Or should I say "insane in a bad way?" Insane can be good, too. 
Humor me for a moment, it's been a very long day...
OK, the thought: I am a hobby machinist at the "still learning" level and I've started looking at all sorts of neat stuff paintball people have come up with. For instance, one fellow is making lovely S&W K-frame lookalike lower frames to mount Sheridan uppers on. Markers (PB guns) seem like an easier artistic medium (oh man, I can't believe I said that) to work with than firearms, given the lack of legal mess and low pressures/loose tolerances involved. And I feel like a summer project to keep me in the cool basement.
With me so far? Now for the actual idea: Make a paintball marker that uses as many off-the-shelf "real" parts as possible. Many older pump markers used simple pump designs, blued barrels, and wooden stocks but have been mostly replaced by the electronic Star Wars stuff that they make now. I want to take things towards the traditional look even more than before. For the record, this isn't something I'd actually be toting around in public, and I probably would affix an orange barrel tip.
My initial plan is to use a Remington 870 foundation. Find an old set of furniture, a pitted, bulged, or otherwise messed up barrel, and likely some peripheral parts like trigger guard, slide parts, and perhaps the magazine tube. The marker barrel would be mounted with bushings inside the original. The receiver would be entirely custom, probably shorter than the original and mostly solid aluminum other than gas passages. I haven't worked out whether the mag tube will hold the CO2 and the .68 magazine will be external, or the other way around, but all in good time.
So do I need to get some sleep, or what? Just seems like when it comes to metal shop projects minature steam engines only take you so far.
Humor me for a moment, it's been a very long day...OK, the thought: I am a hobby machinist at the "still learning" level and I've started looking at all sorts of neat stuff paintball people have come up with. For instance, one fellow is making lovely S&W K-frame lookalike lower frames to mount Sheridan uppers on. Markers (PB guns) seem like an easier artistic medium (oh man, I can't believe I said that) to work with than firearms, given the lack of legal mess and low pressures/loose tolerances involved. And I feel like a summer project to keep me in the cool basement.
With me so far? Now for the actual idea: Make a paintball marker that uses as many off-the-shelf "real" parts as possible. Many older pump markers used simple pump designs, blued barrels, and wooden stocks but have been mostly replaced by the electronic Star Wars stuff that they make now. I want to take things towards the traditional look even more than before. For the record, this isn't something I'd actually be toting around in public, and I probably would affix an orange barrel tip.
My initial plan is to use a Remington 870 foundation. Find an old set of furniture, a pitted, bulged, or otherwise messed up barrel, and likely some peripheral parts like trigger guard, slide parts, and perhaps the magazine tube. The marker barrel would be mounted with bushings inside the original. The receiver would be entirely custom, probably shorter than the original and mostly solid aluminum other than gas passages. I haven't worked out whether the mag tube will hold the CO2 and the .68 magazine will be external, or the other way around, but all in good time.
So do I need to get some sleep, or what? Just seems like when it comes to metal shop projects minature steam engines only take you so far.
