WACO, Tex. — The bikers involved in the biggest and bloodiest clash of motorcycle gangs in recent decades brought an astonishing arsenal to the Twin Peaks restaurant in south Waco on Sunday, the police said Wednesday. Investigators have recovered more than 300 weapons in and around the restaurant, Sgt. Patrick Swanton of the Waco Police Department said.

“This shows the level of violence that they thought was going to go on here,” Sergeant Swanton told The Houston Chronicle in a video interview.

He cited pocketknives, larger military-style knives, brass knuckles, clubs, chains with padlocks on them and, of course, guns, including an AK-47 assault rifle in a vehicle in the parking lot. Sergeant Swanton said the bikers discarded or tried to hide the weapons — some were found in sacks of tortilla chips, others were stuffed into seat cushions or placed in kitchen stoves or between bags of flour — apparently so as not to be armed when they were arrested. Someone tried to flush a handgun down a toilet.

“This isn’t your churchgoing crowd that came out to have a dinner with the family,” he said. “This is a gang-oriented criminal element that was in our city to conduct criminal activity.”