Michael Tinker Pearce
Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2016
- Messages
- 1,574
About a year-and-a-half ago I had been watching a lot of Youtube videos about home-made guns- most of which, at that time, might be more properly referred to as 'improvised firearms.' Perhaps optimistically I thought, 'I can do better than that!' At he time I did not have a mill or metal lathe but did have a pretty decent set-up for knife-making so I gave it a shot.
Originally I intended to make a simple single-shot .22 Derringer using stacked-steel construction out of 1/4" 5160 spring steel- one section in the center for the mechanism and two outer plates. I quickly decided to pin and silver solder the interior sections to the right-hand side-plate to form the frame. I made the trigger and hammer out of half-hard spring-steel and made a flat mainspring as well. The coil-spring for the trigger-return was scavenged from a ball-point pen.
The barrel-block was made from 3/4 inch mild steel, and the plan was to buy a .22 barrel liner to insert in it but I got a bit side-tracked... the gun was massively overkill-strong, and I had this old 1911 barrel lying around... I cut away the chamber and made a make-shift reamer to create a new chamber from the muzzle end, bored the barrel-block and press-fit the barrel into it. OK, that may be dignifying the process... I put a piece of wood over the muzzle and hammered the barrel into the block. It was not at all easy, but it worked. I'd intended to silver-solder the barrel in place, but it proved unnecessary.
I made and mounted a firing pin in the hammer-face and I was done. Well... sort of. there was quite a bit of fussing and modification before it became reliable. At this point I've put over a hundred rounds through it with no signs of stress, wear or loosening. Despite having no sights at all it's not hard to put hits center-mass at seven yards. It's- how do I put this- pretty exciting to shoot, but at 22 ounces it's no feather-weight and the recoil is quite manageable. There is no extractor, so empty cases need to be driven out with a rod; my improvised reamer did not do a great job on the chamber.
I have to say, this gun was not made as a political statement, an exercise in survival skills or to prove a point; it was strictly to see if I could do it. It's not at all a practical gun, but I've had a lot of fun both making and shooting it. I've made two guns since then, but they are tales for another time.
Originally I intended to make a simple single-shot .22 Derringer using stacked-steel construction out of 1/4" 5160 spring steel- one section in the center for the mechanism and two outer plates. I quickly decided to pin and silver solder the interior sections to the right-hand side-plate to form the frame. I made the trigger and hammer out of half-hard spring-steel and made a flat mainspring as well. The coil-spring for the trigger-return was scavenged from a ball-point pen.
The barrel-block was made from 3/4 inch mild steel, and the plan was to buy a .22 barrel liner to insert in it but I got a bit side-tracked... the gun was massively overkill-strong, and I had this old 1911 barrel lying around... I cut away the chamber and made a make-shift reamer to create a new chamber from the muzzle end, bored the barrel-block and press-fit the barrel into it. OK, that may be dignifying the process... I put a piece of wood over the muzzle and hammered the barrel into the block. It was not at all easy, but it worked. I'd intended to silver-solder the barrel in place, but it proved unnecessary.
I made and mounted a firing pin in the hammer-face and I was done. Well... sort of. there was quite a bit of fussing and modification before it became reliable. At this point I've put over a hundred rounds through it with no signs of stress, wear or loosening. Despite having no sights at all it's not hard to put hits center-mass at seven yards. It's- how do I put this- pretty exciting to shoot, but at 22 ounces it's no feather-weight and the recoil is quite manageable. There is no extractor, so empty cases need to be driven out with a rod; my improvised reamer did not do a great job on the chamber.
I have to say, this gun was not made as a political statement, an exercise in survival skills or to prove a point; it was strictly to see if I could do it. It's not at all a practical gun, but I've had a lot of fun both making and shooting it. I've made two guns since then, but they are tales for another time.
