Police in Port Richmond last week confiscated 36 guns and crystal methamphetamine worth more than $17,000 at the home of a suspected drug dealer.

According to Lt. Frank Vanore, a police spokesman, the weapons - 19 pistols, 17 rifles, including a homemade "zip gun" - were found after an undercover field unit entered the home of John Connell, 37, on the 3000 block of Salmon St.

Vanore said that, after surveillance of the property, the raid was made at about 6:20 p.m. on the night of Sunday, Oct. 4.

"Through the course of the investigation, they made entry and discovered all these guns," said Vanore.

Among the many guns was a homemade .50-caliber rifle, which Vanore called a "zip gun."

Zip guns are improvised weapons, often made of iron piping, and usually rudimentary at best and are most often able to fire just one round.

"In the old days, they called them zip guns," said Vanore. "It was actually pretty neat. It's pretty sophisticated. It would have been able to fire."

Also in the home, Vanore said that narcotics officers uncovered a cache of crystal meth worth more than $17,000 along with a small amount of marijuana and an undisclosed amount of cash.

Also arrested at that time was Fern Goldberg, 50, who was in the house at the time of the raid.

Connell and Goldberg were charged with criminal conspiracy, drug possession, possessing an instrument of crime and related offenses.

This isn't Connell's first run in with the law.

According to court documents, in 1990, Connell was convicted of third-degree murder after shooting Northeast Philly resident, Thomas Feeney on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 1988.

According to an article published in The Inquirer at the time, Connell shot Feeney in the chest with a rifle after a short struggle at the intersection of Pennypack Circle in Northeast Philadelphia.

Reporter Hayden Mitman can be reached at 215-354-3124 or hmitman@phillynews.com