Michael Tinker Pearce
Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2016
- Messages
- 1,575
Was getting things organized and happened across an old project, and thought I'd share it.
OK, this might be one of the weirder things I've done to a pistol. Maadi's Helwan is a licensed clone of the Beretta M1951, sadly made to a lower level of finish with often dubious materials. I bought one on a whim, and it shot pretty well... until I shot a couple rounds of +P through it (never, ever do this) and peened the locking lugs. At the time parts were unobtainium, so I cussed a bit, but it was cheap, so I shrugged and tucked it away. I made a couple of attempts to fix it, but basically it was a paperweight. Then I was at Ben's Loans poking through a box of random, unidentified magazines and had an idea... I bought a couple magazines and headed into my workshop.
I cut the lugs off the locking block so that now I had a straight blowback pistol. Never a fan of the Slide Diet I wasn't about to shoot 9mm through it, but I had a hunch .380 ACP might work pretty well. I tested the notion, and it fired and ejected .380s fine, but of course the chamber was too big. I reamed out the chamber, silver-soldered in an insert and re-cut the chamber for .380. Worked a treat. Now for a magazine... In the end I took one of the .380 magazines I had procured, removed the baseplate and made an aluminum chassis for it. It holds seven rounds and works great.
That done I shortened the barrel to the length of the slide and modified the grips, both to give it a distinct look and to make operating the safety easier. The result is a full-sized pistol with mild recoil that is a pleasure to shoot. It even has a good trigger now, because I can't leave anything alone. Of questionable value and utility, but it was fun and at least it's not a paperweight anymore.
Weirdly it never occurred to me it might work fine with the stock 9mm magazines, so I loaded one up with .380 just now and wracked the slide. I hand-cycled a whole magazine through, and it seems to work fine. Next range trip I'm going to have to try it... dang, if it works that would have saved me a lot of trouble...
OK, this might be one of the weirder things I've done to a pistol. Maadi's Helwan is a licensed clone of the Beretta M1951, sadly made to a lower level of finish with often dubious materials. I bought one on a whim, and it shot pretty well... until I shot a couple rounds of +P through it (never, ever do this) and peened the locking lugs. At the time parts were unobtainium, so I cussed a bit, but it was cheap, so I shrugged and tucked it away. I made a couple of attempts to fix it, but basically it was a paperweight. Then I was at Ben's Loans poking through a box of random, unidentified magazines and had an idea... I bought a couple magazines and headed into my workshop.
I cut the lugs off the locking block so that now I had a straight blowback pistol. Never a fan of the Slide Diet I wasn't about to shoot 9mm through it, but I had a hunch .380 ACP might work pretty well. I tested the notion, and it fired and ejected .380s fine, but of course the chamber was too big. I reamed out the chamber, silver-soldered in an insert and re-cut the chamber for .380. Worked a treat. Now for a magazine... In the end I took one of the .380 magazines I had procured, removed the baseplate and made an aluminum chassis for it. It holds seven rounds and works great.
That done I shortened the barrel to the length of the slide and modified the grips, both to give it a distinct look and to make operating the safety easier. The result is a full-sized pistol with mild recoil that is a pleasure to shoot. It even has a good trigger now, because I can't leave anything alone. Of questionable value and utility, but it was fun and at least it's not a paperweight anymore.
Weirdly it never occurred to me it might work fine with the stock 9mm magazines, so I loaded one up with .380 just now and wracked the slide. I hand-cycled a whole magazine through, and it seems to work fine. Next range trip I'm going to have to try it... dang, if it works that would have saved me a lot of trouble...
