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.22 Magnum Pistol Build (Part 3)

This is the ‘home-stretch’ of this build. Lot’s done, and little left to do at the end of it.

Side-plate and mainspring in place.

This view shows the parts, including the trigger and trigger return spring in place. The trigger is actually the piece v=cut our of the frame for the trigger.

Here is the hammer In the cocked position. Â The half-cock notch is recessed so that the trigger cannot be pulled.

The mechanism complete and assembled. After adding a .062″ music-wire firing-pin I did the first firing test, shooting into a 5-gallon bucket of water. Not wanting to get splashed I placed a piece of cardboard over the bucket. This did keep me from getting splashed but it didn’t stop about 1/2 gallon of water from wining up on my shop floor…

Walnut stocks fitted. Both the handgrip and fore-stock are each made of three sandwiched pieces glued together. This allowed for a very snug fit- the pieces actually stay in place without screws.

With the chamber opened. The fore-stock serves no practical purpose I can think of; I just thought it looked cool when I sketched the pistol originally.

Semi-finished. Difficult to tell in the picture but I have lightly cold-blued the frame and barrel, mostly to protect them until the sights are mounted. I sanded the grips and did a bit more shaping. The fore-stock has a single screw through the bottom to secure it. For the hand-grip I debated whether to use a single screw from the bottom or a cross-screw; you can see which won. The stocks are finished with a penetrating acrylic finish;it’s essentially a super-thin superglue but it creates a durable, water-proof finish that dries in under a minute. In the past this has proven quite durable.

Though not visible in these pictures the block on the top-front of the barrel has been hollowed to place a front-sight. I have not settled on the design of the rear sight; I have both fixed and adjustable concepts that I am playing with.

After the sights are mounted I’ll refinish the gun with a darker blued finish. Currently there is no extractor; while I can do some very limited milling on the drill-press I cannot achieve anything like sufficient precision for fitting the extractor. Once I get the correct power-supply set of for the milling machine I’ll attend to that.

The 3/8″ barrel-liner will also be replaced eventually; the chamber is very ‘sticky’ owing to the lack of a proper reamer. I’ll polish it as best I can, but I am dubious that i can achieve a satisfactory finish. right now empties must be driven out with a brass rod inserted into the barrel. This means that right now the barrel is secured with glue; once I fit a new barrel-liner with a properly reamed chamber it will be silver-soldered into place.

I’m very satisfied with the trigger; in the half-cock notch it is quite impossible to ‘pull through’ and drop the hammer. At full-cock the trigger-pull is extremely light and breaks sharply, and while there is significant over-travel it doesn’t bother me. Eventually I may fit an over-travel screw if it becomes an issue.

This build is going to be in-progress for some time to come, but it is finished enough now that it will be going on the next range trip. I’m really pleased with it, and with the progress that I have made so far. It feels great in my hand and points naturally. Once it’s fully refined and finished it’s going to be a really nice little pistol.

Since, aside from a few details, the gun is essentially complete this is the end of the build series, though there will be updates as more work is done. I am also looking into getting video and/or more detailed photos of future builds; a friend has offered to be a photographer/videographer for the next build so we’ll see what happens.

.22 Magnum Pistol Build (Part 2)

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Between doing things that actually make money I got a few more hours in on this project. Having a bit more experience this time around is making a difference; this one is going rather faster than previous builds. The work shown here was spread out over a couple of evenings, though some odd small bits were done while glue was drying.

The chamber is reamed for .22 Magnum and burnished with a hardened steel rod. hopefully this will be significantly smoother than some of my past chambers…

The crowned muzzle. Smoothed to 600 grit, then chamfered carefully by hand with a conical reamer and polished. This has been very successful in the past so I have every faith it will work this time as well.

1/16″ brass pins secured the central frame sections to the right-hand side plate, then they were carefully silver-soldered and cleaned up. The frame is now permanently assembled.

Holes in the frame drilled and tapped for the assembly screws. these start life as 8-32 Allen-head screws, but eventually will wind up as slotted screws.

Sideplate mounted. the screws will be recessed and shortened, then slotted later in the build.

The barrel hinge-screw has been drilled and tapped. The hammer has been cut out and placed in the frame.

The hammer is now milled for the mainspring, and I fabricated the hinge-screw, which protrudes from the side plate; the mechanism can be assembled and tested without the side plate. I wound the mainspring from music-wire and mounted it, but it was getting late so pictures will have to wait. The trigger and lock are next. Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day which I traditionally take off work so I imagine I’ll finish the build tomorrow.

.22 Magnum Pistol Build (Part 1)

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The next build is… Surprise! A single shot pistol! A bit stir-crazy the other night, so I ripped off a quick sketch and headed into the shop. The new pistol has derringer-like features but is definitely not a derringer. Doing some new things with this one; for example since I won’t be using a flat-spring for the hammer the shape of the grip-frame is arbitrary. I decided to do a ‘generic’ grip frame that could be fully enclosed by the grip, which opens up a lot of leeway in the final grip-shape. There will be some other refinements on previous designs, but things that work- like the plunger-type lock- will be retained from other builds.

First step- carefully cut out the outline of the gun and trace it onto .262″ 5160 Spring-steel with a Sharpy-marker. This includes the shape of the barrel as that finished shape, thickness etc. has yet to be determined at this point.

Here’s a shot of the sketch showing a rough idea of the mechanism. The hammer-spur has been cut off so I can trace the shape of the frame.

Here’s the frame partially cut out. You can see the method used to cut the inside curves- a series of short, thin cuts that can be easily cut out. Then the inside curve can easily be smoothed out with the belt-grinder.

Here’s the finished cut before smoothing.

The recess for the trigger was cut in the same fashion. Here’s the frame compared to the original sketch. Note that on the sketch the hinge at the front was originally going to be in the barrel assembly, but at this point I decided to mount the hinge on the lower portion of the frame.

Originally I was intending to make the barrel assembly out of 1/2″ mild-steel but since my equipment is not up to boring a 3-1/2″ hole straight enough. I resorted to boring the hole in 3/4″ steel then thinning and squaring it. I cut and filed the slot in the lug ay the bottom-front of the barrel to a snug fit on the frame. The protrusion on the top will he hollowed out for the front sight

The two side-plates were traced from the sketch and cut out of 1/8″ mild steel, then the center 1/4″ 5150 central frame was cut to allow room for the mechanism. The rifled barrel-liner can be seen below

Here are all of the bits temporarily assembled to give an idea of the final form. The grip-shape is not quite the final shape; this is just what I whipped up for the photo. This gives a good idea of the finished form of the gun. The next step is to pin and solder the central frame onto the left side plate for for the finished frame, drill and tap a few holes then start working on the mechanism.

I haven’t decided whether to leave the barrel protruding or to trim of off even at 3-1/2″as I had originally planned; I suspect the final decision will be based on esthetics as much as anything. The grip will almost certainly be walnut, as will the fore-stock. Yes, there will be a Contender-like fore-stock. Mostly because I thought it would look cool that way.

Not sure when the next installment will be; sooner than it ought to be most likely; I’m getting pretty excited about this build.