Pros and cons of making one's own parts.

[SIGSHR]

I see so many messages from shooters looking for parts for...I often wonder if we shouldn't take a lesson from all those Afghan/Khyber Pass gunsmiths and learn to make our own. We have more access to proper tools, materials, schematics, etc. It would require something which I think we often lack-patience, but by refraining from using a Dremel tool and relying on hand tools, a micrometer and a willingness to file, fit, and file again until it fits properly...
I am currently installing new cotter pins on a pair of English 3-speed bicycles, they require the same technique. One article I read says file, install, the shiny spots will tell you where to file again, and we have lampblack, various spotting fluids, etc.

 

[Gunplummer]

Half of those Khyber Pass rifles were using black powder. They do not understand steel or heat treating. I prefer to get my lessons from somewhere else. You do have a point. Not so much anymore, but guns used to be hand fit at factories, even into the late 60's. Companies learned it is cheaper to just make everything interchangeable.

 

[g.willikers]

Anyone who has made horse shoes probably understands heat treating.
Maybe those guys making firearms in tents and caves do, too.
The iron age has been around for a few thousand years.
So has sword making.
It's down right amazing how old much of what we think of as modern skills and techniques truly are.

 

[Wyosmith]

Gun plumber, you are 1/2 right.
Let me tell you a personal story.

Back in 1982 I was discharges from the USMC and was recruited by DOD to do some work for them. The cool thing about the job was that I spent nearly all of it back with Marines and sometimes SEALS.

The Russian/Afghanistan war was in full swing and I was involved in training allies. I had an opportunity to handle and fire some weapons used by both sides.

The one I remember most was an absolutely beautiful SMLE in 303 British. The quality and smoothness of the rifle was as good as any Lithgow I had ever seen, and the exterior finish was better. It had only a few markings on it that I had never seen before.

I fired 3 full mags of 10 round each and it was able to hit anything I wanted to hit, including very small targets at 200 to 350 yards. I asked the Spook that brought it in what the story was on the rifle, thinking it had to be Australian Canadian or maybe English.

He had a big smile and told me his "new friends" had made the whole rifle in a dirt floored shop using only hand tools. I though he must be wrong.
But he pulled out a stack of pictures about 1/2" thick. they were of a man and his 3 sons and the rifles that they made. They were using left over magazines most of the time, but all the rest of the gun was being made in the shop, including the barrels, the bolts and receivers. The barrel bands, butt plates and all the small parts were made right there.

I was in shock.

The rifle was a "piece of art work", and the quality of it was beyond belief.

I believe that most gunsmiths over there in that area are none to impressive compared to what we get used to, so you are 1/2 correct, but there are some that are skilled far more than you may think, and I have shot one rifle made by them. I was severely impressed.

 

[Gunplummer]

I think he must be wrong too. There was much study of that when the Russians were waltzing around in that area. They may have been good visual copies, but most of it was made from railroad scrap. My father used to tell this story about the Korean sitting in the dirt making a light bulb by hand. "I would like to see an electrical engineer do that!". My answer was "The man did not have a clue how it functioned, he just copied it. They had no electric other than what the Japanese established there." The old man had to give me that point. I used to make self bows (One piece wood) to hunt with when I was younger. There are lots of articles about bow shops in hay days of the 40's hiring extra help. Most hired machinists because your average woodworker could not grasp the mechanics of a piece of wood. The moral of this mess: Just because you can copy it does not make it right. Check out the attached photo. I was trying to drill through a car key(Brass) with a small drill press. It is about a 1/8 drill bit. China. You could probably run an old american drill back wards and force it through.

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[ShootistPRS]

You silly man, that is a left hand angle drill.

 

[Danoobie]

I'm probably not the only one here who's modified a part,
or two, upon occasion, here and there.

 

[James K]

The Chinese, at least at one time, would make anything to the price the customer wanted to pay. If the Rah Rah USA Tool Company wanted to buy drill bits made of chewing gum at $.10 per 1000, the Chinese would make them; if the customer wanted bits as good as any in the world, welcome to China for those too, but at a lot higher price. The Chinese didn't care, and the trash was usually sold with the name of an American company.

As for making gun parts, it certainly can be done. I have made some pretty complex parts using a Dremel tool, files, and a small furnace for hardening. The problem is not that we can't make parts, it is that it is not economically feasible to do so. A hobbyist might take on such jobs, but no professional gunsmith in his right mind will spend six hours whittling a part out of steel and hardening it, then charge the customer $5 for fixing his old rolling block. Many good gunsmiths can do it, but no one will. Would you? With jobs waiting that will take ten minutes and bring in $50?

Jim

 

[dave7798801]

Back in the 80's I worked for a school district with a maintenance supervisor who was notorious for buying the cheapest tools he could find. Went to cut a piece of galvanized pipe with a Made in China hacksaw he'd bought, a few strokes and all the teeth on the blade were gone and I mean completely gone, it was just a smooth piece of whatever metal it was made of.

 

[mulespurs]

Tools

Sometimes it's not the tools you got but the hands and the experience that run them.

 

[Gunplummer]

No, that is not a left hand drill, but I have seen right hand drills with a left hand grind. I have seen drills with uneven webs so bad that you can't grind the chisel point to center. I have seen drills with webs so bad it looks like it was made with a dremel. Yeah, I make parts all the time. I buy up "Parts guns" and throw them in a cabinet until I get time to repair them. I don't do outside work anymore, unless it is only a part. You can make better money going at it part time. I don't want an FFL, so I take repaired guns to an auction to sell them. Nothing illegal about that. I us a dremel and file on a lot of stuff. Depends on what I am doing. Sometimes I don't pull out a dremel for months, but there are times that it is faster than setting up the mill or lathe.
If I had to pick one thing that I think eats up most of my time working on guns , it would be the wood. That is just me. Some people fly through it.

 

[tangolima]

I do make and repair parts when I have to and the clients are willing to pay for them. Firing pins and leaf springs form scratch. Screws by modifying what are available. Retipping broken firing pins. I have done all that and some.

But I still look for replacement parts first, even the client is willing to pay more. Better deal for him. Less donkey work for me.

-TL

 

[T. O'Heir]

"...They do not understand steel or heat treating..." Those guys have been making exact copies of most Brit firearms since the Brits waddled in there in 1839. Sniders, Martini's, etc. with the exact same markings as the one they copied. Current production includes AK's and BHPs.
In any case, the real issue of making parts is the cost of making just one and getting proper materials.

 

[Wyosmith]

I though he must be wrong.
But he pulled out a stack of pictures about 1/2" thick. They were of a man and his 3 sons and the rifles that they made.

No, he was not wrong. The rifle I fired is one of them in the photos. The spook himself took the pictures and brought one of the rifles back.

We must remember that the work of Remington, Whitney, Colt, Sharps, Springfield Armory, Herpers Ferry, Smith and Wesson and Winchester, and several others up to 1895 were all without electricity. So were the weapons made in France and Germany as well as England until close to the same periods.

Cottage industry was all over western Europe in the 1800s and they were not all using water wheels and over head shafts either. No, a lot of that wonderful work was done in shops no bigger than an average 2 car garage today.

As a muzzleloading gunsmith, I have made flintlocks and rifled barrels in my past with very limited tools. In the case of the barrels I have done everything except the rough drilling, 100% by hand.
Reaming, polishing, rifling, lapping exterior shaping and so on.

I did have a few electric drills, but I have made many parts with no more than a forge, hammers and anvil and hand tools. I like to think I am pretty good at my trade, but when I think back to that SMLE copy, or handle the guns made by Monty Mandarino, Of I get humble in a hurry.

So it is not impossible and in fact there were times in the past where such work was normal.

The Tajma Hall, the Eiffel Tower, the cathedral at Notre Dame and all the wonderful things made by man, from about 6000 years ago up unto about 1880-1900 were made by hand and animal muscle, or made with tools that were made by hand. Even the big factories made in the 1800s with huge water powered machines had to be made by muscle power at first.

If you have ever seen the work of the best German French and English gun makers of the 1820 to 1880 era you will have no doubt that human hands can and have done such work. For many many many years too.

It is super rare these days, but it is still out there. I guess that level of skill was always rare, but I suspect it is rarer today then ever.

 

[Bill DeShivs]

I make firing pins and springs for people all the time.

 

[Gunplummer]

We must not confuse hand/eye skill with knowledge. The Japanese were the kings of "Cottage shops" before and after WWII. If they wanted to, they could really pump out a beautiful gun(As they do today). I would not be afraid to fire any Arisaka bolt action made in WWII other than the last ditch cast iron model. Some of the Korean models actually had hand forged parts on them. They understood steel. I wouldn't just pick up a third world copy of a gun and start firing it. Some of them use rebar for barrels. It would be interesting to see what kind of campfire ring they used to carberize the barrel. You can case harden a bolt, receiver, and small parts, but the barrel is something else. Look at the pie throwing contests that start on this forum when heat treating an '03 "By eye" comes up.

 

[kraigwy]

I don't know about those afghan folks but I make a lot of my own parts.

I have two lathes and a milling machine and other assorted tools. I make/modify parts for not only guns, but vehicles, or anything else that need fixing.

I live a ways from town not nuts, bolts, screws are cheap, its sometimes quicker to make on then run to town, Esp if its a time the parts/hardware stores are closed.

Before one gets carried away, he/she needs to learn a bit about heat treatment.

Machining is more about proper set up and measuring then making chips.

Go slow, and have good measuring tools and gages.

I've even made some of my own reloading dies.

Careful though, hobby machining can get addicting and your shooting time will suffer.