Folks, I have thoroughly enjoyed my POF-5, which is an MP5 pistol clone, this past summer. We easily put way past 500 rounds through it with zero failures to feed or eject. All my family members and friends wanted to shoot it and we had a ton of fun. However, in the back of my head, there was a little voice saying “you need a real HK”.
Finding a Real HK
I’d talked to a few guys and the consensus was that a real HK will just go up in value even after being shot plus there are the bragging right of owning a real HK. There was one problem – HK stopped making MP5s available for civilian sales. There are definitely a lot of parts kits out there but then someone needs to pay an HK smith to assemble the subgun. I thought about doing it but I lack the experience and the tooling. Given the price $1,600-3,200 price of kits, I wasn’t about to experiment.
It turned out that HK still made a civilian pistol – the SP5K – “Sporting Pistol” 5K – that is a semi-auto version of the short MP5K submachine gun. The one catch is that it comes to the US market a tad neutered. Surprisingly, this was done due to strict German export laws and not US import laws. For me, the sad part is that the barrel is 115mm/4.53 inches long and ends abruptly at the sight block – not only is there no threading or tri-lug attachment point but the abrupt end means you can’t add one either without replacing the barrel. However, accuracy reports are excellent so at least that and reliability were still there.
Before I seriously considered buying one, I did some research:
Of course, these things aren’t cheap and they are really hard to find in stock. I hunted around online while my FFL, Scott Igert of Modern Antique Firearms, did the same. After hunting for a few weeks it dawned on me that I would need to use GunBroker. So, I started by watching auctions and seeing what stuff sold for before I started actually bidding and losing. I learned a while ago not to chase auctions – set a price and don’t go past that limit. I finally found a deal after watching and bidding for over a month.
So, the seller was Town Police Supply, located in Collinsville, VA, who goes by GunTalker on GunBroker. They had an A+ reputation with over 700 trades. I always prefer to deal with sellers that have a lot of trades. At any rate, they were great to deal with. I won the auction on 9/24/18 and it arrived at Scott’s shop on 9/25. Literally.
As you can imagine, I picked the SP5K up as soon as I could. It came in a real cool HK hard case with two 10 round magazines, a sling and a sight adjustment tool as you can see in the featured photo at the top.
Here’s the plain pistol out of the box:
In summary
So, it was definitely cool but if you know me, you also know what was going through my head – “I can customize this!” In my next blog post, I’ll talk about what I considered for braces.
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Amazon product links are at the bottom of the blog.
Wytwornia Broni Jacek Popinski (WBP) is a privately owned firearm manufacturer located in Rogów, Poland. Some folks assume it is the old government Radom armory with a different name but it is not.
In the US, we know about WBP because of the efforts of Arms of America (AoA) to import high quality Polish AK kits and, recently, firearms. I ordered my first kit from AoA a tad over a year ago and ordered a number of other things from them including a demilled Radom kit that I want to build this Winter.
In usual form, I was surfing around and found this video that WBP had posted showing them demilling a Circle 11 underfolder. Part of me is always sad to see one of these fine guns being cut up just to enable importation into the US but another part of me is also happy because at least this way we get to enjoy them.
This is a brief video and I was pretty intrigued towards the end watching how they remove the blocks from the barrel and drilled out the rivets. Having demilled a lot of kits in the past, I’ve always found the rivets to be tedious.
Here’s the brief video that’s just under 10 minutes and I hope you enjoy it:
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Palmetto State Armory (PSA) has a stunning array of Kalashnikov firearms now. AK-47s, AK74s, 100 series, rifles, pistols … it’s impressive. Click here to go to their main AK menu.
Please note that all images were extracted from the video and remain the property of their respective owner(s).
One of the challenges when starting out working on guns is building your tool collection. It’s hard to find cost effective tools so you wind up making do with stuff, creating tools ad hoc, etc. Interestingly enough, this is where eBay just might help. While I’m not happy with their anti-gun position, there are a lot of tools that pop up there – ranging from low-end Chinese stuff all the way to some beautiful vintage tools.
So, I want to show some example searches with 20 live feeds from each section:
Gunsmith and Gunsmithing Tools
The trick is in the searching. For example, here are the top 20 matches for gunsmith tools or gunsmithing tools and you will probably see a mix:
Of course there are brands I will steer away from such as NCStar and others that I will look closer at such as Brownells, Lyman, Tipton, Weaver, etc. I also read the ratings of the seller. If a seller has a good rating and more than 30 sales, that’s a good sign. Less than that and you are taking a gamble.
Vintage Gunsmith Tools
“Vintage” seems to be a popular term for “used”. You tend to find a lot of unique stuff that was made by a gunsmith to fit a special need as well as high-quality tools that were made with care vs. mass produced. Be careful though. I’ll zoom into the photos as much as I can plus look at the seller’s description and the rating of the seller to try and decide if the tools are in good shape or beat to death.
Brownells has been around a long time — they were founded in 1939 and have always been known for their quality tools, parts and supplies to gunsmiths. Because they have been around for so long, you tend to see a fair amount of Brownells stuff hit eBay by name so that is worth searching. Still look at the photos closely and the seller’s rating to play it safe. By the way, if you have never read their Gunsmith Kinks books – be sure to pick them up.
I hope this helps you out! There is a ton of stuff out there if you experiment with the search terms some.
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I placed my order on their website and within a week receive to magazines that were built like a tank. I had a problem with some of the plastic SDS 10 round magazines in terms of the follower going all the way to the top. The Csspecs follower shot up in the top so fast I think you could take off a body part 🙂 just kidding but it is very well done.
You have to love a magazine that is so heavily made it can be used as a defensive weapon all by itself 🙂 Seriously, Csspecs makes some wicked mags and they tell you right up front that you may need to do a bit of fitting and I did.
Fitting The Magazines
The magazines come with a small instruction pamphlet for fitting that makes perfect sense to anybody who’s ever had to fit AK magazines. Step one is to make sure that the magazine fits correctly from front to back. If it does not you trim a little bit off the back tab of the magazine.
In my case it set right in. You can see how the mag stops are coming right against the bottom of the receiver. This is good! If I did need to trim it, I would have carefully filed a bit and tested over and over until the mag stops contacted the receiver, polished the surface and applied cold blue per the details in the next step.
In my case, the magazine locking lever would not engage the mag’s tab at all. That means that little tab was too thick and needed to be filed down. This is really a situation where you want to use a fine hand file and take off a little bit at a time and test – don’t rush this. Take care to maintain the slight angle. This helps with the lock up. Do not make it flat and try to keep it as straight across as possible.
I can’t stress enough, take your time. The above was done with a single-cut file where one edge was ground down so I can make cuts like this with out damaging the surface. You can sometimes buy files like I show below with one or both edges left plain. In my case, I used my belt sander to remove the teeth on that side.
This is not a situation where you want to rush. Take a little bit off at an angle and test over and over. It probably took me about 5 minutes per magazine. You want the magazine to lock into place firmly. If it is really loose I would recommend welding some material back on and fixing it.
After the filing, I did use a fine rubber abrasive polishing but in my Dremel to smooth the surface out so the lock up process would be smoother.
After I had the fitting correct, I use the little bit of Brownells Oxpho blue liquid on Long dobbers and blued the surface followed by some oil.
That is all there was to it. I hope this helps you out. Kudos to CS specs for making some very nice magazines. These things are rock solid and I may very well pick a couple more up at some point.
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I like weapons based on the Armalite Rifle (AR) design and have owned a variety of them over the years including a variety of AR-15s from Colt, Rock River, Palmetto State Armory and others plus a whole slew of pistols.
I also like having cool T-shirts and hoodies that reflect my interests and opinions about firearms and the Second Amendment. So, I did some searching and found there are some great designs on eBay that you just might find of interest:
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To legally build a semi-auto Uzi, you need to run a closed bolt system vs. the original open bolt. Now the open bolt design was the picture of simplicity albeit with a pretty big bolt. The closed bolt system uses a striker, and while a little more complex, it has a lot of moving surfaces that are parkerized. This means they are relatively rough and need to wear in plus they need serious lubrication during this period.
My experience with my Uzi was that oil alone didn’t cut it. Once I moved to using a 1″ chip brush and applying a light layer of Super Lube all over the bolt, striker and insides of the receiver and top cover, the reliability sky rocketed. At this point, it has worn in fairly well and the action cycles very easily.
My recommendation to anyone building a semi-auto Uzi is to use Super Lube Multi-Purpose grease both during break in and for ongoing lubrication of the bolt and striker system. I use regular oil on the fire control group.
I hope this helps you out. It made a world of difference with my Uzi.
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I’m always searching for better lubricants. Many of the so-called specialty weapons lubes are just marketing hype with some bulk lubricant poured into their container. In terms of greases, I’ve used quite a few over the years including wheel bearing grease and Tetra Gun Grease. I wanted to find something effective, non-toxic and less expensive.
A name popped up when surfing – Super Lube. To be honest, the first few times I totally dismissed the name because it sounds like some overly-hyped wonder lube that is sold in infomercials. However, the name did keep popping up so I actually started reading up on it.
Super Lube products are made by Synco Chemical Corporation of Bohemia, NU, that was founded in 1980. Their specialization is in the space of synthetic food grade lubricants and hold a number of patents.
There are a number of interesting characteristics about their grease that should be noted:
To apply it, I use either a chip brush that I store in a zip loc bag to keep from getting dirty (as shown in the featured photo above) or a small flux / resin brush that I also keep in a baggy.
So, for the last few months I have been testing it. When I cleaned one of my rifles or pistols, I would replace whatever I had been using as grease with the Super Lube Multi-Purpose grease.
I go by the old saying that if it rotates, oil it. If it slides, grease it. That is my rule of thumb so it goes on AK rails, bolt carriers, where the trigger hook grabs the hammer, etc.
It works great! The weapons feel well lubricated after cleaning and they function great. When I take them apart again for cleaning, the Super Lube shows no sign of breaking down, drying out, becoming gummy, etc.
If you are looking for an excellent affordable grease, check out Super Lube. I’m definitely very happy with it.
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When I first heard of the .50 Beowulf cartridge, it got added to my bucket list immediately. What’s not to like – the ballistics of the .45-70 cartridge in an AR platform that hits like a freight train. Somewhat humorously, I’d also point out that it drops noticeably at 150 yards and like a pumpkin after 200 yards but boy, does it hit hard when it does.
I have fun assembling AR lowers the way I want them and figured I would save time and get an assembled upper. In early 2016, I looked at two different vendors of assembled uppers – Alexander Arms (AA), who was the originator of the cartridge, and Radical Firearms, a discount AR rifle and assembler of uppers and lowers in Texas. A basic AA upper was around $719 that did not have a brake (or threading) and basic handguards. A decent looking Radical unit in the generic 12.7×42 chamber was only $598. It seemed like a no brainer and I went with the Radical unit.
To jump ahead just a bit — I wish I had bought a better AA upper for $923-1190. The Radical upper caused me quite a bit of grief and I am going to chronicle my adventure here because I did get it to work out in the end and was very happy with the results but I had to work for it.
Radical Arms Challenges
When I first ran across Radical, I had high hopes. In an impulse buy, I purchased two 5.56 uppers and the 12.7×42 upper. In case you are wondering why I am listing 12.7×42, that is the generic designation for the .50 Beowulf cartridge that AA owns the intellectual property for. By using the metric designation, Radical could build an upper without paying anything to AA.
When I bought my uppers, Radical was undergoing a huge growth spurt and I had to wait some period of time (4-8 weeks maybe) for the uppers. That was not a big deal to me. The AR uppers arrived and while gritty and needing polishing, they worked. Basically, what you’d expect with relatively low cost mass assembled products.
The 12.7×42 upper was a different story. Sometimes it would cycle and sometimes it would not. Radical took forever to respond to emails and what not so I figured screw it, I’ll just treat the assembled upper as a collection of parts and move ahead. To be perfectly clear, I parted ways with Radical and did not give them a chance to fix it after I got frustrated by how everything was going.
So, I started researching on the web and found that Beowulfs use a bolt head that is slightly different than a 7.62×39 AR bolt. After cycling my rifle by hand over and over, I concluded the cartridge was not seating properly in the bolt face and ordered a true .50 Beowulf bolt directly from Alexander Arms (not Radical). Problem solved. It’s run perfectly ever since. Whether Radical installed the wrong bolt or an out of spec bolt, I don’t know. I threw the offending bolt in the trash and called it even,
Another irritation Radical caused me was when the handguard loosened up because they hadn’t used Loc-tite on the screws. My recommendation is to just use Blue Loc-Tite if you run into this – it worked fine for me. I like the handguard otherwise.
The one thing they got right was the barrel. I heard Satern made the barrel but don’t know for sure. It is wonderfully accurate with the big 350gr XTP hollow point cartridges that AA makes. I am very pleased with that combination.
Yes, I eventually got it to work. No, will not buy from Radical again but I definitely would buy more stuff from Alexander Arms. I dealt with them on the phone a few times for ammo as well as the website. The staff were pleasant to deal with and shipping was always prompt.
Addressing Recoil
I was not impressed by the muzzle brake that Radical supplied and started researching the best brake for the Beowulf. Bear in mind the muzzle has a pretty unique thread at 49/64″-20 threads per inch (TPI). In addition, I knew I would need a jam nut to address the timing so the brake could be level on the barrel and it needed to be steel and not aluminum.
The Timber Creek Beowulf Brake Rocks!
To make a long story short, Timber Creek makes a Beowulf brake that does a great job. It seriously cut the recoil back and made the biggest difference of all my modifications. They make them with two different threads so make sure the one you order matches your rifle.
Here it is on my rifle – notice the big ports that redirect some of the gasses backwards:
Added a Limbsaver Recoil Pad to the Magpul ACS Stock
The next important element I did to reduce recoil was to add a mixture of bird shot and epoxy into the compartments of the MagPul ACS stock. I just stirred up a mixture of #7 lead bird shot with epoxy, filled all the voids I could and wiped off the excess liquid epoxy checking all the seams until it gelled enough. Here, you can see a hint of it sticking out.
The last thing I did was to try different buffers. Bill Alexander designed the cartridge to work with a normal AR buffer. I went from a normal/H1 buffer to an H2 and finally to an Enedine Hydraulic buffer, which is in it right now. With each step, the recoil seemed to go down a tad but did not make a huge difference.
Vortex Scope
I was thinking about using the rifle either for hogs or deer so I wanted a scope that could go from a fairly wide field of vision at 2.5x all the way up to a decent zoom at 10x. Vortex is always my first choice in scopes so I bought a Viper PST 2.5-10×44 scope and Vortex rings.
This is a wicked combination. I have thoroughly enjoyed this scope on the Beowulf. It holds zero and is nice and bright. You can’t go wrong with Vortex scopes in my honest opinion. Because of the Beowulf’s recoil, use quality rings and be very sure to torque all the screws down to spec so the optic stays put.
By the way, you may scoff at the notion of buying quality rings. A lot of the cheap imported rings are just aluminum. You’ll notice they don’t list a torque spec. Quality rings such as the ones fro Vortex will tell you a torque spec to hit and they often have steel inserts for the threads. You get what you pay for.
Note, in mid-2018 Vortex came out with what they call the “PST Gen 2” series of scopes and this first generation model has been discontinued. The closest scopes now are 3-15×44 and 2-10×32 -I don’t think you can go wrong one way or the other. I’d probably opt for a 2-10×32 MRAD scope to have the widest field of view at a low power.
I use the D&H 5.56 30 round magazines at PSA. They are often on sale for only $9.99 and list is $12.99.
End Result
The rifle turned out great. The final “felt” recoil was about that of a 20 gauge slug gun, if that. I could shoot round after round without regretting the kick 🙂
I had fun building and shooting it. As I get older the more I realize I enjoy learning about the engineering and history of arms. The “Wulf” has a new owner now and I hope it serves him well.
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My apologies but I have no way to filter out items that the vendors have sold out such as ammo. For example, most places sell out of the ammo fast but you should keep an eye on both Midway USA and going to Underwood Ammo directly – Underwood makes very good ammo by the way. I usually run Alexander Arms ammo but they are sold out most places and while you can place an order directly, you will need to wait quite a while for it to be made and shipped.
