PurdueRifleman
08-10-2010, 05:59 PM
Just thought I'd share a recent project that my friend Tom and I have been working on. Being that we're all drawn to the uncommon or unusual, I figured this might be especially interesting for you all. This is very TL;DR so if you'd rather get to the point and skip the back story, go to paragraph six.
Word of warning, the following describes an act of modifying a weapon and some of you purists may cringe. I have no plans of reselling this.
Last December, I was in the local fun store to buy a brick of .22 ammunition when I noticed a clumsy looking pistol caliber carbine on the rack next to the hunting arms that make up the bulk of the store's business. Being a collector of esoterica, I asked an employee if I could see this most unusual of firearms that graced the gun rack. He handed it to me and told me that all he could tell me about the carbine was on the price tag (J & R Engineering carbine rifle, $525). I then checked the chamber and mounted several times before asking him about dry firing the weapon. He granted me permission and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the trigger broke clean at an estimated 3.5lbs! It seemed a shame to have such a fine trigger group on a gun with such a ludicrously short length-of-pull and the aesthetics of a prison shank, but I thanked the employee and went on about my business.
http://a.imageshack.us/img14/9615/16057880680322548137365.jpg (http://img14.imageshack.us/i/16057880680322548137365.jpg/)
While I wasn't committed to buy just yet, the seeds were planted and I did a fair amount of research on the gun over the next few weeks, but came up with very little in the way of useful information. Then, I got a break through. The gun was a J & R Engineering (later to be known as Wilkinson Arms) M68 carbine and production numbers were estimated to be between 600 and 2200 and could easily fetch $850-1500 on the market! The 31rd bottom release magazines were harder to find than the rifle itself and fetched $100 in less than perfect shape. Keep in mind, the store was asking $525 for the rifle and 1 magazine!
With this information in hand, I returned to the fun store in mid-March this year and handled the weapon again. The employee asked me what it would take for me to walk out with the rifle that day so I told him $475. He was only all too happy to oblige.
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/4350/m68carbine.jpg
Shooting commenced as soon as I returned home. The crude sights didn't lend themselves to precision shooting. The rear sight didn't even sit securely on the receiver, but I could get 1.5" groups at 25yds with little effort. "Good enough for what it is," I thought.
A few months down the road, I showed this curiosity to my friend Tom who is an engineering student at Purdue University and also a fan of odd or hard to find weapons. I told him the story and a bit about the gun such as how it had no feed ramps, rather, a chamfered chamber and how the barrel floated inside the nearly 1.5lb bolt and actually rotated. Almost simultaneously we decided that the gun could be improved so after some time of deliberating on what we could do with it, a plan was reached to "update" the weapon.
Here is where the story picks up. The rifle, while a curiosity, was merely that. We felt it needed to be updated. As it stood, the rifle was robust, but clumsy and left no provisions for attaching an optic or any accessories for that matter. So after some deliberating, we arrived at a plan for attaching some 1913 picatinny rails to the receiver and swap out the buttstock for something with a usable length-of-pull for something other than a 5yr old. Optics would of the cheap NcStar variety for now.
Last weekend, I visited him up at his house in Indy and we started work. For 8hrs, we measured, remeasured, and measured once more just to be sure and then made our marks for the necessary holes to be drilled. After a lot of sweating and finger crossing, we had her finished. Here are some pictures of the process and finished product:
http://a.imageshack.us/img409/5650/leftrailhole1.jpg
Drilling Hole for left rail
http://a.imageshack.us/img267/5715/forrestdrillpress.jpg
Me, getting ready to use the drill press
http://a.imageshack.us/img135/8300/tomtaphole.jpg
Tom hand taps a hole with a thread pitch of 10-32
http://a.imageshack.us/img201/7017/reshapingscrewanglegrin.jpg
Tom uses an angle grinder to reshape some SS screws for attaching the top rail because they needed to be shorted to allow for the bolt to travel unhindered. I'm sure if you took the sorts of classes he was taking, you'd be losing your hair too!
http://a.imageshack.us/img267/3788/finishedreceiver.jpg
Tom with the finished receiver
http://a.imageshack.us/img152/6243/reassembly.jpg
Me, nearly finished with reassembly after a minor mishap while re-installing the trigger linkage.
http://a.imageshack.us/img291/3505/39874101001340029489481.jpg
The almost finished product!
We also had plans to attach the wire side-folding stock from an AMD-65 (ugly version of AK-47), but I had to leave before we could figure out a way to attach the trunnion to the receiver.
I shot it yesterday and after a lot of adjustments to get the rifle on target and then a lot more to get it close to zero, I ran out of ammunition just short of finishing the job! However, I was rewarded with a measured 1/4" 25yd 3-shot group on what I was hoping would be the final adjustment.
http://a.imageshack.us/img291/6221/m68target.jpg
Check out that tight, final group on the left bullseye!
In conclusion, I know this probably doesn't mean anything to most of you, but it was a really fun project that I'm looking forward to finishing in the coming months and just thought I'd share it.
PS- if any of you happen to frequent AR15.com or thehighroad.org, I'll be posting a much more in-depth story on the actual transformation process there. No back story this time!
Word of warning, the following describes an act of modifying a weapon and some of you purists may cringe. I have no plans of reselling this.
Last December, I was in the local fun store to buy a brick of .22 ammunition when I noticed a clumsy looking pistol caliber carbine on the rack next to the hunting arms that make up the bulk of the store's business. Being a collector of esoterica, I asked an employee if I could see this most unusual of firearms that graced the gun rack. He handed it to me and told me that all he could tell me about the carbine was on the price tag (J & R Engineering carbine rifle, $525). I then checked the chamber and mounted several times before asking him about dry firing the weapon. He granted me permission and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the trigger broke clean at an estimated 3.5lbs! It seemed a shame to have such a fine trigger group on a gun with such a ludicrously short length-of-pull and the aesthetics of a prison shank, but I thanked the employee and went on about my business.
http://a.imageshack.us/img14/9615/16057880680322548137365.jpg (http://img14.imageshack.us/i/16057880680322548137365.jpg/)
While I wasn't committed to buy just yet, the seeds were planted and I did a fair amount of research on the gun over the next few weeks, but came up with very little in the way of useful information. Then, I got a break through. The gun was a J & R Engineering (later to be known as Wilkinson Arms) M68 carbine and production numbers were estimated to be between 600 and 2200 and could easily fetch $850-1500 on the market! The 31rd bottom release magazines were harder to find than the rifle itself and fetched $100 in less than perfect shape. Keep in mind, the store was asking $525 for the rifle and 1 magazine!
With this information in hand, I returned to the fun store in mid-March this year and handled the weapon again. The employee asked me what it would take for me to walk out with the rifle that day so I told him $475. He was only all too happy to oblige.
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/4350/m68carbine.jpg
Shooting commenced as soon as I returned home. The crude sights didn't lend themselves to precision shooting. The rear sight didn't even sit securely on the receiver, but I could get 1.5" groups at 25yds with little effort. "Good enough for what it is," I thought.
A few months down the road, I showed this curiosity to my friend Tom who is an engineering student at Purdue University and also a fan of odd or hard to find weapons. I told him the story and a bit about the gun such as how it had no feed ramps, rather, a chamfered chamber and how the barrel floated inside the nearly 1.5lb bolt and actually rotated. Almost simultaneously we decided that the gun could be improved so after some time of deliberating on what we could do with it, a plan was reached to "update" the weapon.
Here is where the story picks up. The rifle, while a curiosity, was merely that. We felt it needed to be updated. As it stood, the rifle was robust, but clumsy and left no provisions for attaching an optic or any accessories for that matter. So after some deliberating, we arrived at a plan for attaching some 1913 picatinny rails to the receiver and swap out the buttstock for something with a usable length-of-pull for something other than a 5yr old. Optics would of the cheap NcStar variety for now.
Last weekend, I visited him up at his house in Indy and we started work. For 8hrs, we measured, remeasured, and measured once more just to be sure and then made our marks for the necessary holes to be drilled. After a lot of sweating and finger crossing, we had her finished. Here are some pictures of the process and finished product:
http://a.imageshack.us/img409/5650/leftrailhole1.jpg
Drilling Hole for left rail
http://a.imageshack.us/img267/5715/forrestdrillpress.jpg
Me, getting ready to use the drill press
http://a.imageshack.us/img135/8300/tomtaphole.jpg
Tom hand taps a hole with a thread pitch of 10-32
http://a.imageshack.us/img201/7017/reshapingscrewanglegrin.jpg
Tom uses an angle grinder to reshape some SS screws for attaching the top rail because they needed to be shorted to allow for the bolt to travel unhindered. I'm sure if you took the sorts of classes he was taking, you'd be losing your hair too!
http://a.imageshack.us/img267/3788/finishedreceiver.jpg
Tom with the finished receiver
http://a.imageshack.us/img152/6243/reassembly.jpg
Me, nearly finished with reassembly after a minor mishap while re-installing the trigger linkage.
http://a.imageshack.us/img291/3505/39874101001340029489481.jpg
The almost finished product!
We also had plans to attach the wire side-folding stock from an AMD-65 (ugly version of AK-47), but I had to leave before we could figure out a way to attach the trunnion to the receiver.
I shot it yesterday and after a lot of adjustments to get the rifle on target and then a lot more to get it close to zero, I ran out of ammunition just short of finishing the job! However, I was rewarded with a measured 1/4" 25yd 3-shot group on what I was hoping would be the final adjustment.
http://a.imageshack.us/img291/6221/m68target.jpg
Check out that tight, final group on the left bullseye!
In conclusion, I know this probably doesn't mean anything to most of you, but it was a really fun project that I'm looking forward to finishing in the coming months and just thought I'd share it.
PS- if any of you happen to frequent AR15.com or thehighroad.org, I'll be posting a much more in-depth story on the actual transformation process there. No back story this time!