With threats of more gun control, I think we should take it upon ourselves to come up with a design for a firearm in .233/5.56 that's as easy to assemble as a sten gun.

It should meet most of the following criteria:

1. All parts should either be readily available or easily fabricated. Should not require skills like welding or anything that needs professional tools which would defeat the purpose of expedient. Keep sten gun in mind, along with some of the designs of PA Luty.

2. Should accept AR15 magazines


3. Should not raise eyebrows when purchasing parts from websites or hardware stores, industrial supply houses, etc.

4. Should be modular, can accept a suppressor, etc.

5. Should not require bending jigs, or any other specialized devices.

6. Should not cost an arm and a leg to build. There's a reasonable cost for a project like this, I should think the total cost should not exceed that of a basic AK build.

7. This should be a weapon that can withstand the battlefield and back.

weaponeer wrote: Sadly, with all the requirements above, the only option would be an improved zip-gun style weapon. You really cant have a magazine or receiver without a welder, and a very minimum  shop tools with a dremel tool, and more likely a mill. An expedient firearm would not really have any magazine, and would be a single shot, much like the WWII FP-45 45 ACP Liberator pistol, which was used to acquire a better gun by killing it's owner. The fancy version is the Well Rod, which is not much more than a suppressor with a chamber and a zip gun type setup to shoot it. It was VERY silent. Most common old school gang shotgun, was two pipes, sized so a 12 GA would slide right in the inside pipe, and a larger diameter pipe was needed to slid over the inner pipe, and that pipe had an end cap with a hole drilled for a short rounded nail pointing inward (normally welded in place, but epoxy, or JB Weld Might work). You placed a 12 GA in the inner pipe, and that inner pipe was slid inside the outer pipe (shotgun shell first), and then you had whats called a slam gun.  you point the pipe in the direction of the target, and gripping hard with both hands, you slam the inner pipe hard on the bottom of the outer pipe with the firing pin protruding, and BANG. This works great for all rimmed calibers both rifle and pistols. Now keep in mind that they used to SELL this type of shotgun.  the one I know of was called the Richardson Industries Slam Fire Shotgun, and obviously is was much nicer and had a stock. Another version which looks like it was advanced enough to have an extractor was the Philippine WW II Guerrilla gun A few other photos of an original This last ditch firearm is simple to build, and it works, and it's also effective. it can be made into any shotgun ga, and a number of rifle and handgun calibers that are rimmed, but I would stick with the shotgun bird shot, buck shot, and slugs.

Hmm, well I guess I should've used my wording a bit more carefully. I suppose learning how to weld is unavoidable when talking about easily fusing two pieces of metal together.

I am looking for an actual usable firearm out of this rather then something to get you by until you find a suitable weapon.

What about using just a piece of pipe fro the receiver as i did in my diy xm43 build? You could use a piece of round bar as the bolt, and attach any stock with drilling holes for bolts or pins, same with the barrel. No welding needed!

Mech warrior wrote: What about using just a piece of pipe fro the receiver as i did in my diy xm43 build? You could use a piece of round bar as the bolt, and attach any stock with drilling holes for bolts or pins, same with the barrel. No welding needed!

Just looked that up, I'm impressed.

that would most certainly be desirable in a build like this.

Thanks OrenG! I think the basic pipe receiver has tons of potential as far as attachment without welding goes, even just threading the rear to accept the ar buffer tube can be done on a lathe.

I've been looking at EMT--Electrical Metallic Tubing as a cheap, widely available source of receiver stock.  For example, the 1 1/4" nominal EMT has an OD of 1.510", and a wall thickness of 0.065"--heavy enough to hold up, but light enough to carry and form easily (unlike schedule 40 steel pipe).  Big EMT is sold in 10-foot sticks at every home improvement place for very cheap, about $1/foot.

You'd need a magwell, FCG pack, grip, and front trunnion. I bet all of these could be 3D printed without any problems, and bolt or rivet onto simple drilled holes in the tubing.

For a simple straight blowback action, you'd need a fairly heavy (1-2lb) bolt for pistol cartridges.  I'm thinking this could be cast from zinc/zamak.

Finally, you'd need springs, but these can be wound from music wire with nearly zero infrastructure.

Basically it'd be "build your own parts kit"!  Somebody just needs to do the CAD work...

orions_hammer wrote: I've been looking at EMT--Electrical Metallic Tubing as a cheap, widely available source of receiver stock.  For example, the 1 1/4" nominal EMT has an OD of 1.510", and a wall thickness of 0.065"--heavy enough to hold up, but light enough to carry and form easily (unlike schedule 40 steel pipe).  Big EMT is sold in 10-foot sticks at every home improvement place for very cheap, about $1/foot. You'd need a magwell, FCG pack, grip, and front trunnion. I bet all of these could be 3D printed without any problems, and bolt or rivet onto simple drilled holes in the tubing. For a simple straight blowback action, you'd need a fairly heavy (1-2lb) bolt for pistol cartridges.  I'm thinking this could be cast from zinc/zamak. Finally, you'd need springs, but these can be wound from music wire with nearly zero infrastructure. Basically it'd be "build your own parts kit"!  Somebody just needs to do the CAD work...

I can probably cover the CAD work. I've been playing around with Inventor for about 3 years now and just started a 6 month course with AutoCAD.

I do like the availability of FAL lower receivers, these don't require an FFL for transfer, correct?

I may have to reconsider the using of AR15 parts, The biggest concern will be AR15 mags.

The only thing left to find is a mag well to use. The one off the FALs is either a conversion to an FAL upper receiver, or is part of the upper receiver itself.

EMT works great, back in the pre 1986 days my buddy had a class 7 ffl out in CO. He made STEN tubes and they worked great for that type of firearm.

Mech warrior wrote: Thanks OrenG! I think the basic pipe receiver has tons of potential as far as attachment without welding goes, even just threading the rear to accept the ar buffer tube can be done on a lathe.

The more I look at your XM43 build, the more I think it's exactly what I had in mind. All it needs is to be adapted for .223/5.56 .

Welding is not absolutely necessary in making of a firearm, in fact, look at your avarage pistol and tell me do you see welds anywhere.

Though it can be substituted in some degree by silver soldering, which is in the long run easier to learn and much cheaper than welding, talking about TIG of course, the best part of it is that you dont end up with ruined part if you screw something up, like in welding, which is something I believe anybody who tried to weld something experienced at least a dozen times.

Again, look at AKs, they are only on some parts spot welded (like ejector), most of the gun was built with pins and rivets, because manually welding is not suitable for industrial big scale manufacture, and more important because they did not have such technology, or refined it to the point to be sucessfull (the same fact that they made first series of Ak stamped receiver, only to switch to milled receiver, till they finally accomplish a decent stamped receiver some years later).

As for this design and caliber, maybe some kind of heavy bolt (like 1kg) blowback can be accomplished, also using a shorter than usual barrel, so that the recoil on the bolt is not so strong as with full size rifle barrel. Do not know any other means of manufacturing the action in expedient fashion (but we did have had talks about infamous VG1-5, but no shown results of it made in home fashion).

I think blowback is possible with the .223/5.56x45. Rather then just relying upon the bolt weigh itself, you could use a set up with a piston, that does not function, but could have weight added to it or even another spring or both. That spreads the weight out over the weapon, but also allows easy adjustment. Plus, by adding some of the mass forward, it would help with muzzle rise.

Mech warrior wrote: I think blowback is possible with the .223/5.56x45. Rather then just relying upon the bolt weigh itself, you could use a set up with a piston, that does not function, but could have weight added to it or even another spring or both. That spreads the weight out over the weapon, but also allows easy adjustment. Plus, by adding some of the mass forward, it would help with muzzle rise.

The only recommendation I could make about the auto loading function would be to take an existing gas block from some rifle and modifying it for our purposes. This assumes that piston run is the way we want to go. Piston operation would be ideal as far as I'm concerned, but I'm no expert.

To do that though, we'd first need to figure out what our best option is for a barrel, and work from there once we have the outer diameter and such figured out.

Nice idea, but we are farther and farther away from the term "expedient".

I personally think it needs to be worked around barnitzke VG system, like on another thread, but in 5.56mm caliber.

Using 7.62x39 and AK mags or 5.56mm and AR mags is irrelevant, focus must be on simplistic type of action that would work yet be simple enough to manufacture.

If they could do it in mid 20th century, sure we can do it too 70 years after, with improved wide available tools and materials.

Although, we maybe lack the "necessity is the mother of invention" momentum.

Lets pretend it's some kind of a fantasy scenario : In the middle of the zombie apocalypse you stumble upon deserted army storage with millions of AR rounds and hundreds of AR magazines, but no rifles, yet some tools and simpler machines (like lathe) and scrap metal are laying around, firearms for your crew are needed quickly; what could you do ?

A true "expedient" gun will be hard to do with all of your specs I think.

I am in the process of making a "Ar Substiute" that would be simple and cost effective to make, but even then, I am still using AR barrels, bolts, and some fire control group parts.

5.56 is a LOT of pressure to play with. I would not feel good about trying to make a gun that uses 5.56 without some kind of locking system.

As to bending and welding, I think it will be hard to make a simple expedient gun without it.  It can be done, but you are looking a a lot of overbuilding and work arounds when it would just be "better" to take the plunge and allow welding or formed sheet metal.

 

Just my $0.02

notso wrote: A true "expedient" gun will be hard to do with all of your specs I think. I am in the process of making a "Ar Substiute" that would be simple and cost effective to make, but even then, I am still using AR barrels, bolts, and some fire control group parts. 5.56 is a LOT of pressure to play with. I would not feel good about trying to make a gun that uses 5.56 without some kind of locking system. As to bending and welding, I think it will be hard to make a simple expedient gun without it.  It can be done, but you are looking a a lot of overbuilding and work arounds when it would just be "better" to take the plunge and allow welding or formed sheet metal.   Just my $0.02

I'd be very interested to see what you come up with. The term expedient I probably misused, I'm not sure what sort of term I'm looking for, for a build like this.

I'd really like to take some inspiration from the FAL and AR18, and make a lower out of thick sheet metal which would be rather easy to fabricate rather then a milled lower.

An old Pilipino design could be modified generally used to obtain a better quality weapon.

F9ZA6_Slam_Bang_Shotgun.pdf

A simple design apperars to use M60 trigger group easy to replace.

B65CD_5.56mm_Low_Maintenance_Rifle_.pdf

3849D_F1_SMG_Semi_Full_Auto_Trigger.PDF

I like the xm43 idea. Something like that might be just the ticket for my 9mm barrel that doesn't have a home yet.

lefty08, Thanks! Hope it helps you to be creative! I just started cobbling stuff together and viola! It shoots!

Sagittarii, i like that B65CD, low maintenance rifle!

Two ideas:

1) Simplified(is this even possible?) and miniaturized POLSTEN(check Chinn).
You can design it to utilize regular ar15 mags and some odd ammo (like 458 socom).

2) Half of a roller delayed lock, can be made with a drill press and file from flat stock (maybe not so sophisticated like one in korriphila, but...).
Forget about grooves in chamber and wax cartridges...