Helwan caliber conversion

A couple of you out there have been waiting for me to do a semi-auto project...

So, I have this Helwan, and like many other Helwans the locking lugs peened, rendering the gun basically useless since that part is unobtainium. Damn shame; Linda really enjoyed shooting this gun. I thought about fabricating a new locking piece, but it just didn't seem worth the effort for a $200 gun.

Recently it occurred to me that if I ground off the locking lugs I could run the gun as a straight blow-back. Not in 9x19mm; that would be stupid dangerous. But a .380? I mean, it never was anything but a range-toy, so the caliber isn't all that crucial. What the hell, I wasn't doing anything with the gun anyway, right?

I ground off the locking lugs and put a couple of rounds of .380 ACP in the mag. It chambered fine, and fired the first round just fine but the second round stove-piped coming out of the magazine. Tried it again and this time both the empty and the unfired round ejected. The problem is that the feed lips ended too far back and released the round before it could chamber. I went and pawed through the box of random magazines at Ben's Loans and came up with a likely candidate for $8. I made an aluminum chassis and mounted the modified .380 mag. After tweaking the feed lips it worked a treat.

The gun functioned pretty well, but it was headspacing off the extractor- not ideal- and if someone stuck a stock magazine in it it would chamber a 9x19mm. Needed to fix that...

I bored out the chamber, sleeved it and reamed the chamber for .380 ACP. Headspacing on the rim as it should now, and a 9mm won't chamber. Good to go! I took a 1/4" off the end of the barrel and recrowned it to give the gun a slightly more distinctive look. I'll grind the print off the slide and engrave .380 ACP in it's place, maybe make a nice set of wood grips.

Linda will have her range-toy back, and I won't mind being short a paperweight.

Did I mention that I can reload .380 dirt cheap?

NIGHTLORD40K said:

Bravo!

I really, really miss my M51 Beretta (got stolen)......

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Here's the gun in semi-final form. I reshaped the plastic grips to establish the shape that I want when I do the wood grips, and the slide now locks back on empty. The safety is now much easier to deactivate.

Riomouse911 said:

Nice job!

I picked up a Helwan many moons ago, bought a couple of spare mags (Mec Gar maybe?) and go out to shoot it every once in a while. It has a stiff trigger pull, but it still functions and fires very well.

Do you know how many rounds you put through it before the lugs were toast, or did you get it well-worn? (Mine is still in pretty good shape, just a-wondering when to start worrying about the lugs.)

Stay safe!

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I didn't look that worn. I put a few hundred rounds through it. One thing- never, ever fire +P ammo- I saw one peen the lugs with a single round of +P!

Took the gun out for it's first range trip today. I fed it a mix of PPU FMC and some handloads using Montana Gold 90gr. RN ammo. Worked flawlessly, though it's crunching the lip on about half the brass. Both of these loads are relatively wimpy, so maybe that's part of the problem. I'll experiment...

Jim Watson said:

Seems you cut the barrel off of everything you get your hands on.

P.S. I liked your space opera. More to come?

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Almost everything, lol. In this case it was for purely cosmetic reasons.
We're working on the sequel now, so it ought to be out next spring.