Indians For Guns

I've been reading around IFG from a long long time but never really got around to pen down anything. Great place we have here.

Just the usual gun enthusiast here, casual plinker & a non-RA person, which by the way I'm planning to get soon. Arsenal comprises of an IHP 35, a calcutta local & a BB gun. Thats it, no biggies here.

Now coming to this little project, the calcutta local was bought for this very purpose. Almost four years back, it made me pay 2k to this gun shop in cochin. Its calld subin diana, ya weird name! Since its going to be cut up anyways, i settled for it. This was how it looked like when new.



Project was inspired by this.


[All image rights to the original owner]

"Diana" got her butt shaved off, n stripped clean. Heard the spring stop swearing when i released the pin. It was a mess inside.



I used this setup to open her up. Can't use the same to put her back though.



Reassembly started after some two months when all the necessary parts came in from everywhere.






Major parts n works include:
- 5" barrel sawed off & end crowned, so its at a modest 8" visible barrel now. I was looking at more of a carbine than a bank looter's pal.
- Honed cylinder. Had to make do with a rudimentary lathe-sandpaper work as none of the workshops here had the cylinder hone bit in this size. Nevertheless, i got enough cross hatch so WTH.
- Polished piston.
- A no-name synthetic washer for some 350INR sourced locally as Apex would be an overkill for whatever i was doing. It paid off pretty well.
- G.Smith spring for M35 from local. Around 500 bucks.
- JM moly & tar from airgunindia.
- Matte blacked stock with a normal peep sight screwed in. It came in handy when the front sight went away.
- A flash hider from DX. Was planning for the TTI air stripper but he is not in a position to give me that. Workshop guy did the hard work here & it came out good.
http://dx.com/p/steel-flash-hider-for-a ... ack-132509

So, each & everything got stripped off all oils & dried, lubed & tarred & everything went inside. And it came out like this.








About the shooting part, she is a handful while aiming down the sight. But from hip, its decent. There is power, i can't feel any drop as such & the stroke is solid. Cocking action, I'm sure will give me enough training for some power lifting. The flash hider came in handy here as it betters the leverage. I'm getting saucer size groupings at 15 mtrs & it got its reasons for the same. Trigger is better now but still a fighter. Maybe some 100 shots went through so far, so things should improve in days ahead.

Overall, I'm satisfied. Some more accessories will go in as & when they get delivered. As of now, shes in my bed & i call her DARKANGEL.

Great work. But for 2 k - did it have a rifled barrel to start with? That would be critical for accuracy. How did you do the crowning?

How does it sound - I mean the volume of the barrel versus volume of piston chamber has reduced so the air as the pellet emerges is likely to be of higher pressure.

I can imagine that cocking will be pretty tough, but sometimes a spring whose power is reduced by cutting a few spirals ends up improving performance as well as making cocking easier. I have a rifle that can do with exactly this treatment - but it is not a rifled barrel so I wonder if it would be worth the effort

Yes it has a rifled barrel. Even i was surprised to find it for 2k but wasted no time to bag it & escape the shop. Maybe a fluke.

Barrel was cut in a lathe so the previous barrel tip was exactly replicated. Then a file to it did the crowning.
It sounds OK. Maybe its the flash hider at work but there is no blast up front. This muzzle tip should break up some turbulence right? Its not exactly twack but its much much less twang.

Cocking is manageable when the gun loosens up & I improve.

Great work buddy
But loss of the "Butt" is a bit disturbing to me
If it were a 20 gauge shot gun - may be it was OK - but for an AR - how would you hold to aim?????
It would be just point & shoot
Never-the-less an amazing piece of work
Well Done!!!
Briha

Looks pretty good with muzzle break !!
But holding is big issue.

Basu

Estousandy,
As a firearm enthusiast I always encouraged myself to stray from the convention from time to time. So I have just one word for you.. BRAVO
The finish is excellent. In my opinion the real purpose of this little beast will be served if you put on an AR rated laser dot on the sight rail and zero it to 25 mts ( I guess that's the max effective range for this AR) and just forget the open sights, even take them off of you wish. That way you will be able to get anything from the hip or even standing upside down

Great project man... and as neat as the splendidly maintained first batch Maruti 800 you got there...

Best wishes and please post more frequently.



TC

PS : Seems air guns from my city are pushing the limits all over the country

Good effort there buddy, since its already a pistol grip, maybe you can try adding a collapsible stock.
/S

Thanks guys!

Holding to aim is a big work with this, but it was not what i was looking for. I needed something that can be held like a shotgun so butt has to be the first thing to go. Even cutting the barrel was a recent decision. When i actually need to hit something with less effort, the IHP is there. Infact i got the hang of holding it as it was cut up almost an year back.

@TC
Thanks for your kind words man. This was my first work with anything gun & I'm glad it came out acceptably well. Even i was surprised when the trigger clicked neat at the first pull.

Yep a red dot scope is one among the accessories that will go in. Actually, I'm looking at this BSA red dot on ebay.in, about which we all might be aware by now. Now since you mentioned AR rating for red dots, will that suit this particular rifle? There is some recoil with less weight up front. There are some cheaper red dots on DX but will they hold up well or get through the customs is what keeping me away.

& thank you calcuttites for giving us options to fool around!

Yup the Suzuki is well maintained & very dear to the family.

Collapsible stock is not in the plan as the whole idea was about firing from the hip. So far i suck at that but hope to improve at it.

wow !!

looks like those sawn off shot guns the Italian mafia use......or better still one of those old dueling pistols !

like the muzzle break. yes , TC's idea of a red dot sight would help....esp, shooting from the hip which you prefer.

and how much weight did the old lady lose after having half her "butt and top" taken off ??......seriously; lol.

well done.

Fatastic modification and DIY project.
Good job. Looks neat and clean.

M.

Good work estousandy , try Jacob and co. Cochin branch for purchasing spares, why because gsmith spring costs only rs.320 and seal rs.60 (the seal seems to be ihp's synthetic washer).

Mercury, fantum, najad ..Thank you all!

Red dot sight is very much in the cards from the inception itself. But the weird thing is all these are done to a 2k ratter, so i'm going slow in feeding it. Some 5" barrel & a chunk of dry wood was all that was taken away from it so there is not much of a weight reduction. Its still pretty heavy.

Najad I don't have the PM thing yet but i presume you are a mallu too. I'm from Nilambur & that itself pretty much defeats any cost advantage if i source from Cochin. Its a two day trip for me. I got this rifle when i used to study there, which i don't anymore. I deal with Calicut shops now for direct purchases. Between, where are you from?

Interesting piece of work.don't you find cocking difficult?
regards
dr.jk

Ofcourse jk i do find it difficult but not at all a deal breaker. I just ordered a pair of safety gloves off ebay considering the extra leverage from muzzle brake comes at the cost of neat finger cuts. That thing got an edge.

Did some more work on the gun this week. A sling swivel mount along with a single point tactical sling was attached. All parts came from dx.