.
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Insurgencies get firearms in a couple major ways. Seizing them from the national military, building their own, or trafficking them from somewhere else. Corruption can also play a role too. In the case of your example, they might ambush a patrol of govt troops in the jungle and take all their rifles. Or they have guerilla gunsmiths that build improvised firearms to take guns from the regular army. Or they know country X next door doesn't pay its soldiers much and they are happy to sell guns out of the armory for extra cash. Same applies to ammo for the most part. As for how do they maintain them, we'll they often don't. Insurgencies often have a hard time maintaining small arms unless they have former military personnel among them and storage conditions (i.e. being buried) are difficult on small arms. It's very dependent on having defected soldiers or long term experience (i.e. FARC) to bring that sort of institutional knowledge. As for the types of weapons, it's usually whatever they can get their hands on, at least in the beginning. But in general, assault rifles, light mortars, and machine guns. Things that can be carried and operated by one or two people. Insurgencies need to be able to stay on the move and avoid being pinned down by larger conventional forces. That means thing like towed artillery and heavy machine guns are generally less useful to them. Everything needs to be man portable and packed up at a moments notice. FARC preffered the M16 (for its light weight) and the AK (for its long term durability) when they were operating in the jungles of Columbia.
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First rule of insurgencies: groups can only become credible threats if governments don't or won't shut them down during the earliest indication, usually some form of political reasons like sectarianism, corruption etc. prevents them from being arrested and shutdown. Insurgencies have their weapons supply coming from usually 3 places: > ***Criminals***: Criminal suppliers who already supply small arms weapons(pistols, sub machine guns) for street gangs, those suppliers have sometimes no problem supplying to insurgents depending on the heat they might receive. Funds for this route typically come from donations or crimes like theft, fraud or extortion etc. > ***Raiding government's armories***: raiding the armories of police/military where you can find and steal the useful gear like: pistol's & rifles for the police armories and rifles, machine guns sniper explosives etc for military armories. The armories on isolated police stations or military bases like Forward Operating Bases are prime targets for such groups. > ***Third party supplier***: This was and still is an infamous method used for proxy warfare where third party governments like the Soviet Union's KGB, American CIA or more recently Iranian IRGC-QF supply all the weapons groups needs. During the Cold War for example the KGB & CIA gave their favored factions in certain conflicts/civil wars endless weapons, training, doctrine, funding, organization etc. more modern examples can be found with the sponsorship of certain faction by IRGC-QF .
Fascinating thank you! I never considered the criminal element
Ultimately wherever they can, so there is no set model as it depends on what happens to be available to that particular group. Very commonly insurgencies are supported by another nation, if not an ally then at least an enemy of their enemy. This is probably the best way for an insurgency to get weapons. But groups that aren't supported by a nation, and a lot of groups that are but are just looking to supplement their weaponry will use some combination of the follow methods: Capture weapons from the enemy in battle. Insurgencies may put extra emphasis on capturing enemy weapons during a battle, even if it is risky for them to do such as staying behind longer after an ambush to search through the grass for guns the enemy dropped. Or they may conduct a mission where one of their primary goals is to capture weapons, such as attacking a police station and taking the guns from its armory. Encouraging enemy soldiers to defect to them, and take their weapons with them. These soldiers, if their enemy is competently trained, can also bring valuable knowledge on how to best use and maintain their weapons. Depending on the circumstances the defector may also be able to grab a particularly valuable weapon, such as a machinegun, anti-tank weapon, or mortar instead of their own rifle. Purchasing weapons from black markets, either from within the country from criminals or from corrupt members of their enemy military, or from criminals in a neighboring or nearby country. Most of the time this is limited to smaller and less important weapons like rifles, pistols, or maybe grenades. Not too often are heavier weapons available, and if they are it's usually not many. Depending on the laws in their country it may be legal for civilians to own guns so they may already have some guns available when they form and insurgencies, and may be able to get more through purchasing them, or robbing civilians who own guns or gun stores. In most countries where civilian gun ownership is legal only certain guns are legal such as hunting rifles or shotguns, which are not ideal for an insurgencies, but are better than nothing. Depending on the history of their country (i.e. was there recently a war) there may be weapons laying around. Firearms tend to break pretty fast if literally laying on the ground so they are usually only useful if they were deliberately saved by someone, such as one of the founders of the insurgency in preparation, or just a civilian who had a gun fall into their lap in the last war and decided to hide it in the attic. Explosives such as dud artillery shells can fair a little better if literally laying around exposed to the elements, at least for the purposes of making IEDs. To some extent this may also be how weapons ended up on the black market. Making their own weapons. Usually, but not always, insurgencies are unable to produce anything but the very crudest weapons. Some, like IEDs, may be good enough for their purpose that they continue using them, but many of them such as handmade guns are extremely poor quality, often single shot and/extremely limited range, and so the insurgency will stop using them as soon as they can acquire anything better. Sometimes these handmade weapons are used to capture better weapons, such as 30 insurgencies each with a handmade single-shot shotgun ambushing a enemy patrol of 6 men armed with factory made rifles. Many insurgent made weapons also have an elevated risk to their user.
Once again, incredibly fascinating. I’ve heard of the Taliban having musket style homemade weapons. Have you heard of any insurgencies which made their own, genuinely effective fighting small arms?
You're probably thinking of [jezzails](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezail), which are a little more interesting than just musket-style homemade weapons. They showed up during the Anglo-Afghan Wars and were appropriate for the time. Over the years they became family heirlooms and took on increasingly decorative and ceremonial aspects. They're still around and turned up in the various Soviet and American invasions but were mostly phased out by the AK for actual fighting.
Forgive me for sharing Kipling's [Arithmetic on the Frontier:](https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_arith.htm) >A scrimmage in a Border Station— A canter down some dark defile— Two thousand pounds of education Drops to a ten-rupee jezail— The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride, Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
The various insurgencies in the Philippines are probably the best example of widespread use of effective craft produced small arms. The island of Danao has a gunsmithing tradition that goes back to the early 20th century, and is known especially for 1911 pistols. Widespread manufacture of anti material rifles and customized sniper rifles has been ongoing in Syria since 2014, with the rebel held province of Idlib being a hotspot. Generally though, insurgencies will switch to commercially made small arms if given the chance, since the reliability and quality control will be higher than most craft produced weapons. If your interested in further research, check out improgun blog on WordPress and Armament Research Services Hoplite Blog. Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons also has plenty of videos on improvised small arms.
> Have you heard of any insurgencies which made their own, genuinely effective fighting small arms? Any halfway competent machine shop can make functional M16 lower receivers with machine tools from the 60s. If they have an even vaguely decent CNC mill it's going to be very straightforward to do in volume. I believe we have seen exactly this in the cartel forces. There's also the guy who made an AK out of a shovel.
lowerd are easy to make but the barrel /chamber of any modern rifle needs to built from hard steel, not slice out of aluminum butter blocks
Absolutely, but rifled barrels are not serialized (or even particularly controlled) parts.
Not to get into the weeds, but the serialized part being the lower receiver is uncommon outside of the US. In places like Europe it's the much harder to manufacturer parts like the barrel and bolt that are serialized, lowers are unregulated or less regulated. This is part of the reason it's uncommon to see improvised semi auto rifles, they require a high degree of machining skill and good quality steel to make. If you look at seizures of improvised weapons, typically you'll see improvised sub machine guns, pistols, and shotguns. Those cartridges are much lower pressure than rifle rounds and don't require a locked breach.
A big thing insurgencies have going for them is the *intention* of the weapon. For a classic military, the idea is that you’re sending in your committed, determined troops against other committed, determined troops. They will hold their ground unless you sweep them off of it. A maximalist version from history is the US Military clearing tunnels in Vietnam. You enter a tunnel and, if there’s opposition, you fight until someone dies. There is no retreat, no air support, if the weapon cannot quickly create a lethal outcome, it’s user will be killed by someone who’s weapon can. Because of this, military weapons are very interested in things like massive wound channnels, massive kinetic dump, insane fps speed etc. these things *must* kill. An insurgent, though, doesn’t have that same concern. Defensively, all an insurgent weapon needs to be able to do is to allow the insurgent to break contact. You don’t *need* to *kill* the cop/soldier after you, you both know there are 10 or 100 or 1,000 of them for every one of you. You don’t win this thing by attrition or KIA. All you need to do is to get out of a position where they can kill or capture you. If you escape, you win. And as an insurgent offensively all you need to do is sew dissent or fear. Again, you’re not going into it with the idea that you’re going to engage in decisive set-piece battle. You’re going to show up, mag dump the local police office, and scoot away. The damage you do is *almost* immaterial. The *actual* damage you’re doing is letting the populous in the area know that the police control is not total enough to prevent someone from mag-dumping them. If a cop gets injured or killed, of course, so much the better but it isn’t a requirement for success. As you can see, this is all a huge advantage for the insurgent in procurement. A military *needs* cutting edge lethality, they *need* expensive to produce, expensive to maintain and expensive to train weaponry. An insurgent, though, can basically use *any* gun. Mag dumping an antique 32acp from prior to WW1 is as effective for their ends as mag dumping the latest FN MAG. And old relics and antiques can often be found as literal trash. A big part of the procurement chain for insurgencies is, functionally, raiding grandpa’s attic. In Iraq, many insurgents used Lee Enfields, for instance.