18 replies to this topic

[Da Milk Man]

Let me get this straight before I actually start this thread:

I am not instructing you on making a firearm. I will simply be showing you my progress as I create one (very, very safely). Do NOT try making this at home, especially if you have no firearms experience. This is strictly for academic and entertainment purposes.

I am in no way encouraging you to make a firearm for yourself.

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Alrighty right, forum goers. I thought I'd show you my progress with a personal project of mine as I worked on it. It might interest some of you, yes, and others may not like it at all. That's fine and dandy, either way, really.

Yes, the project is making a gun. No, it's not one of those pipe zip gun deathtraps. This should be interesting.

The gun in question will be a hammer-fired single-shot .22 caliber rimfire (.22 Short, .22 Long, .22 Long Rifle) pistol.

My inspiration actually came from a leftover pistol grip I had. Not a lot, but it was enough to get my wheels turning. It took a few days to come to a final design, but I think it looks best with the final design.

So, without further ado, here we go! I'll add content in new posts, since this is my own thread. Here we go.

[For your convenience and for the life of your Internet connection, I have put each image-heavy post in a spoiler, except for the first line. Click the "Show" button to go ahead and view the rest of everything.]

[Da Milk Man]

I'll go ahead and start with the designs I've gone through.

Spoiler

This first one was created on May 29th.



Forgotten
-Missing trigger return spring (necessary)
-Missing trigger guard (optional)
-Not shown are the bolts that fasten the grip to the gun
-Not shown is the bit that sticks out of the housing for the barrel release to be depressed


Notes
-Spring tension keeps the hammer spring in place

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This second design was drafted on May 30th. It fixes most of the problems with the first design. I decided to not show any of the fasteners that would keep the gun in place for sake of cleanliness on the design. It'd be easy to place them without planning too far ahead. The way the receiver was cut in this made for less cutting, and less required precision for a better-looking final product.



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I came up with this final design on June 3rd, after making the outer barrel for the firearm. A rifled inner barrel will be secured inside of the outer barrel. Note that it lacks a locking mechanism to hold the barrel in battery when the gun is going to be fired. That's really necessary. Otherwise, the barrel would move freely, and discharging the firearm would be overly dangerous. I found that the locking mechanism shown in the first two designs wouldn't really be easy to fabricate without a welder or machining equipment, both of which I lack. I'll have to use some form of door or window lock in its stead.



Okay, looking good so far, right?

[Da Milk Man]

Yesterday, on the 5th of June, I started actual work on the gun. Here's some of the gun's exoskeleton, as well as some other parts, such as the mainspring (hammer spring).

Spoiler

All very cute.

The epoxy syringe there is going to be used to bind 1/24" sheet steel together to form the hammer and the trigger. Since heat treating was not exactly ideal for this gun, I went with galvanized sheet steel. You can see what will make the hammer and trigger in the back (the long rectangular steel straps).

The JB Weld will secure the outer barrel and inner barrel together. There won't be tension on it, but rather compression and a little expansion. JB Weld is rated to be subjected to temperatures of 600 degrees Fahrenheit for up to ten minutes at a time without losing any integrity, and unlike some other epoxies, JB Weld does NOT shrink once it cures..

Those thicker plates will make up the receiver (two of them), and the breech face (scrap from one of them). The hammer will have a firing pin built on it that will stick through a hole in the breech face to strike the cartridge's primer. Very simple stuff.

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I cut out a receiver plate back on the 5th of June, which would be yesterday.









And there we go! The first receiver plate is done.

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I still have to buy the inner barrel, and cutting this one receiver plate gave my Dremel cutting disks hell, so I'm actually completely out of that, and all of my sandpaper bits were used up. This plate steel is incredibly tough.

[Dexide]

This is a really cool project to tackle. I hope it works out for you, I'll be following this thread. If I'm following correctly, the one receiver plate you cut out already goes in this area I circled on the design right? Or am I totally off?

EDIT: Wat. There was supposed to be an image attached to this. But the receiver plate is the metal piece in the trigger area, correct?

[Da Milk Man]

Yeah, the receiver plates are going to be the two metal pieces holding everything in place. All of the guts of the gun will be held between the two receiver plates.

[FEL]

But the real question is.
Will it blend?

[Da Milk Man]

No, it will not blend.

As to anyone a bit scared to post in here, if you are:

Feel free to ask any questions on this. I love answering questions about firearms, and it's very rare I get to talk about these things in general.

[scarabix]

No if I ask a question I'll get shot. I'll pass.

Spoiler

I hope you really make it a Jezail. poop would be incredible

[Zephyr]

Do you plan on only making one?

Or will making guns be your career in life?

[Da Milk Man]

Do you plan on only making one?

Or will making guns be your career in life?

This gun is just for fun, but I really want to make a career out of gunsmithing. Firearm repair, fitting and maintenance is fun stuff to me, and making a gun is pretty much a dream come true.

[ThePieGuy]

On the topic of gun building; what do you think of shows like Sons of Guns and American Guns?

[Da Milk Man]

I don't really like Sons of Guns. Their builds are completely impractical, and more often than not, completely useless. On one episode, they stuck three automatic AR-15s together and called it to be one of the best things ever. Now, I don't have a problem with people doing this stuff, as long as they actually know what they're doing. People do this stuff to have fun, and that's okay, but I don't hold an interest in it. One of the things that I did like them doing was making that integrally suppressed AK. Some of my bigger beef with them, though, comes from their lack of specificity about the things that they do.

American Guns seems to have more practicality about things, but I haven't really seen more than a few episodes.. I know they made a black powder hand mortar with an axe on it, which is a reproduction of a historic firearm. Stuff like that beats mounting a machine gun to motorcycle handlebars. But, like most television, they really have to play things up, I guess. I wouldn't mind watching a bit of it, but I'm not a fan of the shop drama I've seen on the show so far.

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On a separate note, I'm going to order the inner barrel for my pistol today. I did decide to chamber it for the longer .22 Long Rifle cartridge. This way, I can shoot just about any .22 ammunition out of it that I want to. Some things I'd be interested would probably be some rat shot in .22 Long Rifle (which acts like a tiny shotgun shell; handy for pestilent birds at close ranges, as well as small rodents, and due to the tiny size of the shot, it won't go too far past your intended target) to test the ballistics of it, as well as .22 CB short rounds (which are only a primer and bullet seated onto a case) for some backyard shooting.

Here's what they look like:

Spoiler

.22 ratshot, in .22LR:



The .22 CB is the one on the far left:



For a size comparison, the .22 LR is the fourth round from the left.

[Da Milk Man]

Oh boy, the barrel arrived today.

Spoiler

Here's some shots of it!

This is what the unit looks like as a whole. I haven't cut it yet, or reamed out a chamber.



I'll have to cut it to length tomorrow, and then set it inside of my outer barrel with some J-B Weld.

Here's what the inside of the barrel looks like.



It has rather sharp rifling and a 1:16 twist rate, which means for every sixteen inches of barrel, one of the grooves of rifling will have made a complete rotation. It's just like thread pitch rate.

[Dropped Your Pocket]

What happened?

[Zephyr]

This is the final product.

I think something went wrong in the prints.

[Dropped Your Pocket]

This is the final product.

I think something went wrong in the prints.

That, or maybe he changed up the plans a little bit?

[Zephyr]

This is the final product.

I think something went wrong in the prints.

That, or maybe he changed up the plans a little bit?

Doubtful.
I'm pretty sure he was going for a Ford look to the truck.

[ThePieGuy]

This is the final product.

I think something went wrong in the prints.

What you don't know is that the truck transforms into a gun and milk wielding robot called "DHAS MILK BOHT".

Expect "DHAS MILK BOHT" in the Mann vs Machine update for Team Fortress 2.

[Da Milk Man]

Nothing bad happened. It didn't blow up or anything, but it isn't finished either. I've been making the trigger and hammer, bit by bit.

It turned out that I needed to double up on receiver plates, mostly for economical reasons. That way, the hammer and trigger wouldn't have to be as thick as they were going to be. So, yes, there has been a bit of revision, but I'm doing it as I go.

I'm not sure if y'all could be all that further off than you are, but I will admit, I wouldn't mind Dhas Milk Boht.

Thanks for showing interest, though. I'll get some new pictures up in a day or two.