GunLab

Axel experience working on a AMT automag 2 22magnum

AMT Automag II – replace safety lever

A few days ago a friend left one of those Automags on my work bench.

“Just needs the broken safety lever replaced and doesn’t eject properly.”

He supplied a new safety lever and two springs and bearing balls (BB) each.

Ok, first thing I always do is checking online to see if anybody posted some info on this.

There was a promising video headlined “AMT Automag II Full Disassembly”.

Sadly it leaves the disassembly part for the slide completely out because it’s “a PITA”.

Well, somebody built it so somebody can take it apart.

First you have to punch out the roll pin that serves as axis for the rear sight.

Since I’m German pins get pushed in from the right side and out from the left.

Of course this didn’t work. Trying from the right side worked hassle-free though.

Heck, these things were made in California so everything is possible.

PIC 1

After removal of the roll pin turn the elevation screw on the rear sight to max elevation.

The rear sight should come off now. Make sure you don’t lose those both tiny springs underneath.

PIC 2

Now you can push out the firing pin retaining pin from below. It doesn’t need to go out all the way.

PIC 3

Now pull out the firing pin. Shaking out the remains of the broken safety lever and ready to go!

Put the safety lever detent spring in the corresponding hole. Now try to place the 2.36mm dia. BB on top of it… It won’t stay there – guaranteed.

To avoid endless searching for the BB that fell on the floor to be gone forever, you clamp the pistol slide inside a plastic bag. This way the BB is landing in the bag and we are happy.

PIC 4

To keep the BB in place and being able to push it down in the detent spring hole you’ll need a fixture.

Since I’m not planning on doing this ever again (!!!), a simple piece of round wood I found in my trash can was used. Needs a cutout about the diameter of the BB and slightly off center since that matches the location of the detent spring hole in the slide.

PIC 5

Then clamp the slide in the bench vise slightly canted to the left side so the BB will stay in position.

PIC 6

BEFORE you continue make sure the BB is going all the way in the detent spring hole!

Both springs provided were either too long or the hole too short. Remember – made in CA!

So I slightly shortened the spring (flattened end towards BB) till the BB was clearing the hole for the safety lever.

With the fixture in place (press fit to the safety hole) the BB has no other way to go when you push it down with a punch.

My friend who dropped that project on my table just showed up and told me: “You need new punches, they suck!”

I guess he grabbed the one I had modified for this exercise and hadn’t been changed back to normal so far.

You have to push down the BB at a slight angle approaching from the cutout for the hammer.

So it helps if you angle the tip of the punch accordingly. Using this specialized tool on something else might become a lil frustrating I can imagine…

While keeping the BB pushed down, you pull out the fixture and (try to) push the safety lever (pointing in the 12 o’clock position) in.

You still will have a hard time to get it in so a slight chamfer on the safety lever as pictured helps a lot.

PIC 7

Once I got the safety lever in it worked nicely – so far…

BUT after installing the firing pin the safety lever was only rotating about two thirds!

The cutout for the firing pin was not radiused so the safety could not properly rotate under the firing pin and was off center same as the chamfered area on the rear of the safety!

PIC 8a and 8b

That required some grinding and fitting on the safety lever – after removing it from the slide!

So BEFORE installing the detent spring and BB, test the interaction between safety lever and firing pin! Saves you the trouble to do it all again.

BTW – it can never hurt to have a large reference collection at hand where you can simply pull a similar gun for comparison!

PIC 9

Word of caution – NEVER let the hammer fall against the engaged safety at full force!

That’s very likely the reason for the broken safety on this gun.

Engage the safety, pull the hammer slightly back, then pull the trigger and gently lower the hammer.

The safety on this gun doesn’t offer a decocking function. But even with other guns that feature that, I always keep the hammer back and lower it slowly after engaging the safety.

I have experienced damage to the safety at the Walther PP/PPK and P.38/P1 if you just let the hammer drop.

The only gun with slide mounted decocking safety that seems to withstand permanent hammer dropping is the Beretta M9. On the other side I don’t know what the maintenance schedule on these guns is with precautionary replacement of the safety lever.

The only pistols where the decocking function is properly desgined IMO are the SIG 220 series guns and the Sauer & Sohn 1938H of course which was their inspiration. Here the hammer is actually gently lowered against the force of your thumb pressing down the decocking lever.

This is NOT the case with some other guns with similar decocking levers like Astra 80/90/100 or Taurus 92/99.

Finally the test firing to see about the “ejection issue”.

With some random .22 WMR ammo it worked right from the start.

PIC 10

Happens all the time when people show me guns that don’t cycle properly.

Self-loading guns esp. recoil operated ones (with the lone exception of inertia systems) need to be firmly supported (hand/shoulder) to cycle and eject/feed.

Time to wrap this gun up and hope to never touch one of those again!

Updates at Gun Lab

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.

So stay tune and Gun Lab will be back this year.

VG1-5 update

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.

Stocks and hand guards are next on the list.

Shirley’s Birthday present

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.

A Mauser project

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.

The SAR show after action report

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

Enough for now but more to come on the show.

Another weekend and always to much to do

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.

All of it is heavy.

VG1-5 update

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.

A close up of the new look for the ejection port.

The new ejection port cut in and radius

The Mauser project at Gun Lab

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.

The Walther model1and 2 self loading 22 rifles

The Walther self-loading rifles Model 1 and 2

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.

http://www.carlwalther.com/hunting.htm

Model 1

http://www.carlwalther.com/images/r_modell_1.jpg

Model 2

http://www.carlwalther.com/images/r_modell_2.jpg

And here the parts diagram as shown in the video from the same website:

http://www.carlwalther.com/views/ev_r_modell1.htm

Here independently from safety (all sliding tang safety) called Model 1 or 2, depending on stock/barrel configuration:

https://www.morphyauctions.com/jamesdjulia/item/52342-158-397/

WALTHER MODEL 2. SN 38667

WALTHER MOD 1. SN 12152

WALTHER MODEL 2. SN 11193

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)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V75zay8n0So

WALTHER Model 2 (actually Model 1) No. 35654 (muzzle threaded)

http://www.hermann-historica-archiv.de/auktion/hhm59.pl?f=NR_LOT&c=1411&t=temartic_S_D&db=kat59_s.txt

Walther Model 2 (actually a Model 1): No. 5658

https://www.icollector.com/Walther-Mod-2-22-LR-mag-fed-bolt-action-semi-auto-Rifle-w-20-bbl-either-manually-operated-repeat_i20797156

Walther Model 2: No. 14448

https://www.icollector.com/Walther-Mod-2-22-LR-cal-mag-fed-bolt-action-semi-auto-Rifle-w-24-bbl-unusual-Walther-design-can_i20797157

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.

Recent Posts

Categories

Axel experience working on a AMT automag 2 22magnum

Updates at Gun Lab

VG1-5 update

Shirley’s Birthday present

A Mauser project

The SAR show after action report

Another weekend and always to much to do

VG1-5 update

The Mauser project at Gun Lab

The Walther model1and 2 self loading 22 rifles

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