What's inside the New Zealand Police National Armoury?

Senior armourer Terry Quirke with a rare Charlton machine gun, built during WW2 from a bolt action .303 rifle. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It's the not too distant future, and the zombie apocalypse has begun.

The streets are crawling with the recently deceased, and you find yourself holed up in ... the Hutt Valley? But things aren't as bad they might seem.

Because as it turns out, the Hutt has a secret weapon. Or to be precise, a whole lot of weapons that actually aren't so secret.

The Wellington region is home to the New Zealand Police's National Armoury, which houses a collection of firearms and ammunition that would have any zombie movie fan adding it to their end of the world checklist of locations to visit.

But so long as the world is still ticking along as usual, it's not so easy to visit the armoury - though senior armourer Terry Quirke makes an exception for anyone in the police.

Quirke says he won't turn away a police officer who wants to tour the armoury, because the educational value it holds improves the safety of staff and public alike.

That value lies behind a heavy metal door that clunks shut behind us with a dungeon-like finality, closing us into the armoury's "library".

To our left is a wall lined with firearms, ranging from a World War-era rocket launcher and a converted machine gun to a pistol slapped together with items scavenged from "your old man's shed".

A variety of weapons on display in the reference library. Photo / Mark Mitchell

While the big weapons - like the missile launcher we catch a glimpse of through the nearby sliding racks of guns - are interesting talking points, it's more important for officers to see the inconspicuous pieces, the ones that wouldn't always look like guns to the untrained eye.

Quirke shows us a number of weapons that have been seized or surrendered over the years that might not look like guns at all, making them deadly to police officers who don't know what to look out for.

Some cannot be described in this article for fear of giving members of the public any ideas. Others belong in an old detective novel, such as the box of canes and walking sticks that actually have concealed firearms inside.

Of course, in these situations an offender might argue what they were found in possession of didn't fit the criteria of being a firearm at all. But Quirke and the team have a good way to deal with that.

They have a firing range lined with ballistic rubber and closed off with a snail trap to catch the bullets.

"If you have to prove that something is a firearm, the best way to do that is fire it," Quirke says.

Some of the weapons in the library are ones that were seized in the nick of time by eagle-eyed officers who were experienced enough to recognise what they were before harm could be done.

An example of a home-made pistol in the armoury library. Photo / Mark Mitchell

For Quirke, making sure more officers know how to recognise these weapons is particularly important, and is why he wants more staff to know about the educational purposes of the armoury.

On top of that, the library holds a collection of other firearms for reference and forensic use, though we're not allowed to know the exact number for security reasons.

The room is packed with sliding racks, labelled by firearm type for easy reference.

There is also a special water tank which can be fired into at reduced velocity, protecting the bullets from shattering and therefore helping produce an intact bullet for comparisons.

That's all part of one of the armoury's other main purposes: forensic testing.

"Any firearm or ammunition used around the country involved in any incident, criminal or accident, those exhibits will come to us for examination," Quirke says.

Senior armourer Terry Quirke in the firing range at the Police National Armoury. Photo / Mark Mitchell

While armoury staff are police employees, their purpose is to serve the courts and provide expert, unbiased analysis.

Sometimes they don't even know what incident the gun was used in when they are examining it.

For example, Quirke examined a gun allegedly fired by a police officer in an incident. He was told nothing about the incident or allegations, and was able to confirm the gun hadn't been fired.

"When a gun comes in the door, it's just a gun to us," he said.

"We might not be informed ... the investigators have gone 'we want this to be absolutely scrupulously clean.'"

The team also test for other things, such as whether it was possible for a gun to have been fired accidentally under certain circumstances.

The number of exhibits coming through the armoury for testing every year is north of 200, and is on the rise.

Staff aim to have the exhibits tested and returned to the stations they came from within three months.

Armourer Andrew working on a police weapon. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Some of the exhibits, when they are no longer needed, may be added to the armoury's "library" if they don't already have a firearm of that type, but usually if the weapon holds some significance it is offered to the police museum.

When guns are added to the library, they are technically classed as "destroyed".

When firearms are actually destroyed, they are chopped up into small pieces. It's a far cry from earlier years where the guns were carted out on the police launch and dumped into the Cook Strait.

Staff in the armoury will spend their time rotating been the main sections of the armoury every six months.

That includes the forensic testing workshop, the library, and the national taser lab, where tasers are serviced and repaired.

Armourer Dan testing tasers in the national taser lab at the Police National Armoury. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The majority of staff in the armoury are non-sworn, but all have special training, mostly in the military. Formal training in weapons maintenance is a requirement for the role.

The armoury also provides operational support to police, including firearm inspections.

What it doesn't provide is expert advice on the aforementioned impending zombie apocalypse.

Quirke remains tight-lipped on which firearm he'd choose to protect himself against a horde of the undead.

"I probably wouldn't [pick a gun]. I'd just make sure I had a water supply and stay in the dungeon," he says.

Spoken, of course, with a confidence of a man who has access to a rocket launcher if he really needs it.