Taking over where Remington Left off
Also known as "taking over where Remington R51'ed its pants"
After significant tweaking, my pistol now functions quite reliably, but it was a real journey getting there (documented well in the early pages of this thread). Remington has assured everyone, most recently at SHOT, that they will fix everything and dispense the sunshine and rainbows sometime during the second quarter of this year, but I'm not buying. Their story, not the pistols, which I truly do hope will enjoy a better rollout the second time around. We would all do well to keep in mind, that even if the new guns are properly introduced, they are still at best 400$ metallic pistols; quality
cannot be a priority for them. And the design itself is somewhat unforgiving of that (I'm not buying the design is substantially different, either; just better made, maybe)
While Remington thoroughly [soiled] the bed with its production of the R51, my example very representative of this, I maintain nonetheless that the design is brilliant. People were rightly thrilled when the project was first announced, and not just because of the gun's history. Also, not just because Remington's concept of a minimalist, single action, factory-smoothed 9mm carry gun was somewhat ahead of its time (I predict three years or so, and slippery single stack budget 9's will be offered by multiple makers). The Pedersen action is so divorced in function from any other locking breach pistol action, that it possesses certain features (and quirks) that potentially give it an advantage in certain circumstances.
-Extremely low bore axis of a simple blowback
-Reduced recoil/mass of a recoil-operated design
-Reduced initial recoil impulse over a recoil-operated design
-Simple barrel design and attachment of a simple blowback
-Fixed barrel for easier suppressing, braking, etc.
-Barrel-centric recoil spring of a simple blowback
-Reduced peak locking surface load over rigidly locked designs
-Intrinsically safer against out of battery detonation, from hammer-follow or failure to fully chamber
Obviously there are quirks, as well, as Remington has clearly discovered.
-Sliding parts under load requires high quality parts & materials (and lubrication)
-Takedown is closer to a direct blowback (by which I mean it's slightly more difficult)
-Moving parts inside the slide makes FCG interaction more difficult/inconsistent
-The design can fire slightly out of battery and still retain pressure, but will jam badly on the expanded case
I have mentioned most of these traits earlier, but many months back, so I will reiterate. I think there's enough in column A to warrant further investigation of the design concept. Unfortunately, Remington has shown itself to be very poor heirs to Pedersen, or rather, their production facilities/management have (the design appears as sound to my limited experience as anything). That is where I/we/us come in
Because crafting a pistol frame from billet sounds like a fresh nightmare, I started looking at available options that could serve as a starting point for a homebrew. It turns out the R51 frame bears a striking similarity to a certain brainchild of one John Moses Browning;
the model 1911! The 1911 appears to possess a design feature that is fairly unique among the various types of frames presently available; a large block of material bridging the rails at the rear of the mag well, before the hammer opening. This surface is critical to a Pedersen action, since it is where the floating breech block comes to a stop and locks rigidly before being cammed up out of the way by the slide's inertia. Talk about fortunate, since 1911 frames are more available than even Tokarev's these days
This train of thought has a lot of great benefits itself;
-Readily available 1911 frames, castings, and 80% blanks to draw from (and in a variety of shapes/sizes/materials)
-Ready made small parts for the frame, sights, repair stuff, tools, etc.
-If the original trigger group can be retained (seems plausible) this vastly simplifies the process of getting a functional gun off the ground
-Doubtful, but it may be possible to contain all Pedersen design accommodations in the slide (for a drop-in slide conversion)
I am still obviously in the very early design stages; just scoping out the general landscape. But here is what I've schemed up so far;
-Start with a frame blank with no disconnector hole drilled (for strength)
-Mill away rails between the chamber opening and locking block at rear of magwell (unless the magwell width can supply enough bearing area for the breechblock; a strong possibility with a doublestack frame)
-Assemble frame FCG and other components as usual (need to make a longer trigger bar), minus the disconnector (maybe)
-Hog out the interior of a standard 1911 slide to make room for the floating breechblock
-Install a cross pin to act as the camming feature (as opposed to the two "teeth" in the R51)
-Make a breechblock that looks suspiciously like an Ithaca M37 bolt
-Fabricate a part that sits into the link cutout, fixed in place by the cross pin, and figure out a way to attach it to the barrel (either fit it to the barrel's link boss and pin it, or press it onto the barrel after turning down the lugs to form a journal)
-Recoil spring and guide rod stay original (if not, spring around the barrel)
-Probably have to modify the disconnector to contact the slide rails somehow, since the central portion of the slide/bolt parts will be too bumpy for good function, and I don't want to make the same mistake as the R51
The disconnector issue is the primary reason I think it is unlikely the frame would not need modifications that would preclude a simple drop-in solution for every frame. Some kind of unholy Pedersen/Browning lovechild
. I could be wrong, though, and such a solution would surely be incredibly cool.
I'll repost this if there's much interest, but The High Road is routinely bored with/indifferent towards gun build threads that don't proceed at a pace rivaling "the magic of television." Also those that don't follow long established, well-worn paths (sorry guys, 'tis truf
). Updates, if there are any, won't be frequent enough to hold an audience, so this thread is as good as any.
TCB
