Police find illegal 'gun factory'

[Scully]

Generally the press display a horrendous ignorance when it comes to reporting firearms related topics. The only grooves I can think of which would need to be accurately machined on a revolver would be the cylinder stops and the rifling.

[Vince Green]

1 hour ago, Retsdon said:

From the Telegraph report..."The milling machine - the machine on the right - would be used to very accurately create grooves on the outside of the gun...."

What 'grooves' would these be, do you suppose? 

Off topic really, but I once knew a bloke who made a working replica of a Navy Colt from the paper plans. Just about every part other than the barrel and cylinder was hand-filed. He kept in the tool drawer of his workbench and worked away at it when we weren't busy or after hours. He'd been head foreman of the action-filing workshop at a best London gunmaker and it was a little hobby project for him. If the gun is still in existence, it's probably the finest built 'Colt" on the planet.

Slide?

They used to sell those Navy Colt plans (and a lot of others) in Exchange & Mart years ago

[Jaymo]

2 hours ago, Scully said:

Generally the press display a horrendous ignorance when it comes to reporting firearms related topics. The only grooves I can think of which would need to be accurately machined on a revolver would be the cylinder stops and the rifling.

Slide on a 1911 rep - watched on YouTube many moons ago a team milling from blanks. 

[CaptainBeaky]

My Dad made quite a few replicas from those plans - Colt Navy, 1844 Army, Dragoon, 1796 Navy Sea Service Pattern flintlock, a Civil War era wheellock and a pepperbox.

All would have worked had they been bored through, and not cross-drilled and pinned.

[Longstrider]

12 hours ago, Retsdon said:

Firearms replication has been a cottage industry in Pakistan for ages.

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/09/25/showcasing-peshawar/

Been there in one of the few periods in recent history when everyone wasn't trying to kill everyone else . Peshawar is a fascinating place where a good many of the locals go out to do their everyday shopping with an AK of one designation or another over their shoulder as if it's just another fashion accessory. Pay in US $ and get a good deal on just about anything you want that will go BANG

I visited with my wife, and can honestly say that we felt safer walking the streets of Peshawar from Greens Hotel down to the town centre to shop, that I often do in most UK cities these days. They say "An armed society is a polite society" and the place seemed to be a good example of this being the case. You tend not to act like an *****-hole if you think you'll end up getting shot for it.

 

The place in Sussex won't be unique in the UK. I work on a mill and a lathe every day and it would be frighteningly easy to produce a relatively crude but perfectly effective firearm, as it would for anyone else with a little knowledge and the correct tooling. Where there is demand for a product there will always be those who are willing to flout any law, and ignore any moral objections, to make a profit from that demand. Let's face it, if Beretta, Browning, S+W, or Colt can mass produce something by moulding plastics and clever use of a CNC mill, then anyone else with the correct technology can replicate it.

Spent brass is often weighed in as scrap and could easily be re-loaded.

It's an almost impossible task to prevent any of this happening in the real world, and all we can hope for as law abiding shooters is that the police manage to find, arrest, and convict those who are willing to make and sell weapons to anyone with the ££ and leave us alone. Unfortunately I doubt that will ever be the case again.

[Scully]

7 minutes ago, Jaymo said:

Slide on a 1911 rep - watched on YouTube many moons ago a team milling from blanks. 

Fair enough, but I did mention revolver. If I recall, the grooves on the slide of my 1911ACP were internal on the slide and matching ones external on the frame. It’s been a long time since I stripped one.

[Retsdon]

2 hours ago, Vince Green said:

Slide?

Ha! Never thought of that. Thanks.

[Scully]

10 minutes ago, CaptainBeaky said:

My Dad made quite a few replicas from those plans - Colt Navy, 1844 Army, Dragoon, 1796 Navy Sea Service Pattern flintlock, a Civil War era wheellock and a pepperbox.

All would have worked had they been bored through, and not cross-drilled and pinned.

I had an Uncle who made a replica of a small derringer he owned. Whether the metal would have withstood the detonation of a cartridge I have no idea.

[Vince Green]

The entire Birmingham gun trade consisted of thousands of one man jobbers working on benches with hand tools and very little else in grubby little back street workshops. Yet some of the finest guns ever made now bearing the names of legendary gunmakers were actually produced in this way

[Blackpowder]

I recall reading many years ago about a street side workshop in Pakistan or its neighbour making copies of the Webley service revolver using a lathe which was based on a bicycle wheel.

 

Blackpowder

[nobbyathome]

I 

6 hours ago, Sha Bu Le said:

Just my opinion but this story just does not gel somehow. Pictures of fairly standard machine shop gear, couple of bags of bullets (available from any police armory). Not a picture of any kind showing guns, gun parts or anything gun related (except a few rounds). Very unlike the cops not to fill your telly screen with guns of every kind. Very strange descriptions of what could be done with these "metal manipulating" machines. Even the words used are very uni raised chief constable(ish).

Combine this story with the bs Panorama programme and it has me wondering if there is a bit of jiggery pokery going on?

"What" I can hear you think; "a chief constable telling porkies" well I Hillsborough never.

Seriously people they've been trying legally for years to reduce private gun ownership (with more than a bit of self interpretation of home office guidelines) perhaps now a CC is changing tactics. 

Never been into conspiracy theories but ??

Like I said just my opinion. 

Comment as you all see fit.

Bri

I don’t believe it is a conspiracy story it’s a good thing that the police raided it and took out an illegal band of crooks             we the licenced law abiding people get tarred with the same brush as them when someone gets shot in London  I hope they get a long time inside 

[pinfireman]

But why go to the trouble of making them, and risk being caught, when it,s easier to buy them in Eastern Europe, and smuggle them here?

[Jaymo]

8 minutes ago, pinfireman said:

But why go to the trouble of making them, and risk being caught, when it,s easier to buy them in Eastern Europe, and smuggle them here?

Proud British manufacturing ?

[ordnance]

Nothing new they made plenty here, the hardest part to make would be the magazine.

Edited August 23, 2018 by ordnance

[Benthejockey]

The way this thread is going it’s going to be moved into eve DIY section ?

[Old farrier]

1 minute ago, Benthejockey said:

The way this thread is going it’s going to be moved into eve DIY section ?

As I recall a member on here posted a step by step on how he built his own gun 

 

[Vince Green]

Technically I don't suppose its illegal to do so as long as you kept your FEO in the loop. I was thinking of re-enactors, they make their own matchlocks and things like that. Some of the cannons too. I fired a cannon at Bisley some years back and that looked recently made. 

[Guest cookoff013]

if i recolect a punt gun was made recently, proofed stamped and enetered on ticket.

 

[old'un]

3 hours ago, Vince Green said:

Technically I don't suppose its illegal to do so as long as you kept your FEO in the loop. I was thinking of re-enactors, they make their own matchlocks and things like that. Some of the cannons too. I fired a cannon at Bisley some years back and that looked recently made. 

I’ve always wondered about those home made guns, at what point in their manufacture do they become a firearm?

[Old farrier]

2 hours ago, cookoff013 said:

if i recolect a punt gun was made recently, proofed stamped and enetered on ticket.

 

You’re right 

nothing illegal about making your own gun as long as you keep your flo in the loop best plan is to inform them of your intent to construct it and ask them what point they consider it to become a firearm/shotgun and when they will require to enter it on your certificate 

obviosley for a firearm you should be certain that your appropriate slot for caliber is in place before you start 

its hard to enter a non proof gun with no serial number onto your ticket  so by liaising with the proof house and the flo you should be free from problems 

however it is illegal for us mere shed mortals ? to manufacture banned weapons ie pistols or automatic weapons 

Note 

its a worry driving a gun to the proof house/site of proof if it’s not on your license and won’t get entered unless it passes and has been stamped So I suggest that you take a rfd with you should any of you wish to go down this road 

[Pushandpull]

A gun does not have to be proved(wise though this may be) unless you are selling it. You can give it a number such as 001 yourself. I have had an old gun with neither maker nor number listed on my certificate. The only identifier was the bore size.

[Old farrier]

1 hour ago, Pushandpull said:

A gun does not have to be proved(wise though this may be) unless you are selling it. You can give it a number such as 001 yourself. I have had an old gun with neither maker nor number listed on my certificate. The only identifier was the bore size.

Very true 

although county’s vary so much in there requirements 

I’ve got a couple of old obsolete caliber Guns the same which of course you need to have put on your license if you intend to use them both listed as nvsn smooth bored single barrelled percussion Guns with the bore size and length 

however still a lot easier to go with your flo request when building a NEW one  

easy option in my opinion saves problems in the future 

all the best 

of 

[Scully]

2 hours ago, Pushandpull said:

A gun does not have to be proved(wise though this may be) unless you are selling it. You can give it a number such as 001 yourself. I have had an old gun with neither maker nor number listed on my certificate. The only identifier was the bore size.

This. Not even your FEO can insist that you do something which isn’t by law, necessary, regardless of whether you already own it or have just made it. As long as it is entered on your ticket then that is all that is required by law. 

[old man]

Not watched this yet but certainly engineers manipulate metal and where necessary  make the tools to manipulate the metal with, unless my apprenticeship was a dream?

If you couldn't your employment was short lived.

Back then, black under the fingernails was a badge?

[Dekers]

That must be virtually next door to NSP Engineering...AIR ARMS!