weaponry produced inside the walls. He said that a real gun is expensive, '$500 including ammunition for a piece that on the outside would go for $150.' He said that homemade guns were only $350, while a shank (knife) was "easy, $5 for a 6-inch blade and up to $10 for a 10-incher." Guns and the prison escape scenario run the gamut from John Dillinger's soap-carving gun to zip guns to hightech electronics. In 1985, an inmate tried to power his way out of a Wisconsin facility with two zip guns made in the prison, which was described in an interview with an inmate as "a very, very to the maximum . . . maxed out and watched place.' The prisoner told authorities only that he had bought the homemade .22-caliber guns, which were made by another prisoner inside the institution, while the ammunition had been smuggled in to him. A very unusual prison escape made headlines late in 1975, when inmates from the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City broke out using a homemade, yet sophisticated electrical device that opened all the power-controlled gates for them. This happened not too many months after a detailed weapons search turned up quite a haul. For example, the authorities' efforts turned up six pistols made from plumbing pipe parts, several .38 and .22 cartridges, and 20 homemade knives. Commenting on the find. Gun Week noted surprise that commercially produced weapons were not found. They reported: Normally, in the experience of most prisons in this country, such searches turn up at least one, if not several factory-made firearms . . . none of the firearms located in this search were factory-made But, the homemade models were .22 caliber. Their report noted the irony of homemade firearms showing up in a prison society with its stringent security precautions, noting especially that this particular prison had been under dose security for some time due to earlier escapes. The weapons were apparently made during this security period.