.22 revolver made from a blank firing gun

[Busyhands94]

hello everybody! i recently have been having a few firearms related ideas. i had a though today of taking a 22 blank firing 6 shooter, unblocking the barrel, lining it with a rifled steel barrel liner, timing the cylinder, and making grips for it. the idea is not to acquire a cheap Saturday night special, but to create an indoor target practice pistol. the idea is i could fire .22 short BB caps out of the gun, or fire .22 short blanks behind a thick airgun pellet or a lead BB. i imagine i would have to tweak the sights to make the gun decently accurate, however i would not need to use high pressure loads for this pistol. given that most blank guns have cylinders of pot metal, i would not want to use anything bigger than .22 CB shorts in the thing or pellets propelled by a blank. however, that being said i am sure that i could use this gun for small pest control or snake hunting. does anybody have any experience at this sort of thing?

 

[RevolvingGarbage]

Im not 100% on this, but as long as you don't make it into a NFA classified weapon, and if it looks like a real gun when its done, then it should be legal. Its legal to make a gun, so does it really matter that you use something that is about 75% a gun already?

From a technical standpoint, its certainly do-able,and should be safe if used ONLY with primer-powered .22 rounds (the gun should be engraved or marked as such, for the safety of its future owners).

 

[bigfatdave]

I can see no reason that such a contraption would be superior to the cheapest of .22 revolvers.
1 - It would be unsafe
2 - It would require essentially manufacturing a gun, why not just manufacture a real gun?

 

[Dr.Rob]

Chances are in California that's illegal as all get out.

And if you have the skills to do all that, you should know better. Pot metal is NOT designed for firearms.

 

[gyvel]

Pot metal is NOT designed for firearms.

And, sadly, there are SO many pot metal guns on the market today from manufacturers who should know better.

 

[Colt Smith]

Danger, danger Will Robinson!

 

[MICHAEL T]

Pot metal is NOT designed for firearms. Even the cheapy so call pot metal pistols on market better quality than a blank gun. Not a good idea

 

[jbkebert]

There is a good reason why starter pistols have a cylinder that is to short even to accept a .22 short

 

[Busyhands94]

actually the one i am thinking of using should be long enough, however it may not be bored all the way. and i can just drill that out and polish it smooth. the cylinder is close enough to the barrel, and i think overall it should be fine. the reason i am making this is because i am too thrifty to purchase one of those alpha flobert revolvers and i really want one to screw around with. i don't need a huge round for ultimate stopping power, this is just plinking. however .22 CBs are no joke, i have heard of them shooting through a steel trashcan.

 

[DPris]

Bad idea.
Just get a decent used .22 revolver from a pawnshop somewhere. It'll take no further work & will handle anything you want to do with either regular .22 rimfire or BB caps without any worries whatever.

Tweak the sights?
I suspect you'd have to do a lot more than just tweak them, since there is no sight regulation whatever on a blank gun.

You'd be looking at putting untold hours of effort into machining to end up with a grossly inferior product that could easily be dangerous and certainly would not hold up over the long run.
Blank guns are not built to contain pressures or to hold up internally with high volume shooting. Nor can you get spare parts for them without buying an entirely new gun.

Even if you were able to do what you're suggesting, and it didn't blow, it'd most likely wear itself out quickly, leaving you with all that time & effort wasted.
And, of course it's probably against the law in your state.
Denis

 

[Busyhands94]

if i wanted to spend the money on a .22 revolver i would, however this is more of an experiment than anything else. if it holds up, good. if it does not, that sucks. i plan on firing pellets behind a blank or CBs because of the low chamber pressure, so that would not be much of a problem. i will get a decent quality blank gun anyway so the chamber pressure will not be that much of a problem. besides, CBs don't produce that much chamber pressure, i think it will be fine. if there is really bad sights i will probably make my own. i have done it or builds in the past, so sights would not be a problem at all.

 

[rcmodel]

i plan on firing pellets behind a blank or CBs because of the low chamber pressure

That's all fine and dandy.
But what about the next owner after you are no longer in control of a potential pipe bomb of your making.

Chances are if you don't blow it up testing, it will be around far longer then you will.
And there will be another owner at some point in time that doesn't know it isn't safe with CCI Stingers!!

rc

 

[Busyhands94]

i actually plan on engraving ".22 flobert" or ".22 BB cap" on the gun somewhere just to be safe.

 

[rcmodel]

How about you chamber it so Long Rifle ammo won't even fit in it?

rc

 

[Busyhands94]

that sounds like a good idea. i might just do that! thanks dude!

 

[Mizar]

Busyhands94, most of the blank firing revolvers (at least European made ones) have cylinder chambers axes drilled of center to the barrel axis - in other words chambers and barrel do not share the same axis. This is done to prevent the revolver to be converted to firearm. You need to check that first.

Boris

 

[Shoot The Moon]

Certain blank firers have been banned from import/sale here in the UK due to this very thing being done - as I understand it, although 'professional' crims equip themselves with real pistols smuggled in from eastern europe, those lower down the food chain were stealing .22LR and modding blankfirers. Apparently it was common for the shooter to be injured more seriously than the victim....

 

[Dr.Rob]

You'd still be creating an unregistered handgun in the state of California. The rhyme or reasoning of needing to do this vs. buying a 22 revolver is beyond me.

Just because a thing MIGHT be possible, doesn't mean it SHOULD be done.


There are a number of black -powder repro derringers that are made for this (propel a bb or pellet with a percussion cap.)