Lane

Apparently Mike Vining has a book coming out soon. I found this interview in passing, and just finished watching the full four and a half hours. Some of the stories sounded familiar and it reminded me of this thread here, so I'm passing it on. Absolutely looking forward to the book "Blasting Through" when it comes out, sometime after August 2026 it sounds like.

I did laser cut some stainless steel aperture style rear sights to fit into my Ruger 10/22 a while back. I made a whole bunch with wildly variable aperture sizes. I was hoping to fix an optical problem with my right eye. In some cases, aperture rear sights might help with an astigmatism? It did not work for me, and I presume that was because my astigmatism in in a bad place or something?

I'm sold. I've been shooting as a right hander for my whole life. I am right handed. As I got older, my right eye vision got worse and worse. I am nearsighted in that eye; I was told my focal distance was 1 meter some years ago. Probably from too many hours on computers. My left eye, is amazing for both close and far. I usually use scopes on rifles, and can see clearly. Where this falls down is iron sights, or even holographics; I just can't see things right. There is a fight in my brain, even with two eyes open. I can see it if I look hard enough, but that takes time. I am not able to quickly acquire a target in that way. Bought a 3 pack of Left Handed 10/22 magazines a while back, and wanted to get rid of them. Of course the market is flooded since I'm not the only one to make that mistake. I think this is a sign. Buy a 10/22; the new 2026 version, in left handed receiver. Use those mags I already have. And practice, practice, practice, left handed shooting. I do need this skill. And I would benefit from it in some circumstances.

You did try. I was so very much curious.

Welcome back. I know how it goes; this place makes me happy too.

Considered making stamping dies to try this at home a while back. I remember reading that there were a few annealing steps, perhaps those are only required for longer rifle length brass (I was looking into making rifle length back then)? It sure was interesting to see all the ropes and foot pedals attached to the machines for comfort and ease of use. Seems like a few of those processes might have been able to utilize a jig to help speed things up; maybe even improve on safety a hair (though safety doesn't seem to be much of a concern in that factory). Who could forgot that powder drop method?! Just blow it off, and tamp it down with your fingers? Clearly all of the cartridges in the middle got more powder packed in than the ones on the edges of the circle. Wish I knew where to get a box or two of that stuff to pull down and weigh out the powder. I assume a powder dropper or a volumetric scoop would be more consistent than that sprinkle, blow, and tamp method; perhaps even faster. I have purchased commercial ammo with very messy primer sealant before; but their pen/marker method looked really neat and clean (albeit rather slow). Found a few other threads commenting about the wide array of labeled manufacturer locations. Makes me wonder how many boxes of ammo I have that weren't really made where the box says they were. Thanks for posting the video though; it was equal parts scary and amusing, with a sprinkle of inspiring here and there.

Welcome from NY.

Been a while. I've be "slacking off" on this project; and some others. I do have some minor progress though. A CNC Unimat lathe is kicking out 5.56 monolithic copper 101 projectiles in twenty one minutes, twenty one seconds each. Not even highly optimized. Still having some issues with backlash and tool purity. But there is progress none the less. I want to try my hand at some 308-ish; and maybe some others.... I'd love to model the 911 grain projectile sometime; but it will be a bit before I get my feeds and speeds right to get a good finish. No rush there. Finally of course; I will soon be making steel and aluminum projectiles for the electric project. MVI_7983.MOV

https://guntopia.hu/product/dag-308-win-fmj-rifle-ammunition-148gr/ https://www.bulkammo.com/1000-rounds-of-308-win-ammo-by-german-military-surplus-148gr-fmj https://trueshotgunclub.com/ammunition/rifle-ammo/308-win/military-surplus/military-surplus-german-308-win-148-grain-fmj-20-rounds/ And this last link has mention that the markings had been machined off; like yours... https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/Surplus-SM-308-ammo/16-716033/

Took the first steps in completing this EPH 20 priming compound. Do note; I'm doing this the absolute most difficult way. You can buy ground glass, and that will certainly save considerable time and effort. I spent a number of hours grinding up 3.5 grams of borosilicate glass in a mortar and pestle. Turns out 3.5 grams is a rather ambitious amount; it's much faster and less work to do smaller batches if you do choose to make your own. In the second photo; all those "holes" you see in the powder are actually chunks, meaning there's a lot more grinding to get to flour consistency. Even when you think you're done, there's probably quite a bit more grinding to do... Third image is the final product at flour consistency. Grinding glass is also kind of messy, it's essential to cover up the top as the glass is crushed. Even so, I was constantly feeling glass bits all over my work area and my clothes which I simply picked up with my fingers and added back to the mortar and pestle. The next task was to make cakes of nitrocellulose which will then be ground up. You can use any kind of smokeless powder you have; maybe you have mystery pulls, or bench spills. Dissolve the powder in acetone (flooding over the top of the powder a bit, otherwise you'll end up with something chunky that might crumble apart) and then let it dry fully. Beware, when making aluminum foil boats too short..... The acetone has a tendency to move via capillary action. I had one boat wick out acetone/nitrocellulose and spill over despite not being even half full. I left mine cakes on the baseboard heater for a while, then peeled off the aluminum foil boat, and back on the heater to dry some more until it is reasonably hard. If it's too soft, you'll end up with shavings that looks like rubber pencil eraser shavings, which are way too big. Finally, I clamped the chunk into my vise with a piece of paper to catch all the fine particles. Again; this took some number of hours to collect a few grams worth of ultra fine dust. Sort out any big chunks and store in an airtight container. Any larger nitrocellulose chunks that break off, or become too small to file down; can be saved and added to the next batch. The last (and most complicated) step before mixing actual priming compound; is synthesis of lead nitrophosphite. This actually requires a stirring hotplate, and some basic chemistry skills. Really, don't try to do this with hand stirring, there is a secondary reaction that absolutely must be avoided... My hotplate should arrive later today, so I'll post back when I have worked through that process and start making actual primers.

I've returned to this project. There are still a number of things I need to get my hands on; but nothing out of the ordinary at this point. Given the time that has passed; there have been a number of improvements worked out by other people. I saw just the other day; a set of tooling to punch and form brand new primer cups from brass sheet. That makes this even more attractive. There is even a spreadsheet calculator to aid in material purchasing and consumption. Just plugging in a few numbers I get prices like this...

*Cries in newyorkastan* 1,700*30=51,000 rounds. In NY we require 10 round mags (or less if you live in a populated area). That's 5,100 ten round mags, or 10,200 five round magazines. Also; 10 round mags are NEVER even close the cost of 30 round mags (much more expensive). 50k rounds sounds like a decent range weekend for a small group. Nothing weird about that.

Primers contain lead, and lead free primers are still not very common. Based on how ignition happens inside the cartridge, I'd assume a non-trivial amount of that lead stays inside the cartridge as part of the dark residue left behind.

This has been distilling for a while. Something hit me while I was thinking about efficiency issues. What if you could fill the barrel with pure hydrogen? It's possible that the projectile could exit the barrel at 2x the speed in that case. That's a bit difficult since hydrogen won't stay in the barrel for any length of time. But then I tried to calculate the volume of a barrel. A 0.308" barrel is only 0.0018 CF in volume (at 24"). It should be EASY to have that much H2 on hand very quickly if you can split some water. Already have electricity in the device. Then; it begs the question... Can't you just ignite the H2 (and the otherwise useless O2) after the projectile is already going fast in a low friction gas filled barrel? Probably.... I bought a few barrels and all the extra parts for this build. I didn't realize it was going to go so deep. But; I already posted some of the H2O gas can videos. These should stick around... They do a slow-motion / high speed camera thing; listen for the "can" to fall in the end of the audio. H2O1.mp4 H2O2.mp4

LoL at those eBay listings/sales. I have a bunch of very strange stuff that might be interesting to people as well; but not prison made saws. Very nice! I probably should start trying to move some old stuff I'll never use or care about... It'll make room for all the new fun I have cooking.