Ray guns

No pulp space hero would be seen dead without the multi purpose death ray, the style is generally that of a pistol, but a few examples of ray gun rifles have made it to screen and page, most ray guns on the sets of films are real guns from army surplus which have then been converted to look more futuristic, this saves on budget and gives the weapons a believable weight for the actors. modern director Goerge Lucas claimed inspration from the old pulp sci fi and used this method for the weapons in his Star Wars films