1938 Russian Tokarev TT33

[Olle]

Originally Posted by John Sabato

Hey Olle,


I just reread your lanyard loop fabrication thread and I had an idea you can add for the forming process.

Your forming die idea was a great one, but IF I had to implement a copy of your work I think I would fabricate the dies to fit in a standard reloading press to supply the "oompf" for forming.

I would make the dies so that when you levered the reloading press, the completed staple (lanyard loop) would be pushed out of the top of the die. With that kind of setup you can cut a bunch or rods to the appropriate length, size the ends and easily punch out a pile of lanyard loops in a very short time. Just sayin'

As far as holding them into the pistol frame, a method you could use would be to make the ends JUST SLIGHTLY oversize of the hole size by a couple of ten thousandths, and then put the newly formed link in the freezer and heat the hole for ten or twenty seconds with a propane torch. While the holes are still hot ( and hence enlarged from the heat) , you can slide the link quickly into place, and when the gun cools (and the holes contract) you will have a very strong press fit. VIOLA!

John,

That would be a great way to do it. I had a similar idea (kinda upside down compared with yours) where I would use use my arbor press instead. You put the female die at the bottom with a spacer underneath, put the male die on the arbor, load it from the top and just punch them through.

The tool I used was kinda experimental, and if I had to do it again I would make it from a more substantial piece of steel. I didn't have a clue when I started so it kinda evolved from pieces of scrap steel and a lot of head scratching. The geometry of the tool needed several tweaks before it worked, but now when I have that figured out I could probably build a better tool pretty quickly.

The trickiest part was to get the legs exactly parallel and the ends at the exact distance from each other. They fit pretty tightly in the holes, so the ends need to be within a few thousands of an inch to both hit the holes. It's so tight already that the loop will bind if it doesn't go in exactly square. Adding a press fit or shrink fit to that equation would probably be very difficult.