Yes you can get a crank for it. I use the BMF activator. You can get one from Cabella's and other online dealers for about $25.00
These are not yet for sale. But soon will be. We will start out with four.
You can contact me at my e mail link in the post if you want to be on a contact list to be notified when they are available, but
for now, they are not available for sale yet.
You can see a video of my earlier water cooled Ruger 10/22 firing at this link at U tube. As you can see, it fires very rapidly with the crank Gatling gun style. The third and final prototype will fire the same way. The water jacket allows me to fire multiple magazines without having to worry about overheating, since I sometimes fire 3 or 4 50 rd mags in a row...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFkGUC7Bo5U&feature=channel_page
And another U tube slideshow of the earlier water cooled and air cooled prototypes of which this latest 3rd prototype is vastly improved over.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F7f17m8TJM&feature=channel
Below are pics of the first two prototypes that this third prototype is vastly improved over....
First water cooled prototype
First air cooled prototype
I have had a few people ask me the same question of "Why?" That's a fair question. Allow me to explain.....
I've been to many range machine gun shoots. I've fired those full size rifle calibers machine guns and also watched the owners fiddling with them. Many times they fiddle adjusting them more than they shoot them. Headspace problems, jams, etc. These are frequent problems I have seen on full size tripod and bipod mounted kit built full autos, as well as non kit full autos, as well as kit built and non kit built semi auto versions.
The full auto guns cost tens of thousands of dollars. Even the semi autos cost several thousand dollars. You can't just get a full auto kit minus the right sideplate that goes for about $1000.00 and put a right sideplate semi sideplate on it. BATFE requires the internals to be semi auto only as well. So the full auto kits won't work for making a semi. So you are still stuck with the above tens of thousands, or at least several thousand that I mentioned.
Even the only belt fed full auto tripod mounted, mini Browning look-a-like on the market which is the Tippman made by Lakeside Machine works costs many thousands of dollars.
But even for those who have that kind of money to spend and do get their full size machine guns tweaked perfectly.
They still have to feed them.
So first lets discuss the financial end of my reasoning for "Why?" do this with a .22LR cartridge.
With .308 up to what? Around 60 cents a round and rising with the Obama scare and 30-06 even more expensive, and not much surplus ammo around, it gets expensive to feed those full size 30-06 and .308 guns. I can buy a box of 550 rds of .22 for about $13.50
That comes out on my calculator to 2.4 cents per .22LR round.
Calculating at 60 cents a round, .308 comes out to $330.00 for 550 rounds.
You can fire off 550 rds just firing 5 and 1/2 belts of 100 rds. Most full size machine gun shooters shoot more than that at each range session. But even if you only fired 5 and 1/2 belts of 100 rds, totaling 550 rds, you have just spent $330.00 compared to the same number of .22LR rounds I can fire for $13.50
That's a savings of $316.50 shooting the same amount of rounds. Many of the full size machine gun owners that I know, don't shoot their guns but once or twice a year because of this exorbitant cost of ammo. Hence, less fun with them.
And what do we shoot at? Old washing machines, old refrigerators, old lawnmowers, old fire extinguishers, old bowling pins and even paper targets right? All things I can perforate just fine with a .22LR. I can have just as much fun perforating those same targets with my cheap .22LR round without wasting all that cash on expensive ammo. We aren't using them for combat or trying to stop a vehicle. We are shooting the same things with the .22 that the owners of those full size guns are shooting at. Half the time I see them shooting at the machine gun shoots, they are just kicking up dirt. If I'm going to just kick up dirt, I'd rather do it at 2.4 cents a round rather than 60 cents a round.
So you can readily understand the savings financially and the consequent tendency to shoot more often and hence have more fun more often.
Now that we've established the sound financial reasoning for doing it with a .22LR round, let's explore my reasoning for "Why" do it with a Ruger 10-22 instead of some other .22 rifle.
The Ruger 10-22 is the most plentiful and most often encountered .22 rifle in America. It also has the most amount of different companies and manufacturers making after market parts for it. You can get parts anywhere.
There are a host of improved after market parts such as Volquartsen hammers, sears, springs, extended mag releases, titanium firing pins, bolt handles, high cap mags, heavy barrels, etc, etc, etc. So you aren't limited to just going back to one manufacturer to get any needed parts. You can pick up a 10-22 brand new for about $200.00 and I recently bought two in excellent condition from a pawn shop for $100.00 each. It is much cheaper to buy parts for a 10-22 than for a full size semi or full auto Browning or even the Lakeside Machine Tippman.
People forget that belt fed weapons have to have their belts loaded. They don't magically load themselves. With one 50 rd mag change with a ruger 10-22 I can equal one 100 rd machine gun belt. Plus I can load that mag faster than someone can load a fresh belt into their full size belt fed gun.
The only drawback is if someone links say 5 belts of 100 rds each together.
That I cannot yet duplicate. But I am working on it. I have designed a belt feed that will feed through the mag well with no modification to the gun. It will work on a 10-22, an AR15 or any magazine fed firearm including pistols.
When I get that perfected, I can have a belt feed for my 10-22 crank fire mini mg kits. Then there will be no limitations on ammo capacity whatsoever. That is when my water cooled version will really come in handy. Because at that point overheating will definitely be a problem for a non water cooled gun. Even now just magazine feeding, I have to let my air cooled model cool down a bit if I quickly fire several hundred rds through it. Because if I don't, it affects accuracy by expansion of the barrel which affects accuracy as well as the hot barrel starting to soften the lead which causes it to load up in the rifling grooves and have to be removed by a lewis lead remover or else a piece of brass screen on a cleaning rod.
Believe me, as well as researching full size machine gun styles of what I wanted to emulate with my build ups, I also gave a lot of thought to the finances of the round fired and the cost and easy replacement of parts of the host gun doing it. There is simply no less expensive way to do this than what I have done. That's why I think it will sell well when I get into production.
Some people have asked me...."Why not just put a bipod on a Ruger 10-22 and put a BMF crankfire trigger accessory on it, wouldn't that be the same thing?".
My answer to them is no. And here's why. You get extreme accuracy using a tripod. It holds the gun rock solid and you don't really have to even touch anything but to turn the crank to fire it. (But of course sometimes I want to traverse while firing).You don't get that just using a bipod on a standard Ruger 10-22. You also do not have anywhere near the same feel of firing a full size machine gun firing a standard Ruger 10-22 like that verses firing my mini's on tripods. A lot regarding firearms is esthetics. Sure any gun will shoot, so why are some that are the same caliber preferred over others in the same caliber. Esthetic's. Not only would someone getting my mini kit have a legally rapid firing miniature representation of a air or water cooled Browning that really shoots rapidly, but you would also have an excellent model and conversation piece. And perhaps a collectors item as well depending on how many I eventually produce.
I always wanted a tripod mounted water cooled Browning but couldn't afford one much less want to expensively feed it. Now I have the best of the look and feel of the real water and air cooled Brownings, without the costs of expensive ammo or expensive replacement parts. Not to mention no registration required for mine compared to its full size full auto big brothers.
I hope to be able to market these for much less than $1000.00
Perhaps even as low as 5 or 6 hundred depending on my production costs.
Compare my proposed kit cost along with $100.00 for a used 10-22 against several thousand for a full size .308 semi or the tens of thousands for a full size full auto. Also compare the cost of replacement parts plus add in the difference in ammo cost as well as the cost of full auto registration.
Have you checked out the cost of non firing model machine guns lately? You would be shocked. And they don't even fire. Take a look at some of these prices in the many thousands of dollars in these links....
At below link, check out the unreal prices. 3 and 4 thousand and more for non firing replica MODELS!
http://waynedriskillminiatures.com/_wsn/page7.html
At below link, $2000.00 for the Lewis non firing replica model. $2,500 for the Spandau.
http://www.repligun.com/
At below link, $1,500.00 for a Ma Deuce 50 cal non firing model.
http://replicasandmodels.0catch.com/m2hb.html
I hope you can understand my reasoning now, for doing this with not only a .22 round, but also for using the Ruger 10-22 as the host firearm for my selection. I did a lot of research before I started fabricating anything. I wanted something like this that I myself wished was on the market at the price I would like to pay. Since it didn't exist, I built it and want to build it for others like me.
