Okay guys, don't laugh me off the forum for this one. It was lots of fun and it shoots.

This is my 30-Erin Pistol project. 38 special necked down to 30cal. Erin is my 5yo shooting buddy.
I proofed it at around 30ksi and it held fine.
I'm loading a Lee 113gn cast with unique and will keep most loads in the 13-20ksi range per quickload.


I found a hardwood pallet with a nice looking section of wood, so I cut it out for the grips. For the forend, I used the leftover wood from my turkish Mauser sporter project. I still need to make a rear sight and mount it. I'm thinking of makeing a steel Weaver style scope base and then makeing a rear sight that could bolt onto it or take it off and put a scope on.

That's interesting, Lar! It may be ugly, but it's a lot better than I'd come up from scratch.

A friend of mine has pistol very similar to yours that he made in his high school shop class. He's in his 60's so that was a while back. It's chambered in 22LR and he brings it out now and then to run a few rounds through it. It functions quite well. Try that project in a high school metalshop class now days!

It has a removeable breach block with rebounding fireing pin. I could have made the 1/4" grade 8 bolts into pins or cut the heads off and mounted them flush, but I thought I would go for the nuts and bolts look.

There was a thread at cast boolits about a guy in Alaska wanting to build a light plinking gun with stuff he could comeup with in his village and mostly hand tools. I used a lathe and mill, but I'm sure it could have been done with a grinder and file. I made a floating pilot chamber reamer and it cut great, but I got it a bit oversized. I'll have to try smaller next time. I think I'll just neck size on this one. I picked up a couple of demilled Garand barrels on ebay and think I'll try for a rifle version next.

lar,
thanks man.. this is goign into my "my work aint so ugly" file....

i think they called the 22 lr in a pipe a zip gun

jeffe

Nice zip-gun. Are you old enough to remember zip-guns? It was pretty common way back in late 50's and early 60's. Only time I saw one was when a kid in school got caught with it when he brandished it thinking he was a big-shot.

Not quite a zipgun. I used a barrel from a 30-30 so it's rifled. and it doesn't have any rubberbands on it.

It looks like a fun thing to me. How does it shoot? Are you going to scope that baby? roger

I don't have a rear sight on it yet, so I just lined up the front sight off of the hammer to test fire it on Sunday. It shot better than I thought it would without a rear sight. The action locks up pretty tight, so I think that will help with consistency. I think If I make a steel weaver style scope base and solder it to the barrel, then I can make a rear sight to fit it and also try a scope on it. I have a couple of extra pistol scopes in the safe that currently don't have a home, so I think I'll put one on for accuracy testing. The reamer is made in 3 sections, the body, neck and throat, so I can adjust each one individually, I think this might be a good use for some surplus Mauser barrels in 7 and 8mm. I'll just have to make new neck and throat reamers. I'm useing a floating brass pilot. The body reamer is made extra long so I can try a 357 mag or max case later. I just cut the rim recess on the lathe with a bit. It was easier than makeing a special reamer for it.

I think I see 4 brass pins, from the front to back:
1) break action pivot pin
2) locking lug?
3) trigger pin
4) hammer pin

Is this an all new action of your creation, or a reworked action?

What is the hole for, just above the brass trigger pin?

Clark, they are 1/4x20 grade 8 bolts. It's an all new from scratch action. I started with some 3/4x1 1/2" rectangular tubeing. I made the trigger and hammer out of 1/4" flatbar. I made a removeable breachblock out of 3/4x3/4" cold rolled square stock. there is a steel lub welded to the bottom of the barrel with a horizontal cut in it that a no.8 machine screw slides in to lock the action closed. There is a slot in the frame that the screw slides back and forth in. It's spring loaded to hold it in place and snaps closed when the barrel is closed. I couldn't find a 8x32 grade 8 screw that had a long enough shank to keep the threads off of the lug, so I turned down a 1/4" bolt to no.8 size and threaded the end for a nut. The trigger and hammer pins are 1/4" bolts. The hole above the trigger pin is a rollpin that holds the breach block in the frame. The breach block is fitted tight up agains the steel tubeing so I don't think the roll pin should take much abuse. The fireing pin is a turned down 1/4" bolt that floats in the breach block and is pinned in. I thought this would be safer to have a rebounding fireing pin than just mounting a fireing pin on the hammer. I made the spring to keep the latch pin in place, but couldn't get anything useable for the trigger or hammer springs.

This pic might show more detail.
my camera doesn't do well on closeups though.

Lar45, home made ugliness was the name of my first few creations that were sort of a gun. Comparing your work here to my work, there is none. Envision a large spoke from a ruined motorcycle rim, folded to provide a kind of handle, with the socket end being the "barrel" that was packed with whatever explosive I could find or make, the "firing pin" being a heat source that "cooked off" the "bullet", which could be anything from wood to barbed wire. Crude, but yes it did work, right up to the part where it became a grenade instead of a gun! Hey, I lived to write this!! Seriously, looks like a fun project. Some of my later projects looked almost as good!!

I was about 9 years old on the spoke project. 1955 as I recall. If you must know, cats were the targets.