[John Sabato]

Hi Jack,

The more I study Ed's .22 conversion prototype pieces, the more intrigued I am about the design and the designer. Of course I agree that Bill Lyon's conversion has an edge since that conversion is finished and functioning (and we know it works!) and this one never was finished. I hope I can come up with the resources to finish this one.

This conversion may have been done one piece at a time. I am sure that there WAS a barrel made at some point, but it long ago was removed for whatever reason...maybe because it was incorrectly machined... who knows.

having mounted these piece in a Luger frame, I have determined that the work that has been done so far has not been without merit. It is pretty easy to operate the toggle by pushing on the bolt face with a cleaning rod, and I feel about the same resistance I would expect in a blowback .22 semi-auto pistol... and that is using the standard 9mm recoil spring. This means that the toggles never have to hit the ramps on the luger grip frame and the pistol would operate as a blowback... very similar in operation to the ERMA .22 conversions.

In answer to your question, could an upper receiver ejector be implemented in this conversion? I would have to answer "no" at this point.

There doesn't seem to be any way for an ejector to be mounted on the upper receiver and work from under the breechblock. It is my best engineering judgement that the original designer of this prototype was going to convert the orignial holdopen as the mounting point for the ejector, and abandon the use of the holdopen feature.

Possibly using a holdopen with an appropriate ejector shape mounted on the stop of the holdopen to ride the bottom of the bolt and kick the empty case straight up.

That problem could be what caused the development of this prototype to be abandoned... It is possible that the bolt face was designed and prototyped first without thinking of how ejection would be accomplished. A poor design in other words. Since the current configuration of the bolt face appears to have been copied from a simple bolt action rifle design and is using opposing extractors.

This method would provide a strong extraction method, but reliable ejection straight up may be a problem with the ejectors at the 3 and 9 o'clock position... I am sure that this is why Georg Luger and Hugo Borchardt put their ejector on the top of the bolt and kicked the empty out with an ejector that hit the bottom of the case.

The only way to know if this system is going to work is to first engineer a barrel that mates with the bolt, and then experiment with ejection being controlled from the holdopen.

I will need a section of .22 caliber barrel of appropriate diameter (about .60 inches or larger) to turn an appropriate barrel to fit in the threaded barrel stub that is already installed in receiver... if anyone has a scrap length of .22 rifle barrel of at least this diameter for me to experiment with, I would be a very willing recipient of the donation. Send me a PM if you or anyone may have an appropriate piece of .22 barrel you are willing to part with... It occurs to me, that a .22 Ruger Mark I or II barrel might be a good starting point. Someone may have one laying around that is left over from a rebarreling project... that would be great.

At the very least, a single shot conversion will be the result of this experiment. One the barrel has been turned, chambered and installed, with cuts for the dual extractors, then the next step will be experimenting with potential ejector designs...

After clearing the ejector design hurdle... the next step would be to kludge together a suitable magazine from an old standard Luger tube and maybe a section of a Ruger Mark I or II magazine inserted inside. I think this would be feeding at the appropriate angle to work with this bolt.

I would love to use a standard ERMA conversion magazine, but they are really expensive to buy for experimental purposes...

I invite questions on the design or these parts... and will post photos as progress is made...