My 1st 1919 Belt Fed Build

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MrM4

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Feb 15, 2009
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I thought Id share my 1919 build, I owe the guys over at 1919a4.com a big thank you, their advise and build guide was alot of help.
I needed a way to justify the thousands of dollars I spent on my Milling machine. So a few months back I bought a Izzy 1919 Parts kit from a local SOT that had used it as a Postie for awhile. He stripped the Right Side Plate and for $500 I went home with the kit, an AA MG42 Tripod, 1100 Links and a bunch of 1919 tools and spare parts.

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I found a Four Horsemen Side Plate to use, excelent quality :D. ( I know the guys that made them ;))

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The gun had been screwed together and had some huge holes in the LSP and Bottom Plate which caused me to have a hard time finding rivets to fit it off the shelf. So I didced to fire up the lathe and make my own. ( I never relized how worthless my time must be until I started making all these rivets) In the end I made all 16 bottom Plate rivets, the Long Pintle Rivet and the Long Top Plate Rivet.

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Between the internals and the countersinking for the rivets plus just drilling holes I got some good use out of the mill on this project. For they guys that say you can do it all with a drill press and a grinder, yes Im sure it can be done but it seems much easier with a mill.


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I didnt have my camera with me the night I did the internals :( but I saved $200 by doing them myself.

I didnt have a rivet tool either so I cut an air hammer chisel in half and used a ball mill to make myself one.

One of the 1st rivets I ever Made & Set (minus Farm Equipment rivets done with a hammer)

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Come time to blast the gun I put an ad out on the net looking for a local guy to sand blast this thing, less then a day later someone had offered to do it for nothing more then getting to walk threw the door at the Gun Show with it to bring back to me. Hell of a deal, I set him up with some AR stuff as a Thank You.

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I had some grinder marks that I decided to buff out after it was blasted. Not the best idea but it didnt make a differance in the end result.

Thanks to some of the UZItalk.com Crowd I decided to go with a Gunkote finish, and I know its a sin to do anything but Park a 1919 but thats just how it is. I used the rattle can version of the Matte Gray and it came out looking pretty sharp, almost identical to most AR15s.

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is this a big paper weight or does it fire? Cant you make them run as long as there semi auto? Pretty cool though.
 
Sweet, I would hate to be the one linking the ammo but I guess it would be worth it once you got enough done.
 
Linking ammo for one 1919 does get old but doing it for 2 really sucks.

My 2nd attemp :D
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Excellent build and post: thanks for sharing it:)
BTW; what is a semiautomatic, belt fed, 1919 classified as (pistol, rifle, etc.)?
Regards,
Greg
 
It is classified a "firearm" by the BATF it does not fall into any of the "normal" classifications. There is a large thread about that very topic over on the 1919a4 forum.

Thanks for the vote of approval. :)
 
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