1902 Carbine Stock Attachment Photos...

[Dean]

Rick...

No dice on the taper attachment. But since I selected the featherweight #1 contour, I'm hoping that I won't have too much contouring to perform.
I had planned on an approach like this:

http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/lgbar.jpg

Your thoughts?

Pins.. I did'nt even check to see what pre-made 9mm barrel pins are going for. I figured that I should machine my own to fit. I'll check Brownells. That's the problem with Howe's book, he make everything himself. Kinda forces you into his mindset.

I hear you regarding the "preciseness factor". I'm still going to do my best to get it all lined up. But it is a short pistol cartridge, I can see with a long rifle cartridge where it is more critical to align everything. My biggest concerns are not to mess up the threading, not to overcut with the chamber reamer (or break the chamber reamer), and getting the extractor cut proper & indexed. Safety will be first, and I'll live with whatever accuracy I end up with.

Speaking of chamber reamers, I noticed that there is an outfit on the web that rents them. I don't know if I would trust a rented reamer.

John...

I concur regarding the dremel. But..I happen to have a Fordom tool here with ball bearings in the handpiece. Should be no problem mounting it the same way. It does not spin as fast as the dremel however.

Wood... (not you Ron!)

I mean this wood

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3672428498

Normally I don't like buying wood without looking at it up close, and in person, but I could'nt pass this up for $27. Click through the views, The opposite side really shows some nice figure. This color is very close to the grips on the gun. But if it's not a perfect match, I'll make grips from the surplus that will be left over. In fact, I will most likely be making some 1911 grips from the surplus as well.

This seller has some real bargins on Claro, if anyone is interested, check his "other items".

Wood..(Ron!)

I wonder if you would be so kind to provide width & height measurements of the original carbine stock butplate. I can't seem to find any carbine pictures that I can pull this from. I am OK with the profile dimensions and I know how wide it is at the stock iron. I just dont know how wide the stock is after the step behind the stock iron. I'm guessing that it's about 1.1-1.2 inch and carries that all the way back, but there might be some taper that I can't percieve in the pictures.
I may be altering the overall length of the stock slightly to fit me better.

Looks like my day job will be taking me to Canada for a spell (within the a week or two). So I may be "back burning" this project for a while.

[Ron Wood]

Dean,
I'll dig out the stock Tuesday and get some measurements...gotta keep the project going. There is a very slight taper, expanding from the step in back of the stock iron to the butt. I will try to shoot some pictures.

[Dean]

No hassle here, Rick. In fact, I must confess that I've been snipping all your posts and putting them into a file called "rickstips.txt" so I can refer to them later. I think between you and Howe's book I should be fine.

I'm thinking back on my milling error. The reason it happened was I was tired and I kept on working when I should have given it a rest. Maybe it was a "good thing" that this happened. I will now be much more aware of this when I tackle the barrel. Take my time.

Ron, Thanks a bundle, no rush on those measurements. I can't cut the wood until the stock iron is finished and I can't cut the lug on the luger (or the iron) until I have the new barrel installed. The barrel won't be here for another 3 weeks.

Spoke with the machinist at work today. A good part of his time is spent making stainless shafted rollers for the products we make (paper sorting equipment). He uses an interesting product from Locktite to bond the shafts to the larger rollers. I think it's locktite 696. For example, instead of machining a 1/2" bar down to 1/4" for the shaft portion, he instead bores the roller to a close fit onto a precision ground 1/4" shaft. He then uses this anerobic glue to bond the rollers to the shaft. He claims that it is a very secure bond, but it is imperative to have a very close fit between the two parts.

I was thinking I could use this to bond the rear sight sleave to the barrel instead of soldering it. I'm going to ask him about this tommorrow and see what he thinks. He dables in gunsmithing a bit. In fact, he used to own a few lugers at one time.

[Ron Wood]

Dean,
Glad you aren't in a hurry. I did drag the stock out of storage, but it may be a day or two until I can take some measurements and photos.
Hang in there.
Ron

[John Sabato]

Dean, Check your regular email please.

[Dean]

The barrel has arrived. Very pleased with Shilen's handywork. I am glad I took my time to think about the contour selection. The featherweight was the right choice. There will be very little machining to perform. I've tested a few mounting positions in the lathe an I am now under the impression that the turning/threading of the barrel is going to be easier than I had originally thought.

I am still contemplating a minor mystery. It concerns the following question: What does the barrel contour of the original luger carbine barrel look like underneath the soldered on rear sight base sleeve? Is the interior of the sight base sleeve tapered? Is the contour straight cylindical? Is it a step lip flange or is there gentle flare (like the standard barrel) concealed underneath the sleeve?

Hopefully I will find some time this weekend to dig into all this.

BTW, I was looking at the latest Shotgun News and they had an article of a new 9mm carbine with a 16in barrel. The interesting part (for me) was that they tried a variety of 9mm ammo and measured the fps/accuracy of various rounds. The best long range accuracy was with that new Aguila IQ 65gr. Hi velocity round. I doubt that it will feed well in a luger action. I'm thinking a "warm" 147 gr. might be a better choice for the luger carbine. Can't wait to find out...

[John Sabato]

Dean, this is just my guess, but I believe that tapering the area of the barrel under the rear sight base and matching the taper on the inside of the sight base is a waste of engineering and labor. I feel that if anyone were to take a rear sight base off of a genuine Luger carbine barrel, they would find that the barrel is a cylinder shape and so is the inside of the rear sight barrel band (in a similar manner to a K98 rifle barrel/rear sight) strictly from an ease of manufacturing standpoint.

If anyone might know the answer to your question, it might be Art Buchanan... track down one of his posts "Art" and send him a Private Message... which should trigger an email to him, as I recall he has that option enabled on his profile...

...and PLEASE dont forget to take photos of the setup and process as you work!

[Dean]

Practice...practice..practice...

Yep, I'm back at it.

Before I destroy a brand new barrel I thought I'd at least pratice the threading procedure on a piece of stainless barstock.

But before I could do this I needed to get the original barrel off. Here is a picture of the frame wrench and barrel vise blocks that I made..

http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/framewrench.jpg

The frame wrench was made from some 1/2" scrap brass. It was from some kind of door handle so it was plated. I was originally going to use cap head bolts, hence the machined recesses. I could not find cap head bolts long enough so I ended up using the studs & nuts you see here.

The vise blocks were made from 3/4" aluminum. I mic'd the barrel close to the frame and bored a hole in the aluminum that size. I made no effort to taper the bore to match the barrel taper. The taper is so gradual that it really does'nt make much difference. I then cut the block in half on the bandsaw.

The barrel came off easier than I thought it would. The barrel and aluminum pieces were put in the vise, and I used a large pipe wrench around the brass clamp and it cranked right off.

Next, I practiced the threading operation on some 304 stainless barstock. I've set the barstock up just as I intend to machine the actual barrel...

http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/testcut.jpg

You can see that I have machined down a portion to about .71". This is what I measured on the shoulder of the original barrel.

I intend to use the live center with the real barrel. I mounted up the Shilen barrel in similar fashion and I checked the run out with the dial indicator. It was less the .005, which I feel is acceptable. I will also be supporting the barrel with the steady rest fixture (which I did not use while practicing).

You will notice in the above photo that I have the compound of the lathe set at an angle. While threading, the compound is advanced inward with each cutting pass. So it is just the left side of the bit that is doing most of the cutting. For a threading tool cut to 60 degrees, the compound is set to 29.5 degrees. For 55 degree threads, the compound is set to 27 degrees. I cut 55 degree threads. It's hard to tell what the original barrel threads are.

The results of this practice run were "satisfactory". I was able to get a good tight fit to the reciever. In fact it is a little tighter that the original, but it can still be turned by hand.

http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/teston.jpg

The threads were slightly rough. I think I need take lighter passes. A more serious error I made was that I bumped the cross feed by accident. This caused me to loose registration. This happened just as I was taking the final pass. To recover I had to hunt around to get it registered again. Next time I'm going to lock the cross feed before I begin so that it can not move.

I think I am going do another test run. I think I will also drill a fake bore on this test piece so I can test the chamber reamer.

With a little luck, I may have the new barrel mounted this weekend.

Stay tuned...

[ViggoG]

Check Your PM's, Dean.

Viggo