Plastic Rifles
What are the "4 plastic rifles" listed in the evidence logs?
Evidence item #2741 is described as "4 plastic rifles" found in the SW parking lot. (Evidence, p.11340)
It's been speculated that these were four fake weapons carried by additional shooters during the attack. However, a more likely scenario is that these are the four fake weapons Eric Harris kept in his car. Eric's fake guns, which included a couple of potato guns, were packaged together and displayed in the evidence exhibit. They were likely found together.
These are the prop guns Eric and Dylan used in some of their home videos.
It's very possible that these 4 items were called "plastic rifles" for convenience.
[See: Evidence Locator for item number ranges based on where evidence was found.]
Where were they found?
The 4 plastic rifles were recovered by Investigator Rick Recker (11k, pp.9971-9974), who was on team 3. He noted them as being found in the SW parking lot, not in Eric's car. Items recovered from the parking lot were assigned evidence numbers 2700-2999, which covers #2741 - the "4 plastic rifles."
Vehicles in general, and Eric and Dylan's vehicles were assigned different sets of numbers.
Vehicles in general were assigned 4600-4623.
Dylan's vehicle was assigned 4627-4650 and 6000-6044.
Were the plastic rifles ditched by additional suspects?
The fact that the 4 plastic rifles were found in the parking lot has led to the speculation that they were ditched by additional suspects. However, they appear to have been recovered near Eric's car, which makes it more likely that the bomb squad removed them during their search and efforts to disrupt the bombs in Eric's car. After the bomb squad was done, team 3 searched the vehicle and found the toy guns on the ground nearby.
The bomb squad and team 3 searched both of their vehicles.
Team 3 was also responsible for searching the parking lot.
There are two sets of evidence numbers attributed to items found in Dylan's BMW, one for each team that searched it:
6000-6044 (Team 3)
4627-4650 (Bomb)
For Eric's car, we'd expect to have two sets of evidence numbers, one for each team who searched his car, but we only have a number span for the items recovered by the bomb squad:
6075-6090 (Bomb)
There should be a separate section from team 3 for evidence found in Eric's car, but there isn't.