Category Archives: Firearms Building and Gunsmithing

How to build and/or gunsmith on certain platforms.

Germany plus Historical East and West, Roller Locks - HK

Brace Options for the HK SP5K

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In the last post, I told you I bought an HK SP5K.  It’s relatively heavy and begging for a brace.  I don’t really feel the need to spend the money and wait to register it to be a Short Barreled Rifle (SBR) and there are actually a ton of arm brace options out there. 

Option 1:  The SBT5KA Brace

I have a SB Tactical SBT5A Brace on my POF-5 and really like it.    I knew they made a version for the SP5K known as the SBT5KA but I was hoping for something different. Please note they are two different models of braces reflecting the different receiver end caps.

Option 2:  The SOB Brace

Every time I write this product name – the “SOB” – down, I smile.  SB Tactical has a ton of braces for the AR/M4 weapons family and they have evolved a ton away from the ugly original.  The SOB has clean lines and I run one on my PTR PDWR.  I think it looks good and has handled the .308 rounds from the PDWR just fine and feels solid too.

Option 3:  The SBPDW

I thought I had found just what I wanted with the SBPDW – a collapsing stock that looked really slick and it would be easy enough to add an M4 adapter to the SP5K.  So, I ordered a very well made adapter and the expensive SBPDW stock and guess what?  It would not fit.

Needless to say, I was bummed.  I had it completely installed only to find out that the guide rods on the SBPDW run right into the sides of the SP5K.  Crud.  I didn’t feel like figuring out all the changes that would be needed.

Purely for reference, here’s the same PDW brace now installed on a 10.5″ AR Pistol but that is a story for another day. It is a rock solid brace.

The Winner?  The SBT5KA

Well, I was bumming from the strike out with the SBPDW so I went with my second pick – the SBT5KA.  I felt it was most true to the lines of the MP5K and ordered one. As with their other braces, SB Tactical did a great job.

Installation was a breeze.  Pull out the two small pins at the back, swap the old end-cap for the brace, push them together and reinsert the pins.  I did make sure the recoil rod lined up and nothing was binding as I reassembled the unit.

I Did Clean and Lube The Internals

I should point out that when I removed the end cap, I went ahead and slid out the bolt group and lubricated everything.  I applied Super Lube grease to the bolt body and Mobil 1 Synthetic 10w30 via a precision oiler to the rollers of the bolt and rotating surfaces.  I also oiled the pins on the trigger pack while greasing the hammer face with Super Lube.

Summary

So you see I went with the SBT5KA brace.  In the next post I will discuss handguards.

Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at info@roninsgrips.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.


Germany plus Historical East and West, Roller Locks - HK

So, I have an HK SP5K …

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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:

There are also some choice articles:

Hard to Find an Affordable SP5K

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.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at info@roninsgrips.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

Amazon product links are at the bottom of the blog.

AKBuilds, Poland

WBP Rogów Videos How They Demil a Circle 11 Underfolder AK — Pretty cool but sad too

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:

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at info@roninsgrips.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

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).

AKBuilds, ARBuilds, Firearms Building and Gunsmithing, POF, PTR, Roller Locks - HK, Shotguns, Sten, Uzi Builds, Zenith

Tips on Finding Decent Gunsmithing Tools on eBay

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:

[ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”https://www.auctionrequest.com/arfeed.php?uid=inf5efd3d98495c&keyword=%28gunsmith+tools%2Cgunsmithing+tools%29&sortOrder=BestMatch&programid=1&campaignid=5338063879&toolid=10039&listingType1=All&feedType=rss&lgeo=1″ items=”20″]

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.

[ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”https://www.auctionrequest.com/arfeed.php?uid=inf5efd3d98495c&keyword=vintage+gunsmith+tools&sortOrder=BestMatch&programid=1&campaignid=5338063879&toolid=10039&listingType1=All&feedType=rss&lgeo=1″ items=”30″]

Used Gunsmith Tools

“Used” is still a popular term and is worth checking also.  Bear in mind the cautions I gave under vintage.

[ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”https://www.auctionrequest.com/arfeed.php?uid=inf5efd3d98495c&keyword=used+gunsmith+tools&sortOrder=BestMatch&programid=1&campaignid=5338063879&toolid=10039&listingType1=All&feedType=rss&lgeo=1″ items=”30″]

Brownells Gunsmith Tools

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.

[ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”https://www.auctionrequest.com/arfeed.php?uid=inf5efd3d98495c&keyword=%28Brownells+gunsmith%2Cbrownells+tools%29&sortOrder=BestMatch&programid=1&campaignid=5338063879&toolid=10039&listingType1=All&feedType=rss&lgeo=1″ items=”30″]

Antique Tools

What is “antique” really is up to the seller.  You’ll see stuff that ranges from a few years to over 50 years old.

[ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”https://www.auctionrequest.com/arfeed.php?uid=inf5efd3d98495c&keyword=antique+gunsmith+-%28ratchet%2Cair%29&sortOrder=BestMatch&programid=1&campaignid=5338063879&toolid=10039&listingType1=All&feedType=rss&lgeo=1″ items=”20″]

I hope this helps you out!  There is a ton of stuff out there if you experiment with the search terms some.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at info@roninsgrips.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

AKBuilds, Gunsmithing, Shotguns, Uncategorized

Fitting a Csspecs Steel Magazine To A SDS Lynx 12ga Shotgun

Csspecs makes wicked steel magazines for a variety of niche weapons. They make a well respected magazine for 12 gauge Saiga shotguns. That meant it would fit my SDS Lynx 12ga also.

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.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at info@roninsgrips.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

AR & Related Rifles and Pistols, ARBuilds, Shooting in General

Slick AR Rifle Shirts and Sweatshirts

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:

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at info@roninsgrips.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

Shooting in General, Uzi Builds

Using Super Lube Grease on a McKay Semi-Auto Uzi

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In an earlier post, I mentioned that I have switched to using Super Lube Multi-Purpose Grease on my firearms.  One of my test platforms was a semi-auto Uzi I built using a McKay receiver and McKay closed bolt group.

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.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at info@roninsgrips.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

AK & Related Rifles, AKBuilds, AR & Related Rifles and Pistols, ARBuilds, Firearms Building and Gunsmithing, POF, PTR, Roller Locks - HK, Shooting in General, Shotguns, Zenith

Switched to Super Lube Multi-Purpose Synthetic Grease For All of My Firearms

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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:

  1. It is designed to disperse very finely ground micron-sized PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene) which is a non-stick coating and lubricant.  You probably know it by the brand name of Teflon.  The approach they developed is one of their patents.
  2. It does not contain silicone
  3. It will work in a wide range of temperatures from -45 to +450 Farenheit
  4. It’s thickness is NLGI class 2, which means it’s about the same as vaseline or peanut butter.
  5. It’s non-toxic and food safe – here is the MSDS/SDS
  6. It will not melt or separate
  7. It will not dry out or get gummy
  8. It is waterproof
  9. It does not stain and is odorless – for you folks who do concealed carry or shoot a lot in uniform, you might want to take note of that.

Their website has a ton of information on Super Lube and also on lubrication in general if you want to spend some time reading.

I bought a 14.1oz tub of the Super Lube Multi-Purpose grease off Amazon – very affordable to say the least – clicking on this will open a list on Amazon.

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.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at info@roninsgrips.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.