I know that there have not been many posts this last year. Life and death has gotten in the way. However, work is still be done on the VG1-5 project. A great deal of testing has been accomplished and it looks like all the bugs have finally been worked out, keeping my fingers crossed on that.
Just so everyone knows there will posts in the future on the cnc router and its completion as well as it making the VG1-5 stocks. There are a number of weapons that have been worked on and a few designs that prototype have been built or 3d printed.
There is always construction projects going on here at Gun Lab. A number of additions have been made to the shop and new tools have been obtained or built. All of these have a post to go with them. I received a great deal of criticism on the posts concerning the building projects and to this I say don’t read them. Every building project or tool build is part of the bigger plan to design and build the weapons that I want. Room is always in short supply and showing a video of me filing to fix a broken part is not the least bit of fun or interesting. I will write and post what projects are going on and what I want to.
Most of the work being accomplished on the VG1-5 is hand work and parts fitting. With the cnc router completed we need to make some fixtures to finish the stocks and hand guards. The wood shop is in some serious disarray due to work going on in there, but it will be finished shortly.
All the rifles have been engraved, welded and straighten.
The upper receivers have been completed with the available parts.
Most of the rifles have had all the parts fitted. Still have 15 or so left to do. We are making barrels and any parts that are missing.
Our friend Axel made a table for Shirley to go on the new veranda that we have been working on. To go with the major theme of Gun Lab he made it from some of the Mauser rifles that we have a surplus of.
Starting with three of the Mauser rifles the first step was to get them cleaned up.
He then cut and re-welded the barrels to form an angle.
They were then mated together and welded to form a tripod table base.
Then a small table top was added to hold the morning coffee or the evening cocktails.
Shirley loves her table.
No quality Mauser rifle were hurt during this build.
With all the Mauser rifles that I picked up something needed to be done with them. I gave a couple to a friend of mine to do some playing around with. At the same time he asked for a couple of single stack AK magazines.
This is his project: Starting with one of the old, rusty Mauser rifles
We cut one of them apart to have a closer look at the condition of the inside of the receiver.
The locking lug area looked to be in good condition
The reason for cutting this particular rifle was the crack in the rear of the receiver
His is one of the Chinese Mauser receivers with fake FN markings but it cleaned up with minimal work.
He cut down the rusted barrel and threaded the inside to take a SKS barrel that did not have the gas port drilled in it.
Then he modified the magazine housing to accept a single stack AK magazine
He drilled and tapped the rear of the magazine housing to accept the magazine release lever spring and guide
and a single stack AK magazine was fitted to feed properly
A little work had to be done to the AK magazine for proper fit up due to the tolerances in the magazine.
The feeding and extraction was tested with dummy rounds.
Now he just needs to find an old sporterised Mauser stock to finish his project.
There are plenty of more Mauser projects here.
A comment from John D.,a friend of gun lab, concerning Chinese Mauser’s.
Chinese Mauser actions should always be proof tested before being used. Mukden (Shenyang) Arsenal was the only Chinese Mauser manufacturer that actually knew what it was doing and had stable processes (regardless of who was in charge) over their entire existence. Mukden was also colocated with the An Shang steel mill, the best in China during the Mauser era. The rest of Chinese Mauser producers were plagued by the vicissitudes of warlord culture. Mukden never used counterfeit identifications on their weapons to the best of my knowledge. A Mukden Model 1935 Mauser rifle compares well with the best from Europe.
This is a quick update. The first 5 finished VG1-5 rifles were at the SAR show and were quickly picked up by there owners. One of the Groto 6 rifles was also sold.
The whole week of events went great. It started with the pre-show shoot. This is just a little get together where the guests just have fun shooting machine guns as well as the latest rifles we have built.
In this case I brought out my Webley Fosbery and anyone that wanted to shoot it could.
In addition the Sterling and Bren gun were brought out making it a British weekend.
Thursday is vendor set up day and all the guests were at the show setting up. Friday through Sunday was the actual show. The general chat about the show was how good it was, actually my best show ever for both selling and buying. I obtain a number of books for the reference library, both at the show and the week prior. These are from the show.
And the ones ordered.
The reading material alone made the show a success for me. How ever at this show is when I generally spend my saved gun money. I was able to obtain a number of missing pieces for the reference collection. Three new rifles were added.
A sporter 1941 Johnson rifle Also a SKS that uses AK magazines
And last but not least is a French Lebel rifle converted to 7.5 French
The majority of this weekend was set aside to getting ready for the SAR show. New gun racks have been built and set up, the 22 room has had the moveable book cases moved to the library, a storage rack is being built for my gunsmithing area and prep work was accomplished for work on the cannon and some serious iron work. most of the pictures were taken after normal work hours here at gun lab, actually the workers were threatening to riot.
First is the racks for the boy’s rifles. There will be another one hung up next weekend.
Then I started on a gun rack in my shop for project guns.
This is to store the general gunsmithing projects that I need to complete.
A friend of gun lab is helping me with some iron work for a new addition. There was a lot of prepping being done as next weekend I have a fork lift coming coming in. A great deal of lifting and rigging equipment has been per-positioned for the upcoming task.
The first 5 rifles have been made and tested, then re-tested, then again photographed and re-tested and finally photographed in slow motion and re-tested. I number of interesting issues were found and collected, not serious but still interesting. We have one more test to do to verify that everything is good to go.
These are the next 9 rifles. All the changes that we made on the first 5 are being incorporated in this group. The upper receivers are being worked on.
At this set we are setting up and machining the ejection port. The port is being lengthen slightly and beveled.
This actually two different cuts. This is the tool to make the slight radius cut.
The set up was changed again due to a chatter issue that showed up.
It has been a while since my last post ,but as always we have been busy. About 4 weeks ago I obtain a large number of old rusty Mauser rifles, mostly from China but a number of European ones as well. It took two weekends to pick them all up.
How they were stored.
The first load.
After Axel started removing them from the truck and taking a break.
The second load that was in the truck, I forgot to take a picture of the trailer.
We, meaning Axel, have been separating them out to different grades and countries of origin. It has been a ton of work to do this.
There are actually twice this number.
I have a few pictures of some of the interesting markings.
Even a few GEW 98s
After cleaning one of the GEW 98
There were even Mexican Mauser rifles
A few of them we cleaned up using vinegar to check out the condition of the receivers.
The bottom rifle was just soaked in oil and not vinegar to show the difference.
There is still a great deal of work left to do. A number of these will be for gunsmithing projects in the future.
These interesting rifles have been manufactured mainly in the 1930’s in Germany by Carl Walther.
Sadly we couldn’t find any more detailed information on production numbers and exact time frame.
But there seems to be some confusion on the model designations.
We’ve seen both variants designated as either Model 1 or 2.
But we will stick with the manufacturers designation as used in our video linked at the end of this post.
The Model 1 with sliding tang safety, shorter stock (fore end), shorter thinner barrel and folding type rear sight.
The Model 2 with 3 position lever type safety, longer military type stock (fore end), heavier longer barrel and sliding type rear sight graduated up to 200m.
Since it is possible to combine upper and lower receiver of each model with each stock/barrel combo, there either might have been some mixed parts models coming directly from the factory or they were later assembled that way from leftover parts.
We will stick with the designation as used in the original parts diagram linked above.
Walther Model 2 (in the video incorrectly referred to as Model 1)
The highest serial number on the Model 1 we’ve seen is 35654 and on the Model 2 it’s 38667 (see above – if it is a Model 2).Which would indicate that both models were manufactured parallel. Not as sometimes claimed first the Model 1 and later the Model 2.
The extension on the hammer of the Model 1 is also an indicator for both models being manufactured at the same time. Otherwise why would you introduce a feature like that on the “first manufactured”model where it doesn’t serve any purpose?
Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3
Model 2 rear sight graduated in varying steps of 20, 25 or 30 meters.
Pic 4
Pic 5
Pic 6
Pic 7
Such oldies should not be used with modern HV ammo. In this case CCI Mini Mags Varmint.
I use these in all semi-autos that won’t work reliably with other .22 ammo.
The shells bulged pretty “nicely” in the feed ramp area.
In the demo video standard velocity ammo was used and worked just fine.
Additionally it’s not the most rugged design. The bolt assembly is stopped on it’s rearward travel by the bolt handle hitting against the upper receiver. That can cause the bolt handle (brazed/soldered to the bolt carrier) to break off.
Pic 8a
Pic 8b
Lower receiver Model 1 (below) and on top the Model 2 with the lacking cut-out for the sliding safety.
Pic 8c
Model 1, upper, lower, barrel.
Pic 9
Rear end of the barrel damaged by firing pin protruding too much (dry firing with empty chamber).
Model 2 left, Model 1 right.
Pic 10
Upper receiver assembly. Model 2 left, Model 1 right, with newly made firing pin assembly.
The Model 1 bolt here also has an additional cut-out parallel to the firing pin channel which brings the weight of the bolt assembly down from 156g to 147g. This Model 1 also features a shorter recoil spring.
The Model 1 bolt uses a bearing ball instead of the plunger at the Model 2. Not sure if done at the factory or a simple replacement after the original plunger got lost.
Pic 11
Rear side of the bolt assembly. Model 1 on top, Model 2 below.
Pic 12
A 9 shot magazine (left side) and a 5 shot magazine (right side) was available for both rifles.
The 9 shot magazine is missing the base plate lock plate and the spring doesn’t seem to be original since it is fully compressed after loading 7 rounds. We’ll find another one that gives us the full magazine capacity.
Pic 13
How it all started. Front part of firing pin made from the shank of a 9/64 drill bit, the rear part from a broken file.
Hope you enjoyed it!
Making/editing the video, doing the research on these rifles and writing the post was way more time consuming than making those spare parts.
Again I have some sad news to post. Estes Adams has passed away on June 20th. He was only 69 and apparently he had a heart attack . I only had an opportunity to meet him once but I did chat with him regularly both by email and phone. He was a fountain of information and very giving with providing help in some of our projects. He will be missed.
