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My Current active project is turning a stock Sportsman Versamax into a match winning 3gun shotgun.
Is this something people here are interested in seeing?
(Its not overly complex but does have some milling and turning)
Alright, I guess here it goes.
Started off with a Remington VersaMax Sportsman. On sales for 1050 and another 100 rebate put it at 950. Figured I would start with this and turn it into a gun for Multigun matches.
First thing I wanted to work on is the loading port. Traditional single shell loading requires you to stick your thumb into the loading port so you can push the shell past the shell latch. I want to remove enough material so that my thumb can rest sideways on the loading port and slide far enough forward that the shell passes the latch.
To start this I took everything apart and started to measure out how much room I had between the shell latch and the loading port. Once I had that number I taped off everything exposing the material I needed to remove.
This show what I was taping off.
Mostly the depth and angle. How far forward I push was a "by feel" thing as I couldnt measure. There is a ring that stops the follower from coming out with the shell. I need to remove material, feel the ring, remove some more and repeat.
Cause this was done by feel, a lot of it was done "Precisely by eye" lol.
The angle was roughly 8 degree.
Lined it up in the mill and started making chips.
Like I said above we stopped before the tube and after did separate passes pushing our way into the loading tube.
I can JUST barely load sideways and get past the latch. So it needs to go back in the mill and we need to push that back a little further to make it easier.
Also, needed to take the foreend to the belt sander to create the clearance for the thumb.
Also needed to sand the front of the forend down to allow proper contact with the new extension tube.
Next I am going to make a new button for the bolt release and drill and tap it on there.
Also the shell latch is going to get a radius and polish to make loading the shell require less force.
And the forend is going to get a hole drilled into it and a matchsaverz will be mounted to it.
And a new pic rail on the top for optics (I shoot "unlimited Division")
receiver was mounted in the vise with port straight up and tilted at 8 degrees. The End mill would then pass over one side then the other in the same setup. Once the long parts were done we tilted the head of the mill 45 degrees, touched off, then started pushing up into where the mag tube is.
(I hope that was clear enough)
As I said we need to push it back a bit further, when that is done we will be doing it at less then 45degs as we are super close to that follower retention ring.
My Buddy just finished Milling out his receiver. This is how far back I want to push mine too. Here you can clearly see how much of the shell is exposed now eliminating the need to stick your thumb into the tube.
Busy weekend. Might split this up on a couple posts.
Milled out some more this weekend. This time it was on my round column mill. (Which sucked for this operation)
My first problem to overcome is hard to describe.
With a head that rotates. I can adjust my work piece so the first angle is flat to the bed. Then I can tilt the head 45deg and then I push forward it will continue along the same axis as the first angle. (Follow the blue line)
With my personal round column mill I have to setup the work piece to the second angle. But then when I move the bed around it will cut 90deg to that angle. (again, the new blue line).
To combat this, I just taped off the 8deg line for a visual reference. Came in high with my end mill and left a little prism shape. Then set the work back to 8degs and removed the prism. I had to do this by eye balling and it was not using exact numbers. Not sure if someone else has an idea for how I could have done this better. At the end of the day I am happy with my end result.
Here it is after the milling.
You can see my lines didnt line up perfect because of the method above. But I was able to hand file it and put a radius in there too which is nice to have.
I then went to work hand filing a bevel and removing tooling marks.
Then worked my way with some coarse, med, fine emery cloth
Next up was my shell latch.
I drilled and tapped the button. (Which I broke one tap on a practice piece and had to run out and buy some more.)
Also, because I didnt want to drill all the way through this piece I really wanted to get the threads as far down as possible. BUT i couldnt find a bottoming 6-32 tap easily on the weekend. So I tap with a normal tap as far as I could, then ground it down into a bottoming tap. Huzzah!
Next on the shell latch was adding a radius to the catch itself. This allows shells to be pushed past it a little easier when loading.
Then on the lathe I grabbed some random stock and turned it into a enlarged button to be screwed on the shell latch.
I used my end mill to create the pocket for the cap head screw. Now I need to cold blue it or treat it with something so it doesnt rust. Does anyone have any options?
Then I just mounted up a new charging handle. (I could have made one from scratch but I have a match coming up and wanted to get this done) Also mounted a "Matchsaverz"
Oh, I also mounted optics to it. (I shoot open class)
The optics sit high so I need to raise the comb height now. Playing around with Kydex and forming and riveting it. (Not my final mounting solution.... but close.....
