my diy iron glock - the firearm blog

As Seen In Contact About

Posted July 18, 2013 in Pistols by Boris with 29 CommentsTags: DIY, glock, gunsmithing

Where I come from, people joke about watering flowerbeds with motor oil.Especially those parts where theyve buried a machine gun. There are manysemi rifles that people build from 80% kits and parts: AKs, CETMEs, Uzis andthe other one. Not much selection of pistols. True pistols, not riflesbastardized down to be one.

Newsletter

314LikeLike 32444 157 21

88 12

My DIY Iron Glock - The Firearm Blog http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2013/07/18/diy-iron-glock/

1 of 9 1/8/2015 10:59 PM

Shortest AK pistol. Tochka.

I dont have a problem with few existing pistols builds, but sourcing 49individual parts is outside of the scope of my attention span, never mind fittingthem together. A year ago I started to look for an ultimate SHTF pistol build.Something that has few parts and doesnt freeze together in a trunk when Icome visit uncle Vlad, up north. A year later I got something working.

Few people realize that some builds that take a page of write-up actually mayspan a year or more. Not 24/7 effort, but rather keeping them on the backburner while you try to figure out something like how the f did Germanscrimped front receiver bushing on MG42. This true with many builds.Sometimes its hard to tell when you fertilized the new build, but I distinctlyremember arguing with comrade Michael, last summer, on the simplest pistolin defense of Motherland. This is when I fell in love with Glock.

I appreciate simplicity. There is the beauty of symphony of parts thatharmoniously come together for one, single purpose. None of that tacticoolkakashki, with extra rails and extra screws. No rails! I cant say that Glockdesign is perfect, like a fine middle game of chess where each move not onlyserves one purpose, but several goals at the same time, those goalsinterconnected many moves ahead. But Glocks work and they are verysimple.

I dont like polymers or aluminum because I cant easily repair them. Withsteel, what angle grinder taketh, MIG welder giveth back. My original thoughtson building a pistol to use Glock parts was part polymer, part steel. And bypolymer I dont mean Nylon 6, mold injected, but more like bondo and somefiberglass cloth. Mold injection and 3d printing is soooo not SHTF.

One distinguishing feature of Glock is that frame doesnt receive as muchstress as pistols where its barrel is attached to its frame directly. This gives aperfect opportunity to slack off on the frame integrity and just weave it out ofpaperclips (next build idea?) I did experiment with a good number of molds anddesigns. One line of thinking was to make it like an investment casting, withcheap wax mold that could be used to make either epoxy based or aluminum(like in a lawn chair) cast. I struggled with was dimensional consistency andfragility of molds. The limited steel skeleton grew bigger, encompassing moretasks, and eventually became the top contender.

Paris Magazine to Publish 'Survivors' Iss

Islamist to Steve Malzberg: 'Are You Jew

Trump: Blame France's Gun Laws

New Probiotic Fat Burner Takes GNC byStorm

Will You Suffer A Fatal Heart Attack? FrOnline Test Here.

Women's Health: Three Surprising ThingAre Aging You Early

American Homeowners Are in for an ExtBig Surprise

New Site Exposes Personal InformationFound on Google

What's

Advertisement


2 of 9 1/8/2015 10:59 PM

Rubber molds, urethane molds, wax molds, molds molds molds.

Current Iron Glock is actually 10-th major iteration of the 4-th model design.Its predecessors were left in the scrap heap. Sheet metal stampings arefrequently associated with cheap, fast production; however, when formed itcreates uniformly thin, yet durable frame walls. Additional machining, formingand fitting can make stampings precise enough. This frame, although may notbe perfectly suited as a factory production model is a great alternative forhome built guns.

Scrap heap of previous iterations.

The Firearm Blog

144,266 people like The Firearm Blog.

LikeLike


3 of 9 1/8/2015 10:59 PM

Previous versions that kept evolving.

Combination of stamping and machining can give very good results. Here, position of the

locking block must be perfectly flush with top rails, otherwise the timing of unlocking the

barrel will be off.

It was written that Gaston fired his prototypes left-handed in case of gunblows up. If youve built a Glock, youll understand that he either did not designor understood it. The greatest knowledge comes when you screw up. It startswith frustration and throwing objects in immediate vicinity against the wall.Then comes liquid medication and a pensive period of self reflection. Whenyou finally understand what went wrong, you commune with the designer andsee the depth of wisdom that was put into every single little part

One interesting aspect of Glocks is the infamous angle and the grip thatseems to shovel sand into some peoples privates. Although it was writtenthat this angle was chosen as the most ergonomic to some Austrians, I thinkthat the real reason is quite different. Magazine well angle is smaller thanoverall grip. My thoughts were to simply use that angle for a different feel,except that I could not. The grip must be close to the slide to avoidlimpwristing and problematic cycling. That trigger mechanism housing with theejector is just too bulky to hide anywhere else. There is no real solution here.If you want a different grip, that housing must be at least twice as short.Thats my opinion and Im sticking with it.


4 of 9 1/8/2015 10:59 PM

Iron over plastic, you can see how mag well angle is different from the regular hold.

Grasping the iron frame you can see that there is a large void thats filled in an actual Glock

I havent got around to dress the iron frame in anything other than quicksolutions such as wrapping it in duct tape or unicorns. There is a potential toadd molded grips, even to bond wood. In a 180 reversal I am coming back toplastic as the final solution. My guess is that airsoft manufacturers had toincrease the size of their replicas to avoid the wrath of Gastons attorneys.This suits me just fine as the steel frame fits well inside the plastic that I wastrying to replace to begin with.


5 of 9 1/8/2015 10:59 PM

.. and last but not least, the obligatory garden tool mutilation ..

Come at me bro!


6 of 9 1/8/2015 10:59 PM

When Austrians make garden tools for Americans and Americans are building Glocks

oh, the irony!

Boris

Son of Kalashnikov.

Advertisement


7 of 9 1/8/2015 10:59 PM

Comments for this thread are now closed.

29 Comments

Tango Down Technically, the addition of the "garden tool" attachment wouldmake this Glock illegal as it would be adding a forward gripallowing for a 2-hand grip. I don't like that law either but justmentioning it so no one gets screwed up the rear but theBATFE. :-(

JT Would be interesting to see what would happen ifsomeone tested the NFA in a FFA state. Adam Kokeshshould have tried that instead of loading a shotgun in DC

BryanS The full force of the IRS would come at you fortax evasion.

Always-Question-The-Government Would the BATFE have any say in it other than it was ahomemade firearm? It has no serial number and howcan a non serialized firearm be registered as a AOW orSBR or whatever? How could they regulate it? Couldyou even call it a Glock since it was not manufactured byGlock? True it was made "with" Glock components, but itwill be called by whatever the builder/designer wants tocall it.

Darryl Hadfield

Actually, home-built units are still regulated underNFA, GCA, etc... Too easy to get whacked forproducing an NFA item without the appropriatepaperwork (and more importantly, tax stamp paidfor!) completed in advance.

Tango Down Homemade weapon's, as long as they DO NOTbreak the laws governing AOW's, SRB's, FullA t ' t th BATFE' l l t


8 of 9 1/8/2015 10:59 PM

As Seen In Contact About 2015 TheFirearmBlog.com

Newsletter


9 of 9 1/8/2015 10:59 PM

my diy iron glock - the firearm blog

Documents