GunLab

Christmas Spirit

We here at Gun Lab are not any thing if we are not about Christmas Spirit. During the holiday time we always like to decorate in a festive mode. This is the Christmas tree we had a few years ago.

a close up of the same tree.

You get to guess what it is.

This year we have a smaller gun tree.

It is to hard to put the real ones on the tree. However, I did make a few decorations.

I hope everyone has a great holiday.

Last week was a really long week, most days leaving the house between 5:30 and 6:30am and not getting home until between 7 to 9 pm at night. Just shot. Saturday I went back to a guys shop that was selling some equipment off. I spent 3 hours or so there looking through boxes that he packed away 10 years ago. It was a bunch of wood working equipment that he wanted to get rid of. So like any crazy person I bought way to much of it.

The shaper and the spindle sander both worked and just need a good cleaning.

The clamps were a great find. The cost was less then 7.00 a set.

And the little fly press was just to cute to pass by.

Got home and then went to look at a cnc router for the shop.

I started Sunday working on a clamp rack to hole the now newly acquired clamps.

Then to round out the day a friend stopped by from Germany. We spent the day chatting about guns and I started cleaning them as we chatted. Good weekend but not enough done, just to tired.

Sunday Answer 12-21

These are the factory set of head space gauges for the AR-10 rifle from Holland.

The set with some of the gauges removed

The markings on the chamber gauge as marked on the block as well.

Just a couple of pictures to show the rifle.

What is it Saturday 12-20

Friday post

No post today, sorry. Got home at 9pm and left at 6:30. No time tomorrow is a new day Friday post

Compoment gun boards

I have a big thing about build boards. This is a board showing all the steps in building a weapon. It can be a simple and basic board or it can be a complex board. To me it is like cut away weapons,another sickness of mine and another post. So for today’s post I want to show you a couple of boards that I photographed in Belgium and one I made. Unfortunately the lighting was poor and my photographic skills lacking so a number of them did not come out.this first set is from Belgium and deals with a number of weapons. I promise that the next trip the pictures will be better.

This is one I made. I bought all the parts for three pistols and made a great board. It is of the Liberator pistol.

This one is of the 10 round magazine for the VG1-5. A friend of mine made it.If you have any pictures of build boards please drop me a line as I would like to share them. This is a great way of learning how weapons are made. I would also love to see pictures of weapons manufacturing.

M-1 Garand receiver

In keeping with the M-1 Garand posts here and at The firearms Blog, http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/12/16/making-m1-garand/. I though I would provide a couple of pictures of what the receiver looked like after it was forged and with the flashing cut off.

First the side views.

Now the top view.

Finally the bottom view. The amount of work to go from this to a working receiver is enormous.

Here are a few pictures after it has been partially machined, actually far enough along to have a serial number on it.

Again the side views.

The top view. As of yet the receiver has not been marked with the manufacture’s name.

And the bottom view.

Still more work to do on it.

AR-16 update and its smaller brother

I have a thing about the AR-16. I remember reading about it when I was a great deal younger. It is a 308 rifle built using a sheet metal receiver, some what like an AR-180. In fact it is the AR-180 father. Here is a quick picture of the only two know to exist anymore.Both of them are in Reed Knights collection. I have just learn about another series of weapons that were made in prototype form and never massed produced. The AR-100. This is a .223 rifle based upon the AR-16 rifle. Never heard of it in any of the books or publications.

If anyone has any information concerning this series of rifles please contact me. I would love to get pictures of them.

Weekend update 12-14

Well another fun filled weekend has come and gone. A variety of projects were tackled and some minor accomplishment was achieved. The hole in the wood shop wall was filled in and sheet rocked over. Next weekend I will complete it and get it painted.

I have started moving equipment around in the fab shop for a concrete pour and some new equipment. This complete move project because I was able to get a pair of heavy equipment moving skates cheap. I answered an add for a wood shaper and while I was there found this set of 4 skates for 150.00. They were in rough shape and once I brought them home it took the better part of the day to get them cleaned out and operational.

Wit these I wa now able to move the punch press.

But like everything in my shop you have to move twenty other things just to move the one item that you needed to move. In this case I started with an old lathe that I was going to use as a deep hole drilling set up. I finally realized that with all the other projects I have going on that I would not get to that project in this life time. So first the lathe was moved and is being sent to the scrape yard.

Next on the to do move list was to move the old drill press to a different location. Moving it was not much fun as the center of gravity and it’s base did not allow for the use of skates. I used the engine hoist instead.

With it out of the way it was time to jack up the punch press and start moving it.

This was accomplished with a pinch bar, chain and come along.

Good thing that vise is in 2 foot of concrete. Next was the fun part. The pinch bar.

Way to much fun.

After I finished moving the punch press it was on to the horizontal milling machine.

With it in place I went back to the drill press and with a couple of neighbors, who were foolish enough to come over and help, we managed to get it up and into place.

With the moving project over it was on to the spot welder. It has been giving us some problems so with a little trouble shooting and cleaning I got it back working today.

The last project for the weekend was the fluting press. It came back down off of the forging press.

Wen back into the shop and tapped a few more holes that were missed the first time around. Then the cylinder was taken apart and the new heat treated all thread was cut and installed. All that is left to do in machine and install a mechanical stop in the cylinder.