GunLab

The Winchester self loading rifle part 1

I happen to enjoy all types of firearms. From single shot to machine gun. From civilian to military and caliber does not matter. Generally I like to chat about projects we are working on or building small arms, but this series of posts are going to be about the Winchester self loading rifle. The first post will deal with the Model 1903 self loader and its successors the Winchester model 63 and the Taurus copy of the model 63.

When the Winchester model 1903 first came out 22lr ammunition was not of the same quality as 22 ammo is today. In fact a large portion of it still used black powder as its propellant. Therefore to insure a rifle that would work properly and not gum up due to the residue that black powder leaves behind a new cartridge was developed. This cartridge was the 22 Winchester automatic. This round fired a 45 grain lubricated lead bullet with a muzzle velocity of 1055 fps and a muzzle energy of 111 ft-lbs.

The picture above shows the difference between the two cartridges.

This rifle used a tubular magazine. The clip as we know today was not developed unit 1919. Loading ammunition while shooting all three of the rifles was easily accomplished, but care had to be taken to insure that the round were dropped in properly.

The production of the model 1903 rifle ended in 1932 with Winchester making a little over 120,00 units.

The curve of the butt stock was more along the lines of a lever action and not a semi-auto rifle.

By 1932 22 ammunition improved in quality enough that the rifle was re-design for this caliber and the model designation was changer to model 63. All together approximately 175,000 were made and sold.

Still using the rear tubular magazine and not magazine fed.

The front nose cap remained the same.

However, now the butt stock was more into the design of a semi-auto rifle and checkered.

The third rifle is not a Winchester but a Taurus copy, also called the model 63.

You can see that changes were made to the feed slot for the tubular magazine. The slot is longer and at a much more gradual taper.

The same basic nose cap was kept.

The butt stock and plate were once again changed.

Weekend update 5-11-15

Most of this weekend was spent taking pictures for up coming write ups and going through some 1480 scans, I just got back from the scanning company, to organize them. But, some other projects were accomplished as well. The first was a new pad for the a/c unit for the cnc room. The compressor is currently located in the band saw room. However, there is to much heat build up in this room. The air compressor, air dryer, and a/c compressor exceeded the max heat load. So a new footer and stem wall was built. Here are a couple of quick pictures.

This was done the old fashion way.

Next I made a couple of hole down nuts for the cnc router mdf board.

Sunday was spent on more picture taking and working on the wire edm. The first item on that list was getting the coolant tank up on a new set of wheels.

I just have to get the tank and pumps on this rolling tool stand.

You can see the tilt due to a broken wheel bracket.

This was accomplished with a cherry picker

After a little work it finally came to pass.

Next came the task of hooking it all back up.

There were wires and plugs to connect everything. After this it was time to hook up power and see if the controller still worked. Then it hit. The transformer tripped its breaker. So after a little trouble shooting it was determined that the transformer is bad.

So if anyone knows where I can get a 230 to 200 3 phase isolation transformer rated a 7KVA please let me know.

Sunday answer 5-10-15

What you are looking at is the spigot stem to a “Bigot”. For those of you not familiar with this weapon it is a dart firing adapter for a 1911 pistol.

The front of the shaft showing the tip of the firing pin.

rear view showing the back of the firing pin

side view of the base. It has the dimensions of a 45 acp.

back view of the base

complete assembly

The base and shaft installed in barrel

Rear view of the dart

This is how the dart would look pushed on to the shaft

As it would look in the pistol ready to fire

A cross section of the entire dart.

What is it Saturday 5-9-15

Another hard one, but it is a gun part.

Archive Photo of the Lowell Gun

Here are two pictures of a Lowell gun. It came out during the time of the Gatling, Nordenfelt and Gardener gun but at the very end of that time period. Only a few were ever made and I was lucky to photograph this one before the museum closed.

Some where in the archives I have more pictures and will post them at a later date.

From the days of 35mm photography.

Cut away Tokarev TT-33

This weeks cut away in the Tokarev Model TT-33. DSC_5019cs

Magazine manufacturing

In this post we are going to look at making a magazine. In this case a 22lr pistol magazine. This magazine was stamped out on a progressive stamping die. In a machine that would look like this.

Not for the home shop.

So lets take a look at the steps that would be required to make a magazine. Starting from a role of steel metal to the final product. The sheet steel is removed from its coil and fed into the stamping machine. The process start with the initial cut and a pilot hole or holes that serves as a locator hole for following steps in the process.

This is the stamping strip from start to finish. So lets take a closer look at the individual steps.

First step. Initial cut of the magazine and two pilot hole for locating the sheet metal for the next step.

Second step. In this step you can see that the second hole is removed as the top of the magazine is finished cut.

Third step. This starts the initial bends

Fourth step. Now we are in the pressing of the ribs of the magazine.

Fifth step. Another bend step.

Sixth step. This is a bend step for the bottom of the magazine

Seventh step. Here you can see that the slot has been punched in for the follower button.

Eight step. The folding over of the magazine

Ninth step

Tenth step. The magazine stamping is separated from the strip and being set up for welding

Eleventh step. At this point the magazine is machined welded.

Twelfth step. The tab are now cut off and for all practical purposes the magazine body is complete

All that is required after this to verify fit and do your quality control inspection

Updates for the last two weekends.

Last Sunday was a much easier day. It was a large amount of fixing things as well as shop work.

The A/C went out in the house so testing was conducted and it was found that the evaporator fan went out. Time was spent on removing it to get a replacement today. Then the bad luck just continued. Both a/c’s went out in the machine shop and had to be repaired. I finished the electrical to the spot welder and got them running.

Also finished the insulating and putting on wood covers to the spot welder room doors, this should cut down the heat load through the doors a great deal.

Because of some missing parts we went through the machine shop, the metal storage room, the 20′ container and the 40′ container with a fine tooth comb. I mean to say that every cabinet, box, container, plastic bag and drawer was gone through, not once but three times by three different people. This has been an on going project which reached a head this last week with no work being done other then looking for the missing parts. We moved desks, cabinets and work benches. So by the time this was all done everything was a disaster. Saturday was spent putting to 40′ container back together again. Here are a few before pictures.

This is a lot of cabinets to go through.

After we finished going through and cleaning up and putting away everything this is what it looks like now.

All the cabinets have been labeled.

I made bottoms for the library index card cabinets so they are now being used from odd parts, like the barrel for an Astra 400 or the bolt from a Winchester 73 bolt and feed ramp, any parts that did not require a large cabinet to store them in.

We fixed a problem with the table saw and then cut a 3/4 mdf board for the cnc router.

I also finished the air system in the fab shop. Done and I am quitting for the weekend.

Just a quick update on the VG1-5 project 5-2-15

All the firing pins for the VG1-5, the Star pistol and the M1930 Sauer have been sent to heat treat. The buffer pins are there as well. The spot welder have been wired up and the coolant system will be finished this weekend. The first rifle was sent a while ago to Greg who took it to the first testing facility for ATFE approval. The second one will be out when the parts come back from heat treat. We will be spot welding the receivers together soon and all the material for the bolts is here and going on the lathe for the first op in the near future.

My work load has dropped of a little which helps and I hope to be back making regular posts soon.

This weekend is full of mandatory maintenance projects to get the shop back in order.

That is all for now.

Making the 1930 Sauer firing pins

I went to do a little shooting on a few weapons in my collection that I have never fired only to find out that the firing pins were broken. In this case the pistol that I had taken out was a Sauer model 1930 32acp pistol. For some odd reason I happen to have three of these cute little pistols and two of them had broken firing pins. Now it was off to the computer to design up a new firing pin. Getting into this project it was determined that with three of the same pistols that there were 2 different sizes of firing pins. This is a video of the making of the firing pins.