GunLab

AR-18s

The pictures of this rifle was sent to us from Mr. H.F., a friend of gun lab.

This AR18S made by sterling for Armalite Costa mesa. This and a AR180 were the first two sterling guns into USA. Difference from an American AR18S:

Serial number is AS033 – their meaning Automatic Shorty…033rd gun made, not 33rd Shorty. The only gun in USA with that type serial number. A=Auto, S= semi and this one.
Top receiver stamped AR18S , not like the American AR18S where nothing to mean a shorty.
the barrel is about an 1 inch longer
different style flash hider
Flash hider has a front sling rotating clip
Op rod has a sling clip on it.
straight pull charging handle
the Front pistol grip has a different style screw in block.
A tad different, front hand guard cap

The selector and markings

The different type cocking handle

Barrel proof markings

The different British style flash suppressor

Fire control group

See how the “S” is marked

Manufacture markings

A close up of the selector markings

Thanks for sharing these pictures of a rare and beautiful rifle

The Golden Age of Gun Information.

This is truly the Golden Age of Gun Information. First there are all the great sites on the internet dealing with gun collecting.

Like Forgotten weapons, located here:

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/

also Historical Firearms,located here:

http://www.historicalfirearms.info/

As well as C&Rsenal,located here:

http://candrsenal.com/rifle-italian-carcano-m1891/

Then there are specialty sites like this one dealing with the Carcano rifle.

http://personal.stevens.edu/~gliberat/carcano/

And The Italian Carcano rifle site

http://milpas.cc/rifles/ZFiles/Italian%20Rifles/The%20ITALIAN%20CARCANO%20RIFLE/The%20ITALIAN%20CARCANO%20RIFLE.htm

Carcano home page

http://the-puzzle-palace.com/files/carcano.html

And there are great new books that have just come out or coming out.

I remember when the only information was “small arms of the world” or “Janes infantry weapons” Then Collector grade came on to the seen and things really started to change for the better.

Still information was lacking on the weapons that people had little interest in. Even now that has changed. Take for instance the Carcano rifle. There was nothing written about it forever. Now look at the information available.

My first book that I found on the Carcano was the paper back book by Richard(Dick) Hobbs. I bought mine from Dick over 30 years ago. It was a gold mine of information that was not any where else. There are just a few black and white pictures. The majority of the pictorial references are line drawings.

Next while overseas I happen to come across an Italian book on this same weapon. The original engineering drawings in the book are hard to read,yet the information available is priceless.

I don’t read Italian but the pictures and information in this book is invaluable.

Then two separate books have come out in the last couple of years. This book not only covers the Carcano rifle but it is one of the few references to early semi auto rifles from Italy. There is also information of handguns and sub machine guns.https://www.amazon.com/Italian-Small-First-Second-World/dp/0764345834/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465625103&sr=1-1&keywords=italian+small+arms

This book has some really great original photos of the Carcano rifle in use as well interesting accessories.

http://ironlegions.weebly.com/book-on-carcano-rifles-italys-battle-rifle.html

Now a new book has come out that I just received. I am going to tell you right now that this book is GREAT!

The color pictures are really very good and some of the information in this book I have never seen anywhere else. Take for example the post I made a while back about the engraved and gold plated presentation rifle. This book has 5 pages dealing with this rifle only.

https://www.amazon.com/Model-1891-Carcano-Rifle-Developmental/dp/0764350811/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1465624852&sr=8-3&keywords=The+Carcano

With a price tag of less then 40.00 on Amazon you will not find a better deal anywhere.

This is truly the Golden age of gun information.

Building the semi auto MP-44 part 5

This is another update on Pete’s project of making a semi auto MP-44.

In this post Pete goes over making the replacement pieces for the lower receiver area.

As with everything in the making of this rifle there is a great deal of trial and error.

It is interesting to see the tooling that Pete make to do the work necessary to complete the task.

There is a great deal of hand fitting and filing in this project.

It is looking better and better.

Pete is a master metal smith. I am impressed with the quality of the work that he has done on this project.

Making a Chauchat magazine box

This last weekend was extremely busy, I ended up working all day Saturday and over 1/2 of Sunday at my primary business so not much time in the shop. That with the fact that it was 115degrees and no A/C in the shop meant not much time for projects.

However with the above said, some where on the internet I came across some pictures of a chap making a magazine box for a Chauchat. Having a Chauchat I really wanted one to hold the few magazines that I have. Now the pictures were great, but there were no measurements so a great deal of guessing went on, The second thing I had to deal with is that I just wanted to make an example and not an exact reproduction, at least not yet. I needed to work out all the details of the design first. I made mine over the weekend and used available materials that I had on hand. I can tell that the thickness of my basic material is wrong and my measurements are also wrong. That now being said it did give me the information I needed to now redesign my solid model and make a correct box.

This is an original box that he used to pattern his new box after.

A couple of side views.

The latch that locks down the lid

A look at the rope handle

The hinge and latch views.

So this was my quick weekend project. I just wanted to make a quick copy that I couple obtain measurements from.

I have hinges and a latch to go on it for temporary use. The side were made from an old kitchen cabinet that I demo. The ends, bottom and top came from Axel,a friend of gun lab, on his last trip over here.

So my next step is to draw it up in solid works and make on with the proper look.

Interesting belt fed AR

A while back I had the opportunity to photograph a very rare and unusual rifle. It is a shorty AR carbine that has been converted to belt fed. This little toy would be a power house of fun. I don’t have any additional information on the rifle.

A close up view of the left side of the receiver.

A different angle of the feed system.

The bottom of the feed system and lower receiver

A close up of the hand guard, flash hider and barrel

An interesting weapon from the Reed Knight Collection

The book “Fabricacion De Fusiles”

A while back I was able to obtain a few books that I did not have in the reference library. I have a thing about not only gun books but also machining and manufacturing books. So what could be better then a book about manufacturing guns. This book was written in 1899 and is about the making of the Mauser rifle in Spain. It is not the complete set of books dealing with the manufacturing of the rifle just the pictorial reference of the tooling and machinery necessary to make it. Generally the rest of the set would be the step by step operation as well as a set of drawings.

In the book ” Argentine Mauser Rifles 1871-1959″ in chapter 24 you can see what the rest of the set would look like.

This is one of those books you should have in your library and can be gotten off of Amazon, here is the link, http://www.amazon.com/Argentine-Mauser-Rifles-1871-1959-Schiffer/dp/0764318683/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465095246&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=Argenyine+mauser+rifles.

Another book that actually deals with the Springfield rifle is “Manufacture of the Model 1903 Springfield service rifle”.

Also available from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Manufacture-Model-Springfield-Service-Rifle/dp/0935632204/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465095608&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=Manfacture+of+the+model+1903+springfield+service+rifle

This is the book that I just picked up.

Basically this book is the pictorial reference to the machines and tooling necessary to make the Mauser rifle.

The dimension on the drawings are for the fixture sizes.

Most of the pages deal with line drawings of what the tool, fixture or machine would look like.

Even down to the type of cutters you would use.

It is an interesting reference in the building of the Mauser rifle.

3D Printer

After seeing what Orin, a friend of gun lab, was able to accomplish with his printer I decided to take the plunge and obtain one for myself. I had previously look at this same model of printer a couple of years ago, however at 2500.00 it was out of my price range. At a cost of 270.00 plus shipping it was now in my price range and cheaper then the build it yourself models. Is it perfect no, but it does make a nice product.

It came package in a big heavy duty cardboard box.

With lots of great packing inside.

And with more boxes inside to hold the misc items.

Yet will all this careful packing some of the plastic parts were broke.

Saturday and part of Sunday morning was use to make new aluminum replacement parts. A quick drawing was made in solid works and it was out to the manual mill to make them.

Now this is a simple part to make , the base took a little more effort. It actually took longer then it was suppose to because I lost the first set I made. We spent a couple of hours this morning looking for them. So I now have spares when I find them.

The first action was to make a new base and install it.

In the process of doing that I managed to break another plastic part. It was not worth using any of the plastic components so everything was re-made into aluminum.

I am now back on track to getting the printer to work.

Chile contract type 92 HMG

A while back I was able to snap a few pictures of an interesting contract heavy machine gun made for Chile. It is basically a Japanese type 92 in 7×57 Mauser. sorry about this fist photograph, bad lighting.

close up of the top cover

An interesting piece.

These photo’s were taken at Reed Knight’s collection.

CNC router update

Some work was accomplished on the CNC router over this long weekend. The angle bracket was machined for all the connectors to attach to. I was going to wire the plugs up but found out that the wire we have is not the correct type, it is on order no for next weekend.

Here are the pictures of the angle bracket that was made.

Just as a reminder this is where it will set on the side panel of the cnc router.

Beretta AR-70 magazine modifications

A couple of years ago I bought a Beretta AR-70 rifle for the reference collection. This was before the availability of replacement magazines for the rifle. Because of the total lack of spare magazines in this country people came up with ingenious ideas to modify existing magazines to allow them to shoot there rifles. I find it interesting to see how they did the modification. You never know about the future and what it holds for available magazines.

For those of you that may not know what an AR-70 rifle is, here are a couple of pictures of the weapon.

When I bought my rifle it came with a modified AR-15 magazine. So this is my first example of magazine modification.

What was done was to weld a piece of aluminum to the front and side of the magazine. Then they attached a locking notch on the rear of the magazine. The strip that was weld on the front allowed for positioning the magazine in the front of the magazine well for proper feeding. This was had fitted after it was welded on.

A couple of close up pictures of the conversion. You will notice that the side spacer was welded on one side one. Even doing this the magazine worked correctly.

You can also see that no magazine stops are present on the side of the magazine.

Later I was able to obtain original rifle magazines. This is what an original AR-70 magazine looks like.

This close up shows the magazine stops and what the magazine latch block looks like.

A close up review of this magazine shows four components for the magazine body. The right and left sides of the body, the wrap around upper support assembly with the feed lips incorporated into it as well as the stops that are pressed in. The final part that was added was the magazine latch block of the rear of the magazine.

Pete, a friend of Gun Lab, sent this AR-15 magazine modification. This is a very nicely done conversion. It allows the magazine, with a bit of work, to be converted back to its original design. What was done with this magazine was to make a sheet metal housing to fit around the original AR-15 magazine to allow it to fit and operate in an AR-70 magazine housing.

You can see in this picture that the housing was hand fitted to the rifle.

You will notice that with the fitted housing that the front of the sheet metal has been machined away to allow proper fit into the rifle as well as allowing for proper lock up in the front of the magazine well.