In order to see this embed, you must give consent to Social Media cookies. Open my cookie preferences.

Patrick Priebe, a German lab technician, has built a hand-held crossbow that can pierce a drink can or smash a lightbulb from three metres away.

The miniature weapon mounts on the back of your hand, and can be triggered with a subtle thumb movement. It has a laser-pointer for aiming, and is made of aluminium, copper, brass, teflon plastic and steel wire. The bolts are made of carbon fibre tubing with brass arrowheads.


Priebe said that he came up with the idea after a knee injury playing hockey. He was sitting at his computer with nothing to do, and saw the Y key on the keyboard. Immediately, he went to his workshop, put together a Y-shaped frame from aluminium, and set to work on creating the crossbow.

To fire, all Priebe needs to do is pull back the wire, hook it around a block of brass, and then place an arrow in the groove in the teflon. When the thumb trigger is flicked, the wire is released, firing the bolt forwards. He has no plans to use it in anger, though -- telling PopSci: "I have a pretty sturdy hockey stick that would do the trick."

You can see the gauntlet crossbow in the video embedded in this story, and check out Priebe's other laser-guided weaponry on his website.