Not exactly a competition but since Chuck at GunLab.net was nice enough to loan me his Leader Dynamics T2 MkV rifle, I used that opportunity take some pics and compare it to it’s direct decedent, the Australian Automatic Arms SAP.
A Visit to the GunLab – AR-180 Parts
This past Saturday I had the opportunity to visit Chuck at GunLab.net and it was an awesome and overwhelming experience. I wished I had taken the time to take more pictures but I think I was a little in shock at all the cool guns, parts, and equipment. By far the best part of the trip was the company, Chuck and Shirley are two of the nicest folks you could ever have the pleasure of meeting.
We chatted at length about his work on the AR-180 parts he is building. The lower parts that he is making to fit your AR-180B and Nodak NDS-18S lowers were at heat treating and should be back this week. Parkerization and final inspection along with one final operation on the springs will finish this phase. They should be ready to ship very soon.
Next up he is working on uppers. We are hoping to have them available in several configurations from flats to complete uppers with trunnions and rails. He sent me some pictures of his solid model of the stamping die he is building.
Trunnions have also been modeled and those should be coming shortly after the upper sheet metal.
I also gave him one of my original prototype AR-180C railed front sight bases and I am hoping that we can get a few of those made.
The AR-180C flat top might become a reality after all!
Finally yours truly with the only picture from my visit, holding an MP-44 for the very first time. I find it astonishing that they were able to crank these out in the numbers they did, with allied bombs dropping all around them, and that the complexity of manufacture I see in this gun was actually a time saver compared to older weapons.
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More AR-180 Upper News
Chuck at GunLab.net has been working on AR-180 uppers and has reverse engineered the trunion and has put up a very interesting article.
I on the other hand, lacking any semblance of expertise in CAD took a differing approach when I reverse engineered my AR-180B upper.
Good friend of the site, Carl, sent me some square tubing that he has successfully used in his home builds. I decided to duplicate my upper using this material. It is much thicker wall than the original and I will have to shave this down at least on the bottom surface to get it to work with my lowers.
I did this for two main reasons. I wanted to refresh my skills on the mill as it has been many years since I last used one, and secondly, just to see if I could.
I made my first trunion out of 6061 aluminum just to test my measurements out and I have found that a few needed to be adjusted.
I learned a lot from this project and I find things like this much more rewarding than the usual beginners projects.
I will continue to tweak this until I am happy with it then I will start a new one using the first as a template. I think I will make the trunion out of 4140 unless y’all have any advice.
Some pictures that show what I have been up to for the last two days.
Some things to note if you attempt one of these yourself. The interior of the tubing is not perfectly square so some hand fitting will be necessary. The tubing spreads open once the bottom is cut. Some method of squeezing it back before welding would have to be considered. Lastly, all of this will be rendered moot once Chuck makes new uppers and flats available. Until then I will use this as a way to improve my machine skills and better learn my tools.
New AR-180 Uppers?
It looks like Chuck over at the GunLab has got his paws on an “In-The-White” AR-180 upper and if you know him like I do, that means we might be seeing some new uppers available soon.
I called him and we chatted for quite a while. He is hoping to make a run of these and offer them complete with trunion welded in but nothing on top. No dovetail, no rear sight. Perfect for those who want to build your own AR-180C flat top clone. He also is planning to make a run of flats.
I look forward to the day when the hobbyist like me, and many of you, can build our own AR-180 from scratch. That day may be closer than you think.
Full Auto AR-180 Conversion on Gunbroker
I was alerted to this interesting full auto AR-180 conversion by a reader and I contacted the seller to get more information. I had assumed that all conversions used the same system as the AR-18 but my research shows that there are many different ways to get the job done.
This particular gun also brings to light the crazy gun laws that we have to deal with and in particular those surrounding full auto guns in Connecticut.
First lets see how an AR-18 worked.
You can see in this picture that the upper receiver has two tabs that retain the auto sear. A link is attached to the sear that rides along the bottom of the upper and is tripped by the bolt carrier. The sear acts upon the rear of the hammer. The hammer is different than the one used on an AR-180 as is the disconnector, bolt carrier, and firing pin.
This conversion goes about it in a completely different way.
This conversion is on a Howa AR-180 and it has a sear that acts on the front of the hammer. It appears to have a pivot added to the front of the fire control box and you can just make out the pin location in the picture above. The sear has a tail that is tripped by a piece that was welded on to the bolt carrier. It uses all the original 180 fire control parts with the exception of the disconnector and the safety. The 180 firing pin is also retained.
I wonder if this is how the Widowmaker conversions were done?
Now for the Connecticut twist on this story. It appears that those who drafted their assault weapons ban tried to get machine guns classified as assault weapons and in doing so, left the door open for guns that are full auto only. You can’t own a registered select fire weapon (one that fires Safe/Semi/Full) but you can have a papaered Full auto machine gun (Safe/Full). This gun is one such animal. For those that live in other states, it can be converted back to a select fire configuration.
Please feel free to comment about any conversions you have come across. I think this is a very cool part of the history of the AR-180.