New to the forum, introduction and a question

Hi to all:
My name is Ron. I\'m 79 years old and retired as you might guess. I spent about 60 years in various capacities in the machine business. Machinist,toolmaker in a job shop,toolmaker in  a Fortune 500 co.,Equipment designer, equipment engineer, design department manager, after retirement, part time as lead toolmaker in a gage co.and finally after total retirement with a home shop. (You can take the man out of the shop but you can\'t take the shop out of the man). I have absolutely no experience in CNC. I\'ve built a couple of model steam engines and then the Gatling gun caught my fancy. I bought 2 sets of plans and settled on the RGG. I have a few parts made including the box cam and the bolts are almost complete. It\'s going to be a long haul because we lead a migratory life style so I\'m not always home where my shop is.
Anyway, I\'m looking ahead to the final assembly and have been wondering,is there a way to de-bug the loading, firing and eject cycles without using live ammo? Dummy ammo or  such ?
I\'d like to get it working properly without shooting up the place.
You thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks
Ron

Hi Ron,

You have me by 9 years and a lot of experience. I got into machining when I retired and have been working with a semi retired machinist friend to build the RGG. I built the D&E version but never put firing pins in it as the design has many problems.

The one nice feature of the RGG is the cocking switch which lets you cycle the gun without firing. We purchased snap cap from Brownells to do preliminary testing. We went to a local gun range to do some testing but that got time consuming so we loaded a cardboard box with old phone books and shoot into it. We found that a lot of the parts just don\'t fit if made to the plans or at least that has been our experience. We have had to change so many things i can\'t remember them all. We have the gun finished as far as making parts but are experiencing a lot of misfires and jams at this point. Do to a very high frustration level we have not messed with it for a couple of weeks. We are going to give it another try soon. We are going to experiment with the firing pin force first. The extractor bolted to the under side of the top cover guarantees a jam and bent bullet if you have a misfire.

Good luck with your build and welcome to the forum.

Dennis

[quote name=\"drhardin\"]Hi Ron,

You have me by 9 years and a lot of experience. I got into machining when I retired and have been working with a semi retired machinist friend to build the RGG. I built the D&E version but never put firing pins in it as the design has many problems.

The one nice feature of the RGG is the cocking switch which lets you cycle the gun without firing. We purchased snap cap from Brownells to do preliminary testing. We went to a local gun range to do some testing but that got time consuming so we loaded a cardboard box with old phone books and shoot into it. We found that a lot of the parts just don\'t fit if made to the plans or at least that has been our experience. We have had to change so many things i can\'t remember them all. We have the gun finished as far as making parts but are experiencing a lot of misfires and jams at this point. Do to a very high frustration level we have not messed with it for a couple of weeks. We are going to give it another try soon. We are going to experiment with the firing pin force first. The extractor bolted to the under side of the top
guarantees a jam and bent bullet if you have a misfire.

Good luck with your build and welcome to the forum.

Dennis[/quote]

Dennis:
Thanks for the tip. Also I now have an idea what to expect as I go along
Ron

There is a type of ammo referred to as dummies.   They are used by gunsmiths to test functioning of a gun without using live ammo.   They are exactly the same as live ammo but no powder and no live primer.    Often they have a hole drilled in the center to identify them as dummies.   Weight, balance etc is all the same as real ammo.

Here is a link to some at Brownells
http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools ... 40858.aspx

Hope this helps,
George

I was not aware of the dummies. These would be much better than the snap caps we used as they are not weighted, balanced or dimensioned to match a real bullet but are just aluminum look alikes. Thanks George.

The only downside to the dummies is they are actually .22 ammo with no primers or powder, so the rims get smashed by firing pins and the bullets get dented by cycling and so on so they don\'t last all that long if you are testing everything.