The Island of Unloved Battle Rifles

The French Chassepot bayonet is definitely outlandish. Mine has a 22.5" blade and is 27.25" overall.

http://arms2armor.com/Bayonets/fren1866.htm

 

That may be the ones I'm seeing. They usually try to pass them off as swords on Ebay. They go pretty cheap.

 

KB is hip. Who knew steam punk guns were a -thing.
i love it. Very creative and fun.
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/06/17/nra-opens-steampunk-exhibit/

 

Breaking news: Wikileaks has obtained an image of the Kodiak Arms Inc. AR15. See below. Details are vague, but the rifle appears to incorporate the following parts.

1. Type 96/99 LMG stock
2. Maxim-style brass barrel jacket
3. Vickers HMG rear AA ring sight
4. FG42 front post sight
5. MG42 muzzle booster
6. Bayonet lug sized for late 1800s "sword"-style bayonet
7. Lewis LMG grip



I didn't have time to throw in the faux brass "Weathering" on the receiver and mag, so you'll have to leave that to your imagination.

 

Damn them! They must have cracked my password. Perhaps using "password" as my password wasn't a good idea...?

Actually, yeah, there's plenty of other people playing around at this. The AR 15 is so modular that lots of people want a custom build and they can because no gunsmithing is required. How weird you want to get with that is up to you. I want extreme weird - something like the above, but different.

I wonder where he found that rear sight? Is there a name for that type of sight?

Edited: I see it's called a Vickers "AA Ring Sight." At least I know what to look for now.

 

That's me. Hip, or 'hep' as we used to say in my beatnik days.

 

In making the picture, I pulled the rear sight off of a Vickers HMG (aka Vickers Mk1*) on an AA mount. This was the source photo. I don't know the official name for the "spider web" style of sight, but if you google "AA ring sight" a lot of results come up. You could get a reproduction MG34 sight (seems to be the most elaborate of the type).



I've always liked the look of the "barrel"-style height-adjustable aperture sights like those found on the FG42 and some of the experimental 1920s-1950s rifles (http://jamesdjulia.com/wp-content/uploads/images/auctions/233/images/org/34632x6.jpg). Perhaps you could use one of these combined with the big AA ring sight? Wouldn't do much given that an AA right is sized for minute-of-warplane at best, but would have that "what the hell was this guy drinking" feel to it.

 

Thanks for the leads! I don't think the rear sight aperture size will affect real world accuracy. The early M1 Carbine had a flip up sight with two rings, a huge one and smaller one. I've shot those and even with the big ring, you're still minute-of-torso at 100 yards. There's also a popular (in Alaska) "Ghost Ring" rear sight with an enormous hole for lever action .45/70 rifles. I owned one of those and it was dead-on at any reasonable range. Your eye will still center that front post no matter how big the aperture is.

Of course, it won't be a target rifle with sights like that, but should still ring a gong out to a good distance.

 

I ordered the side charging upper pictured above this morning, so I've got the two most expensive parts covered.

I think I'll go with this very simple handguard from DPMS. It will give the illusion of a water cooled gun, and painted like brass should look pretty retro.

 

Ha!...#644
it's like Mr Potato head for assault guns...That water jacket may infringe on target acquisition...Wouldn't a laser pointer bring it into the 22nd century

 

Nah, the front handguard doesn't affect anything. It won't be a real water jacket, just have that look - it's just a hollow aluminum tube. Every other handguard made for the AR has holes in it, or is made of plastic, whatever. They all look like AR handguards and I want to disguise this to look like anything but an AR.

I want to do this as much as possible with off the shelf items because I don't have the tools or skills to do some of this.

I found several interesting rear grips. Some are styled like a Thompson and others like a 1911 grip. Haven't made up my mind on those yet.

 

Laser pointers are sooooooo 20th Century Popsie. Hologram sights are what's in now. Get with the program dood!

 

do you still have visitors from south of the border turn up ?

 

KB does out his way, but he usually just shoots at them. He claims that he's just shooting at varmints, but we know better.

 

Yes, I still get visitors. I don't plan on shooting any of them.

 

Just my 2 cents but it looks too thin to me. If you go this route, I'd consider adding a brass jacket overtop of the DPMS handguard to add some heft to it.

 

So what's the rifle looking like now?

 

It's a difficult part to source. All of the standard handguards look like standard handguards, held in by a clip at either end. This is the free floating type that doesn't touch the barrel and are only fixed at the rear and some of those are heavily customized. Among them some look like the heat guards of air-cooled machine guns and a few, like this one, could be made to look like the reservoir on a water cooled gun. I'm not sure how I'd fix yet another jacket over the top of any of them.

How about something like this?

 

Nothing. The lower is here, the side-charging upper in the mail. It's still in the looking at parts stage.

 

Nothing. The lower is here, the side-charging upper in the mail. It's still in the looking at parts stage.