GunLab

Sunday Answer 11-23

As everyone guessed and even sent me an address for their web page it is an auto indexing tool to stamp sequential serial numbers. Such as is on the AR-18 or Bushmaster weapons.

example shown here.

What is it Saturday 11-22

This is not actually a gun part but used in making guns. This is going to be a hard one, good luck.

Part One of the Bushmaster Pistol

In this video I had the opportunity to chat with John D about his collection of Bushmaster pistols. This is part one of the multi part review of this interesting weapon.

Here are a few still pictures of this interesting first model sheet metal stamped upper pistol.

Close up of parts of the pistol.

Stay tune for the next video.

Making the VG1-5 cocking handle

In the following pictures of original VG1-5 one of the items that you will notice is that all the cocking handles look different and that they have been through some rough times.

So this is the cocking handle that we developed. The first thing that you will notice is the steel is just a little thicker. We are hoping to prevent the serious bending issue that we have seen in the original rifles. We are trying to keep it as the same basic shape of the original and it will be riveted as well.

This is the video showing how they are made.

And the close ups of the tooling to accomplish this task.

Some times simple tools are the best.

AR-180 part 3

In this write up we are going to look at the smaller parts and how they were made. The majority of the AR18/180 was a stamped weapon with minimal machined components. These are the stamped parts we are going to look at today.

The first part that we are going to look at is the magazine hold open lever.

Close up of the stamping strip.The actual part.The bending fixture.

Next is the dust cover.

What the stamped part looked like.

Next there is the lower receiver strengthening support.

First is the stamping strip.

Final part as it comes off of line.

This next part is the trigger stamping cut out.

This is the sear stamping cut out.

This is the butt stock attachment piece.

The final stamped piece we are going to look at is the scope base.And the actual stamped piece.

I hope you have enjoyed this little walk through stamping. Thanks for stopping by.

Making the Gardner gun Part 1

I enjoy making things, specifically guns and any thing associated with making guns. I also enjoy chatting with people who make guns or any thing dealing with that. I also love mechanical machine guns. That leads us to today’s topic.

A friend of mine really wanted a miniature Gardner gun and with none available took it upon himself to make one. In fact not only one but a number of them. He has since sold the complete operation and tooling but this is a little write up of the process it took to do it. I really wanted one of these and to complete the project, there was just a little problem, money. The amount of work required to make this weapon much less a miniature one was immense. There were no usable blue prints to work from. There were no patterns available. So to complete this project he had to first find a gun, reverse engineer it, draw it up in a modeling program ,then reduce all the components to make it in 22lr. This was a task only one person would even think of doing, Papa Joe.

The original Gardner guns were made in 577-450, 43 Spanish, 11mm dutch and just about every other military black powder cartridge and 45-70 then finally in 303 British and 6.5 Dutch, can’t remember where I saw this at. The weapon was used up to WW1 by the Dutch. It was even copied by the Nepalese in the form of the Bira Gun. It is a manually operated machine gun that came in one,two and five barrel versions.

On wheeled mounts.

A two barrel version with no jacket.

A two barrel version with a jacket.

This is what the hole in the top of a water cooled version looks like.

Then to the 5 barrel version.

A nice example.

It was a beautifully made piece of art. There are a number of varieties, as I have shown you some come with no jackets, some come with solid jackets and some come with open top water jackets. It is currently being reproduce by two different companies both as a bronze casting and as a fabricated steel one that is plated. No mater which model or style you look at they are just great. It was even made as a belt fed gun.

Papa Joe took it upon himself to make the most complicated one possible. The two barrel full jacketed water cooled version. Part 2 will continue on with this saga and go into a little more history.

Weekend update 11-17

As always there is to much to do and not enough time to complete all of it. First is the update to the addition to the wood shop. The door is hung and the roof is up. The roof and sides are epoxy and fabric covered, for the most part. One more day and I should have it complete. Here are a few pictures of the project as the end of Sunday.

And a quick look inside. I still have the dust collector ducting, the air piping and the lighting circuit to complete. After all that is complete I will insulate,sheet and sheet rock.

Talking about the wood shop. I was on a job and was chatting with the home owner and a piece of equipment in his garage and he gave it to me. So meet the new addition to the shop.

It is a router table with a real nice Porter Cable router. It is funny that I just bought the same router last week for 309.00. I sold the new one to my neighbor today.