I worked on my gun for several months before I discovered this site. It has been very helpful and it helped. I don\'t question my sanity nearly as much any more. Although my aged brain still gets stuck in neutral from time to time. I missed the site when it was down. Many thanks to those who administer and restored it.
Well I thought I would finally get around to posting my progress on the RG-G. I would like to post pictures from my i-pad but i don\'t have enough tech savvy.
I will be building a fairly simple version. I\'m in MA and the gun laws prevent me from having a magazine with a capacity of over 10 rounds. So it doesn\'t make much sense to me to build an oscillating version.Disappointing but with the type of gun laws in this state I consider myself lucky that the gun itself is legal.
I probably will not build the carriage as I do not have a very good place to keep it on display so it doesn\'t make much sense to me to go through all that work and keep it in the basement covered with a tarp. I plan to just mount it on some type of tripod to fire it, maybe a surveyor\'s tripod. To me it\'s all about the journey and not the destination.
I have to say that I found this to be a new type of machining experience for me. I have no gunsmithing experience. Back when \" I wore a younger man\'s clothes\" all my machining experience was mostly building custom gages along with some die, jig & fixture work. I haven\'t made a gear since I was in trade school in the 50\'s and I can only recall cutting a thread on a lathe only once in all my years. Lots of grinding, flat & cylindrical, lapping, honing, jig boring and jig grinding. In one shop we used to have \"machine hands\" who did most of the heavy metal cutting while we toolmakers did the final finishing and assembly.
I have only done a smattering of silver soldering and I\'m not very good at it so I avoid it whenever possible. using other means. one piece front bow and one piece cocking switch for example.
I found the cocking switch drawing to be somewhat irritating as are some other drawings in this package. In my opinion the 3 views of the switch do not correlate and I found that the view on the CD did not agree either so I just went ahead and made one according to what I thought it should be. I haven\'t tried it as yet. I found that very few of the drawings are toleranced and most just give nominal dimensions like a lot of hobbyist drawings do.
I started assembling. The barrel assembly rotates OK and I slid in a bolt and and started rotating by hand and with a cold prickly feeling got a CLUNK part way around. Try as I might I couldn\'t see what was going on so I cut a couple of radial viewing ports in the recoil plate. With the switch pulled back the sear screw was hitting the cocking ring. Did a dimensional analysis. The recoil plate, cocking ring and bolt assembly are all correct (at least according to print). So....... that leaves the box cam. Yup, wouldn\'t you know that\'s where the error was. (Mine). Material for a new one has been ordered. At least this go-around I\'ll be able to cut it on a larger mill with DRO that was acquired after I made the original cam on my bench top mill. There\'s nothing like that sinking feeling in your gut when you realize you screwed up. As a young (just learning) newly married toolmaker I started a new job right after the wedding and I screwed up the first job that was given me. I don\'t believe I\'ve ever had a more devastating feeling in the shop. To this day I could make a very accurate sketch of that part. Well it\'s only a hobby now. You can take the man out of the shop but you can\'t take the shop out of the man.
Onward and upward.
Ron
Sent from my iPad
