Help! Is there a semi-auto version of this?

[Trailltrader]

Wow, 350,000 posts,,,thats gotta be close to a million man hours worth of work on this website!

So, here I am, Mr Newbie- but I have a very hard, difficult quesiton and I didn't know where to post so here goes!

In the book "Expedient Homemade Firearms" (c) 1998 by P.A. Luty it tells how to make what is essentially a small, inexpensive machine pistol.

As I understand the law a Citizen of the United States is allowed to legally make one firearm per year, and it must be registered with the ATF correct?

Anyhow, I'd like to make this pistol- but, due to Washington State laws, we are not allowed to own a full automatic weapon or a weapon with an open bolt design.

The quesiton is: Has anyone made a semi only, closed bolt version of this pistol?

Thank You- Larry "Trailltrader"

 

[ashtxsniper]

If I remember correctly that the one that looks like the Intratec Tec-9.

 

[Cmdr. Gravez0r]

If it's the design I'm thinking of, the only thing that makes it easy to make is that it is a full-auto only--no semi. Therefore difficult to make into a semi version, if at all possible, which I doubt.

 

[.cheese.]

if ashtxsniper is correct, the B&T TP9 is semi-auto.

 

[Crunker1337]

Going from full-auto open bolt to semi-auto open bolt isn't all so easy, you have to do a good bit of redesigning, IIRC. I mean, it took Vector some doing to make a civi-legal Uzi.

 

[CypherNinja]

As I understand the law a Citizen of the United States is allowed to legally make one firearm per year, and it must be registered with the ATF correct?

BZZZZT! Wrong.

Any firearm which is otherwise legal to own is legal for you to make for yourself. YOU must do ALL the work to complete it (I.E. past 80%), and it MUST be for YOURSELF (not for sale, gift might be ok). The ATF recommends but does not require that the gun have a unique identifying mark (serial number).

Thats it. Make as many as you want.

(here comes the kicker)

You can sell them when you get bored of them, as long as you did not specifically make them for sale. BUT, the ATF WILL bring a world of hurt if they think your doing it for profit without a license (Type 07 FFL). Even if you do it innocently, making bunches of firearms and then selling most of them (even if it was 1/2/10 years later) is probably a BAD idea. If you make a ton of them and they sit in a pile in your basement when you get bored with them, that's fine. If you make only a few and sell one or two of them after you're bored with them, that's fine too. It's all that gray in between that's a problem and gives rise to the "one a year" myths.

EDIT: That's Federal law. State/Local laws may vary. And even if they don't, if a cop or someone else sees your homemade collection they may not know or be able to be convinced it's legal. Which may result in some fun getting things sorted out. Serial numbers, even if not absolutely required, are kind of a good idea because of this. They could go a long way in convincing someone not to "freak out."

 

[matt87]

Full auto is much easier to make from scratch than semi-auto only. As I recall, it took even JMB a while to figure out how to put a disconnector in his earlier self-loading guns.

If you want to build yourself a legal semi-auto 9mm pistol, forget about Luty's design. Luty's various designs are intended to be built as simply as possible, but without regard to local gun laws. Therein lies the nub -- he is largely at the limit of what one can do complexty-wise without at least a lathe. A semi-auto-only gun has to necesarily be much more complex than a full-auto one, otherwise it is 'readily convertable' to full-auto.

You may be able to do some interesting stuff with careful thought regarding hand forging, hand filing and sawing, and improvised lathes (e.g. a table-mounted power drill) but the short answer is, you can't build what you have in mind (and keeping within the law) without machine-tools and the knowledge of how to use them. Single-shot guns are possible though.

Try homegunsmith.com -- it's a forum where they discuss... well I bet you can guess. Warning: site content rules are not as strict as THR, so assume it NSFW.

 

[Halo is for Kids]

Did it look like this???

http://www.serbu.com/legacy/rof.htm

The ROF has a fairly standard open-bolt type of action, and was designed and built primarily as an exercise in building a complete gun, mostly from scratch. The only parts which were bought and left unmodified are the flash hider and the pistol grip. Those parts, as well as the trigger, safety and barrel blank, are from an AR-15. Virtually everything else, including the springs, was fabricated. The upper receiver is made from 1.375 OD, .058 wall 4130 DOM tubing. The bolt is made of 8620 which is case hardened to Rc 55-57, with a case depth of .015. The lower receiver is a weldment made from a combination of bent-up mild sheet steel and machined 1018 steel. The barrel was made from a section of AR-15 9mm barrel, though any 9mm blank would have worked just as well. The main recoil spring was wound from .041 diameter music wire. The most unique feature of the ROF is the magazine well arrangement. The vertical line just forward of the trigger guard is where the magazine well may be separated from the rest of the lower receiver. The bolt was designed to accommodate a range of cartridges and magazines; the mag well seen in the picture allows the ROF to use British Sten magazines. The next magazine well to be made will accept a PPS-43 mag, which holds 7.26x25mm ammo. Obviously, a barrel change is required to complete the conversion. So what does "ROF" stand for? Rate Of Fire. There's an implied "High" in front of ROF. The idea is that this gun was designed for a high rate of fire. At this it does okay; it fires 9mm ammo at around 1200 rounds per minute. As of when these pictures were taken, the ROF has had over 3,000 rounds of ammo fired through it. Since the ROF was built after May 19, 1986, it's considered to be a "post-'86" dealer sample machine gun which can only be bought by licensed manufacturers, dealers, government entities or law enforcement. Needless to say, there isn't really enough of a market to warrant making the ROF a production gun.

I have no answers for you but you can drool over this video...
http://members.aol.com/rippemanewone/rof.mpg

 

[JesseL]

The two problems with the 'expedient homemade firearms', from the perspective of adapting them to a legal semi-auto; are the already mentioned open-bolt configuration, and the fact that those designs use seamless hydraulic tubing for barrels.

The barrel of a handgun needs to be rifled, or it it will qualify an an NFA short barreled shotgun.

To be a legal semi-auto the open-bolt configuration won't work. The BATF, in their great wisdom, has determined that any open bolt autoloader is a machinegun - even if it's constructed to only fire semi-auto. They believe that it is too readily converted to full automatic fire.

You would have to procure a rifled barrel, and redesign the mechanism to fire from a closed bolt, with a separate firing pin, hammer, and disconnector. It's doable, but not nearly so expedient.

 

[Lady with a Gun]

Matt87 said, "Full auto is much easier to make from scratch than semi-auto only. As I recall, it took even JMB a while to figure out how to put a disconnector in his earlier self-loading guns."

That is so true. It is a lot easier to build something like a STEN gun than it is to build even a single shot firearm. Why? A straight blow-back firearm does not have the critical headspacing required for a locked breach firearm.

 

[Trebor]

Shotgun News recently ran a multi issue article where I gunsmith walks you through the manufacture of a pistol caliber semi-auto carbine. Ask around and see if any of your gun buddies have the recent issues with those articles.

It was quite a bit of work, btw, but maybe there's something in there you can use.

 

[PercyShelley]

That is so true. It is a lot easier to build something like a STEN gun than it is to build even a single shot firearm. Why? A straight blow-back firearm does not have the critical headspacing required for a locked breach firearm.

Moreover it doesn't even have a separate firing pin and hammer. Most open-bolt designs are API, which essentially means a controlled slamfire.

 

[matt87]

There is a guy on that forum I mentioned, built a pair of .22S open-bolt fixed-firing-pin pistols for novelty's sake, but there was no magazine or any easy way to add one. (Pretty neat idea; the trigger was the slide release and he added a disconnector so that the slide was held back after the shot.) If you really wanted something like a Sten, I suppose you could, with a dummy magazine (rectangular tube welded to the receiver in such a way that it cannot function as a magazine without serious mods for instance). Wouldn't need a feed-ramp and the bolt-head recession wouldn't need a side cut. Actually, I've heard of a custom-built .22LR rifle very similar to this, built specifically for the British Skirmish discpline; the first stage of the trigger was the bolt release. Apparently how the current record holder got his title.