GunLab (KnownHost) » AR-16

Answers to the post of 11-29

Chuck — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 14:14:35 +0000

The first question that would needed to be answered is what do all these parts have in common. That answer would be up coming projects at Gun Lab.

The Cetme, H&K, 05 , G-41 G-43 and 03 pictures is for the 05 project we are working on. The fire control group is changing to be a copy of the 03 rifle. The safety will be going back to a G-41/G-43/03 type. The magazine will be more in line with The G-43 /03 type. There is a great deal of design work that needs to go on to make the rifle.

The AR-10 bolt is for the AR-16 rifle that is next on the list of rifles that we will be building.

I like single shot rifles and with a friend on mine (Orin) we are working on making usable drawings of a number of them.

I have a Scottie rifle that someone sporterized the stock. Ian from forgotten weapons let me borrow his parts so I could make the correct ones for my rifle.

The destroyer and AR-70 parts are for my rifles and needed to be repaired and measured.

Last but not least is the EM-2 bolt which is being reversed engineered to try and correct a few problems with the rifle design.

On to the pictures.

Interesting AR-18 tool

Chuck — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 08:00:19 +0000

It is not often that most people think how something was done in the “Old Days” but I do. Lots of times you can not reproduce a part using modern machinery with a great deal of work. The “Old Days” I am talking about is not the 1600,1700, 1800, but the middle 1900’s. I just received some real interesting pictures on making the AR-18 bolt carrier. Did you ever thing how they made the bolt cam track on an early AR-18. This is the days before cnc machining. This is the tool used to make the cam in the bolt carrier for the first prototype rifles.

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, it is how they cam. If anyone knows the were about of this tool please contact me. I would like to take better pictures.

Gun Lab update

Chuck — Wed, 13 May 2015 08:00:50 +0000

Not a big post for today, just an update on the projects we are working on.

First and most important is the VG1-5 project. I received a call this afternoon late that the firing pins can be picked up from the heat treating firm. With this last piece we can send the second rifle to the ATFE for final testing. The second item on the VG project is that all the receiver flats are in the spot welding room and as soon as we modify the spot welders they will be on the line to finish. That will be this week.

The drawings for the MP-44 trunnions are solid modeled and material is ordered so we can finish that project.

The Japanese type 96 and 99 magazines have taken a step back. The first two stamping dies did not work as planed and we needed to send the magazines back. They are still on the drawing board as I need them for my own guns.

The AR-16 is still being solid modeled. We are getting closer but still more time is needed to finish this project. I only work on it when I have spare time and we know how that goes.

A member of our family here at Gun Lab located me an isolation transformer and with that I hope to get the wire edm powered up.

We have been doing a reverse engineering project on a German WW2 machine gun which is coming along nicely and I hope to have drawings in the near future and a solid model shortly after that. This project has been a real ball buster, but with the use of the schools cmm we are getting close now.

I am currently work on a few write ups for the site. Part 2 of the Winchester self loaders should be dome this week, a friend , O.H., is sending me some interesting photo’s and scan’s on a few weapons to post and the third installment on the Bushmaster pistol is in final editing.

This should answer all the questions that have shown up in my in basket. If there are any other question please feel free to drop me a line.

I do need help with a project though. I need manuals for the wire EDM. I am concerned that the batteries have died in the controller and I am going to have to reset the parameters. This machine came with no manuals at all. Here are a few pictures of the panels and model numbers.

Xerox copies are fine. I just need to learn about the parameters and set up of this machine. Thanks everyone for helping.

With nothing else going on I am going to hit the rack, tomorrow is another fun filled day for me.

More on the AR-16

Chuck — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 12:51:28 +0000

As we were putting books, files and magazines up in the new library I came across a few interesting concept pictures on the AR-16. The rifle was design to be convertible to different calibers.

This first picture is from an old magazine showing a line drawing of the concept.

This concept will work because the pivot point between the upper and lower receiver is behind the magazine and not in front of the magazine.

This last picture actually came from a pile of Armalite documents. It shows the notes concerning the various caliber conversions.

New tool for the wood shop

Chuck — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 08:00:51 +0000

A while back a gent passed away and his wife was left with a cnc router. A friend of mine had loaned him the money for the router so the wife let him take the router as payement. Long story short he had no use for the router and a little trading went on and now this sets in my wood shop.

The table is 3’x5′ which is a perfect size for my little wood shop. All is not perfect though.As you can see there is no dust collector cabinet. This is something that has to be fixed as this little machine will put out more saw dust then I can clean in a week. The next problem is the support stand. It was not part of the original machine but something that was added later and poorly done as well. To give you an idea this is the cross support.

It was an aluminum extrusion for a window or door that was cut away to kind of fit and then screwed on to the base leg.

The aluminum leg would be fine if they were accurately marked and machines to fit the frame, but they were not. In addition they are not adjustable to allow proper leveling.

The good news is that it comes with a lot of tooling and tie downs and has mach3. I have had the opportunity to run this machine and it works great. The only machine improvement that I am going to make is raise the z axis to all the use of a 4th axis.

A few more pictures of the new toy.

I am hoping that this will be a great time saver for the stocks we have to make on the VG1-5 and 05 rifles as well as pattern making for the metal casting I need to do. For those of you that will ask, yes I could have used one of the cnc mills or machining centers to cut wood and I have. The problem with that is the oil that covers the machine tools is not good for the wood parts and the saw dust is not good for the coolant systems.

Solid model on the AR-16 rifle

Chuck — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 08:00:15 +0000

In my off time, work has been completed on the AR-16 upper receiver right side. In case you don’t remember this rifle it is a 308 predecessor of the AR-180. Only 4 were made and of those only 2 are known to exist. I had the opportunity to photograph one a while back at the Reed Knight collection.

Here is a close up of the receiver left side.

The right side.

A close up of the right side

Mr Knight was nice enough to let me look at and photograph them, however I doubt he will let me have one. As I really want one of these in my collection I have taken it upon my self to reverse engineer it to make me one. This is what I worked on this weekend between everything else.

More to come

Weekend update 1-5-15

Chuck — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 13:56:30 +0000

Well the new year is here and the holidays are over. It is time to get back into the routine of life. This last week was just that but a little longer. The first on the list was the honeydo’s project. My wife wanted a new kitchen faucet for Christmas ,seeing how the old one had cracked and died, and I got the pleasure of installing it. Now before any of you get on my case about buying a faucet for my wife for Christmas and not something like jewelry, witch I make, or cloths, which I would never guess at, she bought it her self. In fact she buys all the gifts because I have no since of humor shopping. This is a picture of the old faucet and you can see why it needed to go.

This what she bought to replace it.

Now the fun starts. There is nothing I like better then to get my old and over weight body down on the floor and try to squeeze into a small space and work.

Then to only find out none of the hoses match up between the old faucet and the new on. So a trip to home depot to buy the necessary components and back on the floor again and we end up with this.

While we are on the subject of honeydo’s my next door neighbor decided he needed a new tv. The large 63″ one in his bedroom just was not big enough so he bought a new one that was larger and was going to throw out his one year old one because it kept shutting down after 30 minutes or so. Because he had trouble moving it by himself he gave me a call and asked if I wanted it. Not one to turn down free stuff I said yes. It is now in the living room where it replace my 34″ set. And the timer has been reset so it operates great.

It took a while to get working and new cables have to be bought, as it is high def and our old one was not. I still can not get use to the size. It takes up the wall.

Now on to shop things. Most of this weekend was spent working in the wood shop and as the weather was a little chilly it was a good idea.

Yes, that is snow on the mountain behind my home.

Now, back to the wood shop. A couple of weeks ago I picked up some new, for me, wood working equipment. With the new additions I needed to make some changes to the shop. It seems a number of people question my sanity for getting additional wood working equipment when I spend most of my time in the machine shop. There are two good reasons for this. The first is that I need to make stocks and metal casting patterns for some of the gun projects were we are doing. The second is that I started a complete house remodel a few years back and got stopped at the kitchen. I bought a kitchen store display cheap but when I went back to buy the additional cabinets to finish the kitchen the costs were out in the “O MY God” price range. The same is true when we contacted a number of cabinet makers in the valley. Not to mention that I am now sure that cabinet makers are one step below used car sales men in honesty and integrity. So I have decided to make the remainder of the kitchen cabinets because I have nothing to do in my spare time.

So,with the new tool I got for Christmas I got busy.

I finished the back table for the table saw.

A cabinet needs to be built for inside the stand. That project is coming up as soon as I finish the drawings in solid works.

Then we move the radial arm saw to a new location to make it more user friendly and started build a larger table for it. This next series of pictures is that process.

We started with the old bench that I had in the shop, I got it out of a dumpster a while back and liked it. However it was to low for the saw and needed to be raised and there was a slight rise in the table so everything had to be hand fitted.

But by the end of the weekend we had it mostly finished. I need to pick up a 1.5″x2″x16′ long piece of steel to finish the job. This is how it looked when I stopped.

This weekend I also took a class for K. who is a professional photographer, and works for a top gun magazine, to try and improve my pictures. This is the photo I took at the beginning of the session.

And these are the same shots at the end of the session. I was lucky enough to be able to spend a few hours with her and learned a great deal. With any luck I will be able to do it again.

No photoshop magic was done on any of them.

And as they say in the infomercials, BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE.

I also spent time in the machine shop working on the new parts we just got in fro the laser cutter for the VG1-5 project. I finished the magazine release button and the strengthening plates for the receiver.

Magazine release buttons.

A complete write up will be coming in the next few days along with videos. I also spent more time on the AR-16 drawings to try and get that rifle finished up in solid works. Other then taking my wife out to the movie and a few clean up projects this was my weekend. Tomorrow I will post an update on the VG1-5 project and all the other projects we have been working on here at Gun Lab.

AR-16 update and its smaller brother

Chuck — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 08:00:39 +0000

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.

Thursday Library AR-16

Chuck — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 08:00:20 +0000

This post is about one the AR-16. To say that it is rare is an understatement. The only two known rifles are in the Reed Knight collections. Mr. Knight was nice enough to allow me to take some pictures of this interesting rifle.

A couple of close ups of the two different receivers.

These are some of the original photos used for the catalog.

Here is a patent drawing.

And this last picture is of the solid model I started on the upper receiver.