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Air Gun Home Forum Index » Rifles » B3 Project Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6  Next    View previous topic :: View next topic  B3 Project   Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 4:32 pm Slavia Moderator Joined: 31 Mar 2008 Posts: 4382 Location: Waseca, Minnesota, USA It's been a year since my last springer project - I have a 1377 project in progress, but it just didn't "speak" to me. Then things started happening... I was going by the house of a co-worker last summer, and she called me into her garage. "I have something for you," she said. No, not that, you perverts. It was some AK-47 parts left over from a boyfriend she threw out. Then one day I was pawing though the junk at the county recycling center, and found an interesting mountain bike frame. It caught my eye because the top and down tubes transitioned from a rectangular cross section at the head tube to circular at the seat tube. Lo and behold, it was just the right size to fit both the AK stock and a $20.00 Cummins Tool Sales airgun: The gun is, I believe, an Industry Brand B3-2 (old series). Separate butt pad (so not a B3-1). No safety (so not a B3-3). No white plastic butt pad spacer, and a white plastic rear spring guide (more recent B3-2's have a spacer and black plastic spring guide). I bought it several years ago as a project gun, and over time the wooden fore end had split beyond repair. I don't have a carbine-length gun, so here was an opportunity. The goal this time around is a military-appearing, "minute of pop can" carbine. The daughter circulated a few photo-shopped pictures at college, and all black was the clear winner. I looked at many B3 projects on the net, and all the stocks (even refinished) betray the B3 heritage. I wanted to avoid that, so here's where I'm headed: I took the normal baseline data (accuracy, velocity, and sonogram). I have the stock roughed-in (i.e., lacks polish and finish): I'll post details as I disassemble it for finishing. My G1 and Mendoza projects were epic sagas, and this will probably be the same. I do promise to finish it before Alstone needs to check into a residental care facility (and I hope in time for spring shooting). _________________ ¡Listo! ¡Apunte! ¡Fuego!   Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 5:57 pm Crosman140 Senior Member Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Posts: 663 Location: USA Looks promising. I love the bike parts. Very ingenious. _________________ My Critter Gitters .22 Crosman 140 (1955) .177 Crosman G1 (2009) .177 Crosman 1377 (2009) .177 Daisy 880 (2019) BB Daisy Red Ryder (2012) BB Daisy Buck (2019) BB Crosman 1600 (1980) BB Marksman 1010 (1979)   Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 6:06 pm Alstone Moderator & Site Supporter Joined: 01 Mar 2007 Posts: 4139 Location: Linconshire, ENGLAND As soon as I read your post I thought “bloody hell” another "epic saga", but then I through “brilliant” I have a B4-2 which I think is basically a updated B3. I bought the B4 about a couple of years ago just for something to play with, it was as rough as a badgers bum, the trigger was difficult to reach and the rear sight was difficult to line up, it did have a nice De-Lux stock and shot well. I had many times looked at it and thought “What the heck can I do with it”. Then along came Slavia with his project and all I need to do is sit back and let this young “Whippersnapper” do the hard work and I follow on with my gun a week behind. AL _________________   Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:41 pm walter Veteran Member Joined: 12 Nov 2010 Posts: 181 Location: towson md. very creative. love it.great work so far. _________________ modified 1377c. first gen. Beeman hw97k. 177.cal.   Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 11:17 pm Slavia Moderator Joined: 31 Mar 2008 Posts: 4382 Location: Waseca, Minnesota, USA Quote: “bloody hell” another "epic saga" Please do not take offense at my crack about the nursing home. It has nothing to do with any impending decrepitude on your part, and everything to do with my plodding pace. So, in the spirit that someone might find even one thing useful in this mess, here come the excruciating details: So far, everything except for a few screws has been fabricated from things I had on hand. I'm not going to spend megabucks for mods to a $20.00 gun. Since it's too cold to work in the garage, it has all been done with hand tools - Dremel, portable drill, files, etc. My aesthetic guide (the daughter) said it looked strange without a magazine, so now it has one. Or rather, it has a pellet holder. Or M&M's, or paper clips, or whatever. I made it out of a solid scrap of plastic, held on with a bicycle seat post quick release clamp. The magazine "well" is a piece of brass soldered to the frame to hide the gap: Storage is in the larger, central hole: The sliding keyholes in the frame were cut by drilling two holes, and then connecting them with the Dremel and an abrasive cutoff wheel. The socket head screw at the rear is merely a guide (and fits in the brass anchor seen above). On final assembly it will be adjusted for fit with the frame and then will be Loctited in place. The QR lever was narrowed slightly with a file, and the heads of the pivot rivet were cut off. The rivet (now a pin) is held captive within the confines of the plastic. The shaft was extended to reach the length of the magazine with the threaded barrel of a "T" nut and a 1/4" screw. The adjustable head is another "T" nut with the flange turned down. The lever's shaft is nearly the same diameter, but metric - so it locks solid after a few turns. That's fine with me, since it saves soldering or Loctiteing it on final assembly. The washers are from a bicycle brake: I'm used to working with wood and solid metal, so this sheet metal and plastic is a stretch for me. I found out that hand tools (and the drill going very slowly) were best for carving the plastic block. The Dremel just melts a lake of plastic, which freezes a second later - accomplishing nothing. For smoothing, a cabinet scraper worked wonders - sandpaper just left scratches and embedded grit: I decided to leave the AK butt plate as is. The stock is pretty short, but the full vertical pistol grip makes it comfortable to hold. I also think the little trap door and AK toolkit are cool, even though it will fit nothing on the gun. I'm not sure what the country of origin is for this stock: I have a thing in general about wood screws on guns, so I replaced them all with machine screws and anchors. These screws will be dunked in muriatic acid to remove the galvanizing, and will then be cold-blued. Besides liking the easy assembly/disassembly of machine screws, the AK wood screws were really crude: The AK stock came with a permanently fixed, welded loop for a sling attachement. I removed it, narrowing and opening the fixture to accept a quick release ring's larger pin: I have an awful time with those brass inserts when I try to turn them in with a screwdriver. The little ears always break off, leaving a partially inserted piece that can't be removed except by drilling. I like to insert a screw and nut, and then use a wrench on the nut to screw them in upside down. Then I hold the screw, back the nut off, and remove the screw. If I can get this thing to shoot straight then I may consider the expense of a red dot sight, which will sit higher (requiring that my eye and cheek also be positioned higher). Now is the time to prepare, so I made the adjustable cheek piece for the comb. It is a piece of Walmart's cheapest pancake griddle (left over from my G1 project). On final assembly it will be covered with the toolbox drawer liner shown in the photo. It is adjustable by means of spacer washers, which can also be used to tilt it forward or back. For durability I epoxied flat washers into a slight counterbore in the wood over the threaded anchors. The domed washers were turned from the bases of .45 ACP shells, and conform to the inner curve. The flathead socket screws have been domed slightly to conform to the outer curve, so that the drawer liner will lay flat: Waste from making the domed washers turned out to make pretty decent (thin) spacer washers: The AK stock originally mounted with an upper tang, so I filled that in with a scrap of walnut. It fastens to this frame with screws and brass anchors. It's a pretty nice piece of wood - solidly laminated, with steel reinforcing pins at all the points that might crack: More later. _________________ ¡Listo! ¡Apunte! ¡Fuego!   Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:39 pm GrizzlyMan Member Joined: 12 Jan 2011 Posts: 80 Nice thread, thanks for sharing the pics of your project.   Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 1:17 pm Slavia Moderator Joined: 31 Mar 2008 Posts: 4382 Location: Waseca, Minnesota, USA The inside of the frame isn't pretty, but it is plenty strong. The front mounts (what would be screw cups on a wood stock) are .38 shells gusseted with lamp nuts, and soldered in place: The rear mount is a .45-70 shell: The sheet metal is too thin to successfully tap, so the rest of the attachment points are bits of "T" nuts or brass thumb nuts soldered in place. One lucky exception is the main forearm/front grip screw, which goes in the brazed-on fitting for the original bicycle water bottle holder: The adapter plate for the pistol grip was fabricated from a scrap of "T" slot rail. I wasn't confident enough to drill and tap the hole for the long screw at the exact position and angle necessary, so I went with plan "B." Sloppy holes I can do, so I wiggled the drill around to make a conical hole, and ground the screw head into a wedge shape. The screw now goes in the opposite direction of the original AK layout. It flops around a bit, but once the wedged head engages the conical hole it doesn't move. The trigger guard is original to the B3, bent to a new shape and pared down so it fits inside the grip: One of the chainring nuts from the bicycle crank fit the long screw's threads, so all I had to do was cut a screwdriver slot: The sling mount on the B3 was similar to the AK mount, in that it was permanent and had a small hole. (It was a ring that went through the head of the cocking arm pivot screw.) Drilling out the hole for a QR fitting would have brought me very close to ripping out the bottom of the screw head, so I used the Dremel. With a small cylindrical diamond bit I both enlarged and moved the hole up until the QR pin fit. Then I ground the screw head to match the radius of the QR "swing," and pared down the sides. To keep the sling from loosening the screw I scalloped one side and added the "keeper" screw: I narrowed the leather AK sling with scissors to fit the QR loops, and pop-riveted it back into the AK fittings. _________________ ¡Listo! ¡Apunte! ¡Fuego!   Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 1:39 pm Alstone Moderator & Site Supporter Joined: 01 Mar 2007 Posts: 4139 Location: Linconshire, ENGLAND Very nice! Have you shortened the barrel? And where did you get the grip from? I think mine will have to go at a more sedately speed as it's also to cold to go out to the workshop. AL _________________   Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 2:47 pm Slavia Moderator Joined: 31 Mar 2008 Posts: 4382 Location: Waseca, Minnesota, USA Quote: Have you shortened the barrel? Yes - more about that later. Quote: where did you get the grip from? The butt stock, pistol grip, and sling all came from a coworker. _________________ ¡Listo! ¡Apunte! ¡Fuego!   Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 4:53 pm 720fly Veteran Member Joined: 17 Oct 2010 Posts: 150 Location: a top of the Mountain of dreams All I can say is That's so frictin' cool Sweet gun and a great mind at work Two thumbs up   Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 5:27 pm Slavia Moderator Joined: 31 Mar 2008 Posts: 4382 Location: Waseca, Minnesota, USA Thanks, 720fly. One more thing before I have to go to work: The AK fore end was way too small, so this one is fabricated from a piece of PVC pipe. I softened it with a propane torch and molded it around the metal. You can see where I got a little happy with the flame - no matter, since it will be covered with the same toolbox drawer liner as the comb. The two little 4-40 screws were small enough to thread into the sheet metal itself, and there is a .45 ACP cup under the big screw: _________________ ¡Listo! ¡Apunte! ¡Fuego!   Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 8:29 pm walter Veteran Member Joined: 12 Nov 2010 Posts: 181 Location: towson md. that butt stock looks to be a romanian laminated stock and fore piece. looks great. sounds like a ton of creative problem solving. well done! _________________ modified 1377c. first gen. Beeman hw97k. 177.cal.   Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2011 12:53 am GrizzlyMan Member Joined: 12 Jan 2011 Posts: 80 Awesome project, saved bunch of your rifle pics for future reference.   Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2011 3:20 am broommaster2000 Moderator Joined: 10 Mar 2007 Posts: 5714 Location: City of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands It reminds me of one of those home made rifles they make in Chechnya or in Afghanistan. _________________ BIG GAP   Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2011 5:24 pm Slavia Moderator Joined: 31 Mar 2008 Posts: 4382 Location: Waseca, Minnesota, USA Quote: that butt stock looks to be a romanian laminated stock Thanks for the information - it's nice to know the little details. Quote: Have you shortened the barrel? Yes - the aluminum bicycle seat post that I'm using as a shroud is the same length as the cocking arm, so that's where I chopped it. Nothing scientific about the length at all. There is a neighbor a block away that has a lathe/mill to square up my rough cut. I'm planning on working out at the gym so I can load and shoot fast enough to make the heat dissipating holes necessary. The barrel's crown is all the way at the end of the shroud, so it is in no way a silencer. At the rear there is an aluminum split bushing to adapt the barrel and shroud diameters. It was cut from one of those 15mm BB gun scopes (plastic adjusting screws, plastic lenses - it belonged in the junk box). The shroud is thin and soft, so I used a "T" nut to get some steel threads around the setscrew. As you can see in the photo, the threaded barrel of a "T" nut is tapered. I drilled small and then opened up the hole with a jeweler's rat-tailed file until the "T" nut entered about half way. Then I used the screw to jack it into position. (The "T" nut flange was ground down and shaped to match the inside curve of the shroud.) It's in there pretty tight - I threaded a screw into it and it took a pretty good "pop" with a hammer to break it loose. At the front a piece of PVC pipe and a bit of heat-shrink tubing shim the two diameters. The front sight is another bit of the aluminum rail, and the sight pin is just a screw with the threads cleaned off. It can be screwed up and down, or even shortened to agree with the rear sight. When that adjustment point is determined it will be (red) Loctited in place. The front bushing does double duty by adapting the diameter and also holding the sight mounting "T" nuts fast until the screws pull tight: _________________ ¡Listo! ¡Apunte! ¡Fuego! 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