tark
Member
I believe this qualifies as a contraption. It was my first attempt at making a firearm from scratch. Les had given me a number of barrel blanks back in 92 and I decided to try my hand at a home made firearm. I was using unhardened steel so I picked a .32 caliber blank and decided of the venerable 32-20 round as my chambering. Like all of my designs, I settled on the rolling block because it is stupid simple. Like my other home made guns, I made everything but the springs ( all coil ) barrel and screws. I even made the sights on this one. It has a surprisingly nice trigger with a lot of travel but a crisp break at around four pounds. Because there are no hardened steel parts in the gun, this nice trigger may disappear at some point in the future. I chambered it with a drill bit, which can work surprisingly well with a straight walled, ( OK , almost straight walled in a 32-20 ) cartridge. The empties fall out of their own weight.
I made a headspace gauge , of sorts, on my lathe. When chambered, the hammer will only fall to halfway down. This provided a constant by which I could determine if anything is stretching and/or failing due to stresses. I fired a box of factory ammo through the gun and called that a proof test. Afterward , the hammer fall on my gauge was unchanged.
I wish I could report on it's accuracy, but it has been a long time since I fired it ( decades) and my senile old brain doesn't really remember. I can report that it is ungainly and awkward, poorly balanced and altogether too heavy! That barrel needs to lose six inches ( it is 14" now.)
But it sure is fun
I made a headspace gauge , of sorts, on my lathe. When chambered, the hammer will only fall to halfway down. This provided a constant by which I could determine if anything is stretching and/or failing due to stresses. I fired a box of factory ammo through the gun and called that a proof test. Afterward , the hammer fall on my gauge was unchanged.
I wish I could report on it's accuracy, but it has been a long time since I fired it ( decades) and my senile old brain doesn't really remember. I can report that it is ungainly and awkward, poorly balanced and altogether too heavy! That barrel needs to lose six inches ( it is 14" now.)
But it sure is fun
Attachments
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