GunLab (KnownHost) » Gardner gun

A quick Gun Lab update

Chuck — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 19:53:40 +0000

I have to say that I am sorry about the lack of posts. In my defense I must say that my full time business and what actually supports me and Gun Lab has been hectic and very busy. It has been so busy that this is my first lunch break in two weeks. Starting my day at 4:30 am to get out the door and not getting home until 8 or 9 at night has made it tough to write any posts.

Here are a list of up coming posts that I have been working on but not finished:

The range report from the test on the No.1MK3 410 single shot shotgun

The update on the fluting press with pictures

The VG1-5 firing pin and problems associated with making it.

An article on the Haenel single shot 22lr rifle.

The next installment on the bushmaster pistol.

A photo essay on the Holek rifle.

A write up on the Walther 22 semi auto 22lr rifle

A couple of video’s that still need to be edited.

All this and still more like the Winchester self loading rifle, the week end update, Portuguese AR-10 and a few more single shot rifles as well as the Cetme L project and the Gardner gun build by Joe.

I will be taking off next weekend to take a quick trip to work.

Gardner Gun Manual

Ian — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 13:47:54 +0000

Today’s post is going back to the Gardner Gun. These are a series of manuals for both the Pratt& Whitney and the British/Dutch manuals.

Pratt & Whitney Gardner Gun Manual

Dutch Gardner manuals

British Gardner manual (b/w)

British 2-barrel Gardner manuals (1886 & 1894)

British 1-barrel and 5-barrel Gardner manuals

Making the miniture Gardner Gun “The Receiver”

Chuck — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 08:00:02 +0000

In this post we will start with the making of a miniature Gardner Gun. The very first step that Joe did was to find someone with a Gardner Gun that would allow him to study and measure it. That was no easy task but one that he prevailed at. Joe spent a number of months just taking measurements of a full size Pratt and Whitney model Gardner Guns and converting them into a solid model in solid works. After gathering the information on a full size weapon he started the process of converting it to 22lr. His first attempt upon completion of the drawings was to make up a wooden mock up to get the basic concept to work from.

With this he had a starting point. Now it was time to convert all the data he had collected into semi working plastic model. This allowed for the checking of dimensions and operation of the weapon. It was also hoped that this would also provide the pattern for the castings. That would not be the case.

It was now time to self-educate himself on wooden pattern making and metal shrinkage. After a number, it took three attempts, of patterns he finally came up with a design that would cast properly. A number of problems that you will generally not find in books occurred. A few of the examples are getting the metal to flow properly, is the casting area to thin. How do you hold the cast part to machine it. Is there enough metal to machine away the rough surface. Is there to much metal causing extra machine time. Is the metal going to sringe to much causing an out of spec casting.

This is the wood pattern for the outside shape of the Gardner gun.

This pattern is for making the core mold. It took a number of attempts for this core mould as well

After casting the raw bronze casting with the sprues cut off would look like this.

In our next post we will go into the work necessary to machine it.

Gardner Gun part 2

Chuck — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 13:43:26 +0000

In Part two of the Gardner Gun we are going discuss the 2 barrel Gardner Gun in depth and go over the differences between the English model and the American model, the Pratt and Whitney. Looking at the different patents filed by W. Gardner and E .G .Parkhurst in the years of 1879, 1880, 1881 and 1884 you can start to see the directions that each weapon went. We will start with the 1879 patent filed by W. Gardner. In the pictures that are filed with the patent you can see the cocking and bolt mechanism used in the English model as well as the ejectors and feed shuttle.

This is a close up of the firing mechanism and firing pin spring.

This is a English model.

Now looking at the patents filed in 1880 by E. G. Parkhurst you can see the differences in the design used in the American, Pratt and Whitney model. This is the improved model. The feed was now controlled instead of just gravity.

The firing pin spring is a coil spring instead of a v spring.

The ejection in through the bottom instead of out the side

This is the American ,Pratt and Whitney, model.

In the next installment we will go into the making of the miniature Gardner gun.

Sunday answer 11-30

Chuck — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 03:34:15 +0000

It is the hand crank cam for a single barrel Gardner Gun. And you are correct. It is a British gun in 303.

A view of the crank cam.

A view of the complete weapon.

Making the Gardner gun Part 1

Chuck — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 08:00:57 +0000

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.

Library Thursday

Chuck — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 08:00:25 +0000

First off you can see that we changed the title for the Thursday post from book review to library. This was done because I wanted to add more then just book reviews. I wanted to add information to the Gun Lab library that I thought would be useful to you.

So this first post is from a friend of mine that wants to remain anonymous. So for this post we just call him Joe. Joe had the opportunity to have every piece of brass test that he had that was attached to a weapon. This included Maxim guns, Nordenfelt weapons, Gardner guns and any thing else he could find. This is that report. I found it interesting and very useful. I hope you do to.

Bronze Composition Analysis document