Gonzo Long Barreled P08 Project

[sheepherder]

First pic -

While pawing through my tool collection I noticed I had a 1 1/2" carbide tipped dovetail cutter left over from some obscure one-time project...So I decided to have another go at dishing the toggle knobs...

The toggle chosen is one left over from some other project <sigh>. I clamped my 'fixture' in my mill vise and 'bored' the toggle dishes. Time consuming and fairly apprehensive, as I had visions of carbide inserts flying around the shop...

But it turned out OK, machining-wise. Still the wrong diameter, and leaving enough metal for the rail contact surface didn't allow much to be machined off, but at least the concept is proven.

I guess that the bear and I are about even on this one.

Second pic -

I was contacted by a forum member who was interested in a 'dished' toggle, so I ordered a carbide shell end mill cutter plus arbor. It should be in shortly.

The 2 1/2" Carbide fluted shell end mill came in; I finished my 'prototype' P08 dished toggle...

Very slow milling; 10º angle from horizontal; plunge milled. I retained the ~.156" contact patch for the frame ramp. The arc of the scallop is not as great as an M1900 due to the M1900 being .150" wider in the knob area.

Came out OK; there were a few tool marks but sanding with 220 wet-or-dry wrapped around a suitable mandrel took them out pretty quick.

Visually not as impressive as the wider M1900 toggle, but it's different...

[sheepherder]

Back to working on the long-barrel Luger again.

Getting the parts ready to be shipped off to be blued. Toggle and rear sight are now done; nothing left for me to work on except forearm.

(86) Cutting the Patridge-style notch in the Mauser rear sight leaf.
(87) Milling off some of the rifle graduations
(88) Making a fixture to hole the forearm so I can file/sand it
(89) Milling a slot in the forearm for the brass inlay to fasten the forearm



I don't have any woodworking tools to speak of, and I don't have a bench or 'pony' to clamp work to, so I have to make up some kind of fixture to hold the forearm while I file/sand it. I made one out of aluminum bar, need to fasten the ends somehow.

(90) Milling a piece of brass for the forearm inlay
(91) Inlay fitted to the forearm slot
(92) Inlay milled down and drilled & counterbored for the attaching screws
(93) Milling the 'coves' in the forearm, using a 1/2" ball end mill



(94) Milling the other 'cove'
(95) Milling right side flat, in a elliptical shape
(96) How that flat looks
(97) Test fit on frame

[sheepherder]

Trying to do as much machine work on the forearm as possible.

(98) "Blending" the brass inlay with the forearm bottom.
(99) Using a 1/2"R corner-rounding end mill to round the bottom of the forearm. This is my test piece, and it actually turned out quite well (surprisingly!).
(100) I'm doing a lateral move now. I'm OK with the forearm I have so far, but there are always different ways to achieve the same end, and I want to explore a couple of these. I'm trying to use my machine tools as much as possible. So, in this pic, I'm corner-rounding the Pine forearm I used as a test piece and tapering the corner at the same time.
(101) Now I'm using a straight 3/4" end mill to side-cut the forearm to taper it from rear to front by 1/4" total [1/8" each side].



(102) I noticed I have some kind of burr or rasp or whatever that has a taper to it, so I'm experimenting to see how it would work on the top of the forearm, to help give it the 'rounded' cross-section that the Luger forearms seem to have.
(103) Here's a shot of the semi-completed Pine forearm. Besides final sanding, the only real area that needs more work is the 'Schnabel' tip. The corner-rounding end mill couldn't go full length, so I have to figure out some way to blend in the curve. I may use my rotary indexing head...
(104) Woohoo! Got all my metal pieces back from the refinishing. All blued except the 6 pieces at the bottom; they have been strawed. Excellent work!
(105) Assembling the mainspring in the frame. Frame clamped to mill worktable so it won't move, and cotter pin puller used to compress spring. Works great!

[sheepherder]

I'm still contemplating on how to form my forearm, so in the meantime I decided to clean up my workbench of projects that have languished over the last couple of years...

The first pic is an 80% M1911 with a Bo-Mar Tuner Rib attached. The slide is a Numrich item while the 'parts kit' came from Sarco. There's a couple aftermarket and OEM Colt parts thrown in for good measure. Haven't shot it yet; no 45 target ammunition available.

Second pic is three Luger-style barrels. The top is an original Luger M1900 7.65mm barrel which was purchased from a forum member and was found to be 'squished' .020" in the middle, probably from being incorrectly [wrong or no tools] removed. I was able to obtain a ground drill blank in the correct size and slowly form it back to round shape with a planishing hammer. That left some marks, along with the 100+ year old nicks & scratches, so I used Ithacaartist's method of filing it on a lathe, insread of my usual single-point cutting. It worked out surprisingly well.

Bottom barrel of the second pic is a 1916 Bohler barrel included for comparison purposes. It's my 'control' barrel.

The middle barrel is a 3" 9mm Green River blank which I tried to profile to 'pocket Luger' shape. I couldn't find anyone who would measure their 'pocket Luger' barrel (which I am told was made from a shortened & silver-soldered Navy barrel) so I tried to take the measurements off a picture or two from PIA, Simpsons, and this forum of the original 'pocket Lugers' (not to be confused with Georg Lugers 'baby Luger"). I'm happy with the machine operations but somewhat disappointed with the actual profile. It looks awfully stubby. I understand that most later 'pocket Lugers' are made from shortened P08 barrels, but was the Navy barrel really so thick???

Posts here state that the Luger 'Fat Barrel' and 'Cartridge Counter' Lugers had the same dimensioned barrels used to make the shortened 'pocket Lugers', so that is what I used for my dimensions. Vernier calipers on a photograph; not the easiest (or best) way to get dimensions.

Eventually, I'll finish up cutting the sight dovetail and the muzzle, and install it on a barrel extension for looks. It's already indexed and chambered.

[sheepherder]

<sigh>...I've been sidetracked again...

I wanted a M1900-style rear toggle for my long-barrel Luger, that is one with scalloped knobs. I couldn't find one cheaply enough, so I decided to make one. The M1900 toggle is .150" wider through the knob area, so I couldn't mill a 50mm crescent that the M1900 uses, I had to mill a scallop like Orimar did on their year 2000 commemorative Lugers. It worked out quite well. [Second pic below].

Then, having an artillery rear toggle leftover from eBay, I decided to try an adjustable rear sight mounted on the Luger toggle. My supply of adjustable rear sights are mostly large rifle sights, but I had a couple of Elliason [Colt Gold Cup] sights and decided to try making a base for one of those. It worked out OK, but hangs off the rear quite a bit [first pic below]. I'm not happy with it, although it should function satisfactorily. The only hangup I have is that I don't have the correct #6 tap for the elevation screw. It's even finer than NEF. So I'll have to wait until my next tooling order to get that setup finished.

In the meantime, I have an old Millett adjustable rear sight intended for an M1911 or Hi-Power that is much shorter. I'll be making a base for that in the coming weeks.

[sheepherder]

Got all my long-barrel pieces assembled, and doing a trial fit of the forearm. It still needs work (or maybe a whole new forearm) but it seems to be coming along...



I'm not a woodworker, so it's definitely rough. However, the pic shows my Gonzo cartridge-counter grips and modified magazine, the scalloped toggle knobs, the Tomek magazine bottom, the strawed parts, and the new blueing. It started to snow while I took these pics, so I didn't have time to wipe off oily fingerprints...

Modified Remington M700 30-06 barrel chambered in 7.65 Parabellum, shortened FN/Mauser carbine rear sight, custom front sight.

[sheepherder]

After doing some experimenting with my corner rounding end mill on that soft pine, I felt confident enough to do some more corner rounding on my forearm...

(106) Extending the flat on the bottom further forward.
(107) Extending the rounded corners of the bottom forward to the Schnabel tip I created in 106.
(108) Lightly sanded and rubbed, then attached to the frame lug for inspection. My brass inlay needs to be milled down 10 or 20 thousandths, and I made a couple mistakes doing these additional tapers. A chip here, a cutter line there. It's not perfect, but I'm not either, so this will do for now. Still needs more work of course, blending the taper curves together, maybe rounding the top line.

A member suggested that I have the forearm checkered. That would hide/detract from my mistakes, but is this 'Gonzo' Luger long-barrel really deserving of checkering??? I'll have to mull that over for a while and maybe consult a higher power...

The checkering on the grips is awful coarse, and the grips themselves are quite thick...And my 'cartridge counter' mod to them isn't all that great...

Also, the brass inlay would interfere with a traditional checkering pattern...And the side checkering would need to be different...

My brain hurts...



I just noticed that Herbert Werle's carbine does not use the forearm 'wedge' to hold his forearm on (pic in post #1 above). It seems to be held on by the sling stud. That's cool; I managed to copy his idea without knowing it...

Continuing on with a couple of small refinements...

(109) Thinning the brass inlay. I put a .004" shim between the inlay and the wood so I wouldn't cut into the forearm.
(110) Milling down the brass screws, so they won't hit the barrel.
(111) I still need to finish the tip of the forearm. I don't have good pictures of how it should be shaped, so I'm going by guesswork. The tip seems to be rounded from the side and from the top. I made up a quick and dirty fixture to hold the forearm level (along the barrel axis) so it could be sanded to a round contour in the side view. I'm using my pine 'practice' forearm to see how it would look. It worked excellently. In hindsight, I should have sanded the front tip round after milling the sides and bottom flat but before using my corner rounding end mill on the bottom curved surface. That would have allowed me to draw my round contour directly on the flat of the wood and then I could have easily sanded it and then gone on to the corner rounding of the bottom. As it is, my surface is curved and I'm not skilled enough to sand it freehand without a guide of some sort. If I totally ruin this Walnut forearm, I'll make a new one the right way. But I'm too far advanced to trash this one and start over without a compelling reason.
(112) I've been looking at pics of Luger forearms on the net and mine looks 'thick' by comparison. Looking closely, I notice that the forearm upper deck height is right at the centerline of the barrel, while mine is approximately 3/32" above that centerline. Mulling over how best to cut that much/little off the upper deck, I decided to try side milling it, both sides at once, and climb milling to minimize chips. Here is one of my practice pieces being climb/side milled to see how well this works. Note: It works great!



Next up is to 'thin' my good Walnut forearm. Same technique as in the previous pic. Climb/side mill the upper deck - comparison of pictures from a recent auction show I need to mill .125" off my deck to get the correct height.

(113) Side/climb milling my good forearm, upper deck.
(114) Re-cutting the deck taper of the forearm.
(115) Tip profile curve marked on tape; sanding curve with forearm clamped in Gonzo sanding fixture.
(116) How the profile now looks, with top deck lowered and front tip profile sanded curved. I still need to sand the bottom/top of the tip to a curve also. Pictures show this curve to be rounded in both axes; I'm not sure how to do that. I'll have to think it over...Maybe with a corner rounding end mill or router bit in my rotary indexing head???