In another thread, Schutzenbob is building a Sharps-Borchardt with a forearm dovetailed to the barrel. That sounded interesting, as it would allow you to use a long barrel w/forearm on any Luger without the mounting lug for the forearm. I have one more Remington 700 30-06 barrel, so I'm going to make a long barrel with a forearm dovetailed to the barrel, somewhat like the Luger artillery rear sight dovetail. Long enough to hold two forearm attaching screws. And I'll make the inletting at the rear of the forearm wide enough to allow it to recoil over the frame.
Here's the start...
(1) Remington 700 barrel in 30-06 caliber.
(2) Turning down the breech end to the OD of the Luger barrel flange and then turning that down to the ID of my 1896 Swedish Mauser carbine rear sight. The two black spots are the OEM Remington rear sight tapped mounting holes. I'll be using them to attach my sight.
(3) Sight slipped on for final fitting.
The sight is from an 1896 Swedish Mauser carbine. I like the look of it, although like all Mauser sights, it is incredibly optimistic.
(4) The Swedish Mauser carbine sight, same ID as pretty much all Mauser sights.
(5) Threading the breech end of the 30-06 Remington 700 barrel to Luger specs.
(6) Cutting the breech stub to length, relieving the rearmost end of the thread.
(7) I've decided to make my barrel band/muzzle cap/front sight blade all out of one piece of steel. In the past, I've milled/turned the FS band out of steel rod and dovetailed the blade into it. This time I've drilled & tapped a piece of 1" key stock for the 1/2" x 28tpi barrel thread I'll be using, and the blade will be integral. At least, that is Plan A.
Next I'll be threading the barrel/muzzle for the muzzle cap/band/sight base, and milling the cap/band/sight to shape.
(8) These three pics show the muzzle being turned to diameter, threaded 1/2" x 28tpi, and the steel block from pic #7 above fitted to the barre.
(9) This is the steel block being milled in a rotary indexing head. I had the thought that milling it would be faster than band-sawing the block to the rough shape & size. I was wrong. It took much longer. Next time I do a similar part, I'll band saw it first.
First pic is the rough rounding of the block, second is the finished band, third is the muzzle of the cap sized to the same OD as the end of the barrel, before the threads.
Next will be milling the band flat on each side and then milling the blade.
(10) Milling the sides of the blade/base flat.
(11) Milling the top of the blade down to equal the height of the rear sight folded.
(12) Milling the blade itself down to ~.120".
(13) Muzzle cap/band/blade shown on barrel for effect.
I had to fabricate a new muzzle cap spanner; the pics are of it being milled out of 7/16" x 1 5/8" 6061-T6 aluminum bar. When it was done, I assembled the barrel, rear sight, barrel extension ['receiver'], and muzzle cap/band.
(14) Boring out the aluminum bar, milling a .350" slot, and test fitting the spanner and muzzle cap. Assembled unit shown for effect.
Next I will 'slope' the blade forward.
I also need to mill the rear sight 'V' to a square Patridge style aperture.