You may have seen him- it’s always ‘him’ for some reason- at the range, or in a class or even in a store or restaurant. The Tactical Guy. He’s got a sweet gun with all the bells and whistles. He’s wearing patches with his favorite brands on them, and some that say things like ‘Door Kicker,’ ‘Warfighter’or ‘I come, I F**k things up, and I leave.” He has more pockets than teeth, and he’s probably wearing camo. If he’s really committed he’s tatted up like a sideshow freak. He is the Ultimate Badass, and he wants you and everyone else to know it. He is… drumroll please… Tacti-Cool!

Don’t get me wrong, this guy could genuinely be a badass. Maybe he was a door-kicker in the Sandbox. Maybe he is a serious operator. I’m not going to bet on it, though. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen one of these guys take their super-modified $3000 handgun and shoot like their life depends on putting a bullet into every square inch of the target at seven yards… and that target is usually a full-size ‘tactical’ target.

The biggest badass I have ever met looked like– and was– a friendly, funny, easy-going grandfather. He tended to wear utilitarian casual clothes and sneakers. Have a chat with him and he was nice, smart, polite and pleasant. You’d never suspect he was dangerous. But if he decided you needed to be dead you would be dead before you could blink, pretty much no matter who you were. Stealth… it’s tactical.

This calls into question what, exactly, does Tactical mean? According to the Dictionary:

tactical |ˈtaktikəl| adjective

Of, relating to, or constituting actions carefully planned to gain a specific military end: as a tactical officer in the field he had no equal.

• (of bombing or weapons) done or for use in immediate support of military or naval operations. Often contrasted with strategic.

• (of a person or their actions) showing adroit planning; aiming at an end beyond the immediate action: in a tactical retreat, she moved into a hotel with her daughters.

Interesting… There is no mention of camouflage, tattoos or arguing endlessly in social media and online forums. It apparently has nothing to do with the latest class, gear fad or firearm. Or for that matter advertising to the world that you are a badass.

It has to do, in each of the cases in the definition above, to plan in order to maximize the odds of success in a situation where violence is a thing. If your goal is self-defense in public spaces you should plan to maximize your odds of success. If your goal is to survive an ‘active shooter’ situation you need a different sort of plan. Dealing with a burglar in your home also requires a plan. A catastrophic event that causes a breakdown of social order needs a plan if you are to survive and get through it. Are we sensing a trend here? That perhaps ‘tactical’ has more to do with planning than it does with the latest fad or fashion?

According to the ‘Tacti-cool’ community if you don’t have the absolute latest, greatest gear for any conceivable situation you are an idiot. Because apparently things that have worked for a hundred years magically stop working whenever someone comes up with a new product or idea for separating you from your cash. ‘You bought your web-gear five years ago? Dude, you gonna start carrying a club and dressing in furs next?’

News flash- your 30 year old stock AR15 still works exactly as it did thirty years ago. Is there something better out there? Maybe- but that doesn’t mean your old gun is worthless or stupid. A 1911A1 will still put down bad guys (if you do your part) despite the fact that the design is over a hundred years old. So will a S&W M&P .38 special. Obsolete does not mean useless, or even stupid.

Let’s take a little jaunt sideways. People used to use Safety Razors. These worked well, and replacement blades were cheap and readily available. Then disposable razors were introduced. They weren’t as cheap, but they were convenient and razor manufacturers pushed them hard. They didn’t do this because these razors were better; they did it because they were more profitable. Now they will tell you that if you want a good shave you need a four-blade titanium-coated razor with ultra-sonic vibration… and to pay $45 for a pack of six replacement blades. Instead of $2.95 for a pack of 20 blades for your safety razor. A few years ago I switched back to a Safety Razor and you know what? It works as well as the uber-high-tech state-of-the-art razor it replaced. The only difference is that Gillette is making a lot less money off of me.

In reality my 1911A1 is as likely to be useful in the real world as a tricked-out USP .45- because the situation I am most likely to encounter will probably involve two shots at a distance of less than ten feet. In a self-defense situation a snub-nosed .38 that is with you when you need it is more ‘tactical’ than a fully-tricked-out Glock in your gun safe. But seriously by definition your gun isn’t tactical no matter how much money you throw at it. Your plan for using it is tactical, and the plan is far more important than the tools you use to execute it. 

That seems like a good place to wrap up Part 1; give it some thought before we continue.

This is the gun that started me on amateur gunsmithing.

I’ve always loved single-action Colt SAA-style guns. I’ve had some very nice ones over the years. The problem with them is that in any caliber smaller than .44 there is just too much metal in the cylinder and bore so they don’t feel right to me. I basically stuck to .45 Colt in these guns. So it was quite a blow a few years back when local environmental regs demanded that indoor ranges stop allowing the use of all-lead bullets until they made significant and expensive upgrades to their air-cleaning systems. That meant the only ammo I could shoot was defensive ammunition, which was prohibitively expensive for target practice. In the end i reluctantly parted with my beloved Cimarron Thunderer because I could never afford to shoot it. But I mourned…

My wife found the solution, and bought it for me for Christmas. It was a 7-1/2-inch barreled Cimarron 1851 Navy Richards-Mason conversion in .38 Special, made by Uberti. Since .38 Special is close enough to the original .38 Colt the gun still felt right to me.  I loved the gun, but before long I had visions of a snub-nosed version. I thought I might buy another gun and make one some day, but I could never afford it. Finally the wife said, “Just do it to this one.” So in late winter 2015 I did.

I started out removing the ejector tube, then sliced of the barrel with my bandsaw. I squared up the end of the barrel and re-crowned it with a conical reamer in the drill-press. I carefully polished the result and cold-blued it. I marked a spot for the front-sight and drilled a 1/8 inch hole, then used a fine carbide burr to undercut the hole inside. I peened in a section of 1/8 inch brass rod for the front sight and carefully polished it to a rounded profile. The rear sight is cut into the hammer-nose, and I carefully enlarged it with a triangular jeweler’s file until I had a good sight picture.

Then I took a deep breath and removed the grip-frame and the one-piece wooden grip. I annealed the brass frame and attempted to bend it. As I had feared it broke; brass castings seem pretty unforgiving, and I discovered that the quality of brass used was not the best. I knew could always buy a replacement frame, and it’s not like it could get more broken, so I cut the grip-frame and brazed in a piece of 1/8- inch brass plate and shaped it, then drilled it for the retention screw. I reshaped the wood grip to the new profile, carefully sanded it down to match and finished it with a hand-rubbed Carnauba wax finish.

The result feels excellent in my hand, points naturally and shoots great. The improved sights compensated somewhat for the shorter sight-radius; one-hole groups at seven yards and even at 25 yards I can keep all the shots on an 8-1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper. I honestly don’t miss the ejector- typically I can just open the loading gate, rap the side of the cylinder and the empties fall free. It’s actually faster than using an ejector…

I then made a simple field holster for the gun for mucking about in the woods and such.

I love the results, and as an added bonus Linda now enjoys shooting this gun; previously the 7-1/2 inch barrel was a bit much for her. My success with this gun spurred me to attempt other projects, and the can of worms was well and truly opened. I’m having fun with it, so I am not even going to try to get the little bastards back in the can!

Building guns from scratch isn’t much different than making knives from scratch. The thing is I’ve been making knives for decades, making guns is new and done strictly as a hobby. There’s no pressure to pay the bills and I can take my time and stretch my imagination and skills. Linda supports this fully because it gets the creative juices flowing, and that spills over into my work. This makes me more productive, so it’s all to the good.

Last week Linda bought me a couple of .22 caliber barrel-liners and that got me thinking of projects. Barrel liners are important- it’s legal to make your own guns, but those guns have to conform to legal standards. For a pistol this means a rifled barrel. Since I’m not much inclined to build my own rifling rig this means barrel liners. I drew probably a half-dozen designs for single-shot derringers last week, and Saturday morning I made a trip to the hardware store and then launched into it. Of course I didn’t use any of the designs I’d already sketched out- I did a quick sketch and dragged it into the shop and started making parts based on it. This basically means drawing things on steel with a Sharpy marker and cutting them out on the bandsaw, then refining the shapes on the belt grinder.

I actually started with he barrel-block, a piece of 1/2 x 1-1/2 mild steel. I drilled a 3/8 inch hole in it lengths and then cut it away so the barrel would be exposed.

Side plates were next, cut out of 1/8″ mild steel. The first one was the full-profile of the gun including the grip. I used that to pattern the grip-frame and breech/hinge assembly in 1/4-inch half-hard 5160 spring steel. I also slotted the barrel-block at the front to accept the hinge-lug. Once I had these pieces cut away the grip shape from the 1/8-inch profile and made a second side-plate.

This shows the barrel fitted to the barrel-block.

The barrel-block has been bored through the lug for the hinge pin, and with the pieces fitted together the finished shape has emerged. I’ve also bored a hole under the barrel for a plunger that protrudes into the breech-face to lock the barrel closed. At this point I was about five hours into the build and called it a day.

Sunday morning first thing was to drill and pin the interior frame parts to the right side-plate. These were then silver-soldered in place to form the gun’s frame. Now I could get started on the internal parts… We will draw the curtains of charity of the next several hours. Suffice it to say I made three hammers, two triggers and three mainsprings before I had to admit that a leaf-type mainspring simply wasn’t going to work without a significant design change. Well, if you can’t go forward…

…try going sideways. I’d purchased some music-wire on my Saturday-morning hardware-store trip, and after a half-dozen attempts I’d wound the spring pictured above. I relieved the side of the hammer to accommodate the new spring, cut an anchor-hole in the grip-frame and I was back in business. This picture shows the hammer at rest.

At half-cock the trigger springs forward from the shroud.

…and remains exposed when the hammer is brought to full-cock.

Here the second side-plate and the barrel-block are fitted. The Allen-head hammer pivot screw has been flattened and slotted for a screw-driver. This will eventually be done for the barrel-block hinge screw as well.

At full cock the trigger is exposed just enough to pull it comfortably- about 3/32″

Here’s the gun with the barrel-block open. There will be a pin protruding from the slot on the barrel block to depress the plunger to open it for loading.

With the barrel in the closed position. At this point it’s effectively done except for fitting the firing-pin, final fitting and finishing, and of course making the grips.

People keep asking if I plan to get a manufacturer’s license so I can sell these guns. Nope. For one thing it would spoil the hobby aspect. For another it’s a hassle, but there is a more compelling reason. At this point I am fifteen hours into this build. Likely there will be another 10-12 hours before it is actually finished. 25-27 hours of work at my hourly rate would make even a simple pistol like this absurdly expensive, and the finished quality and function of the gun would in no way justify that price.

These projects are and will remain firmly in the realm of the hobbyist; they are interesting and fun to build. I learn a lot and it gets the creative juices flowing, which is a good thing. But honestly I can buy a much better gun than I can build, and at a fraction of the cost once my time is counted into the price.

From here out this build will be progressing piece-meal, and hour here and there. I’ll eventually do up another post once it’s finished, but that could be awhile.