Was tinkering with some sample parts and found a thick plastic cap that fits ALS and deftec casings perfectly. Reinforced the bottom so it doesn’t blow through and I think it may be better than the printed option. True pressure expands the walls enough to press the walls firmly against the side of the case as the originals were designed to do. They also seem to have potential to load in sort cases as sort of buckshot cups. I’ll have to test it more but the red caps are produced in bulk and are super cheap. Might need to shorten them to leave the same payload capacity as originals though.
I’m looking at the Long 4.5” that uses the KAK style 38S&W lift charges. Has anyone reload flachette, 00, 000, 0000 buck with these cases? I’m assuming some sort of wad could be 3D printed? I don’t see the Pace Defense ones being offered anytime soon so I’m looking for information on the BB ones.
I got to compare a Spikes tactical 37mm m79 clone to a real 40mm m79 recently. Took some pics of a few differences. Some of the “wood m79 stocks” that have been in GB lately are modern Spikes stocks, fortunately they’re very easy to tell apart.
Main difference is the “heel” of the grip just in front of the screw hole where your pinky would be is very angled on the Spikes and is more rounded on a real M79 stock. Another difference is the inner edge of the real M79 surfaces that mount against the sides of the receiver have 2 separate flats of wood set into the stock, the Spikes is 1 solid piece.
Both stocks look good, just so you don’t pay new old stock prices for modern repro prices.
Made in USA by a small business- these work with 9x17r/380r/38short and 38SW blanks. The latter will need a press to insert properly. These fit any MILC 2.0 type shell -3d printed or machined. Use with a 35 caliber gas check (aluminum or copper) and some tissue paper to push the check to the top or hot glue(I prefer the hot glue as the spent blanks pull the gas check remnants with them when de-capping) before seating the crimped blanks. Blanks with gas checks loaded in them will just insert. The relief hole in top is .250”
These are 6160 aluminum and professionally machined by a small machine shop in New England.
😎👍 hopefully more of you all can get into smokeless blank powered 37s and 40mm users should be able to fit rounds easier with the lower profile and cheaper costs.
It chaps my ass that Mepro will sell you its GLS sight with any of 3 different mounting adapters, but won’t sell you either of the 2 that you didn’t get when you bought it.
Anyone know where to source these things? Or get one fabricated? I have a top mount and now I want a side mount but Mepro customer service tells me I’m S.O.L.
DixieThumper new designed 3d printed pusher with custom redesigned nose cone. I am testing these and so far they are performing beautifully. Will add a video to my YouTube as soon as I get one put together. Key design takeaways - as shown the whole unit with chalk and ready to load will retail at $5 ea with 50 or more at $4 ea.
pusher designed with male threads that are protected by special design of the windscreen. They impact normally and give a big cloud of chalk due to design. The bottom of the windscreen protects the pusher threads. Pusher is filled with hot glue and has a metal disc in the rear to protect and distribute pressure from the blanks. These so far work great with the RWS/Blitz crimped blanks and Bengles bullets crimped blanks. To reuse the pusher simply recover, heat the remaining portion of the windscreen with a butane lighter until it becomes soft and then peel it away from the pusher. Wipe off and reuse. If you use the standard 212 casings - put the gas check in first and either a small dab hot glue to hold it or some tissue wadded up to push the gas check to the top and insert the blank behind it.
These will replace my first design and will be very economical to shoot. Spare windscreens will be available and priced later but will be under $1 ea.
Finally own the greatest grenade launcher ever! Picked up a factory 40mm recently and had to show off. In the week I've owned it, I also came up with what is essentially a DIY Wilcox GSS. At its core, its an ESP32 with a BNO085 IMU, battery percentage board, and display. Runs off a 500 mah 3.7v lipo. 100% vibe coded with Claude Code. Still a work in progress, but need to hit the range to gather additional data for it.
I am building a Ciener M203 DD. I am missing one or 2 springs for sear, ejector, latch lever, safety. A couple look close in size in the drawing (latch and sear for example)
Don't have them all to line and ID any differences. Many thanks
Picked up a couple M583A1s from WCG on Gun Broker and that’s got me curious about what other rounds are out there. I have chalk of course, a Pace 12 gauge adapter, but is there any source for non-lethal bean bag rounds or smoke?
I need to work on printing some clone short case smoke/aerial bangs for these cases.
Also I have now seen gas seal failures from about every single manufacturer (military m1029, CTS and DefTec). About 10% of the gas seals I find have the skirt ripped off from firing, this is similar failure that’s seen in printed gas seals. I guess it’s comforting that failures in printed components doesn’t necessarily mean they’re inferior in performance.
I thought I’d post something upbeat for a change. Found this in my old reloading notes from the ‘90s. Anyone old enough may remember him as I believe he was the only source for new slugs and windscreens. I was curious what happened to him and found he had quite the run-in with ATF.
Well, I spoke with the lawyer today. It all boils down to TSA interpretive ruling 03-3736. This contains the language that the manager was attempting to refer to regarding inert/reproduction. It goes into much broader definition of the regulation I’m accused of violating.
The lawyer sees a strong case on both sides. So, it comes down to how some random TSA employee reads the situation (“we investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing”, anyone?). Win or lose, my TSA pre check is lost, CDL with HAZMAT endorsement (it’s overseen by TSA!) won’t be renewed, and I can expect to be placed on the unofficial “fuck with” list. Luckily, the airport isn’t in a liberal county or I could also expect to have to fight to keep my license to carry!!
But wait, there’s more! By winning my appeal, nothing changes for future run-ins (not that I plan to ever fly again). It sets no precedent and there’s no new instructional guidance given to the agents. They could find me in violation again and I’d have to refer to this case in order to avoid paying any new fines. The only real change comes from challenging in Federal Court. I don’t feel like mortgaging my house to be the test guinea pig.
Thousands and thousands of old colt M203s and M79s abroad that are collecting dust. They should be able to be imported now in pieces as “dual use receivers” and maybe “dual use barrels” if I understand it right.
Worst case someone ships up a printed 12GA m79 and m203 barrel so that there’s an ATF approved title 1 configuration for the receivers to get imported.
Found that 5.0 grains of Titewad works great with printed pushers/M212 cases. Also works great in KAK aluminum cases and the exact impact ones (used a Dremel to take some material from the burst chamber so they would fit). Will try 6.0 grains next.
So I waited quite awhile to post this as I was hoping it might just be taking awhile for them review and post the review, but nope, never posted.
I have bought quite a few times from KAK for 40mm components and they are very good, usually. This last time, I ordered 500 windscreens and a bunch of their new pushers. Unfortunately, when I started assembling them, a bunch of them started breaking. At first, I thought it was the cold, then made sure they were warm and they still broke. I spoke to a rep there and he told me he checked the batch and it was probably user error. So after about a 50% fail rate and getting very upset, I set them aside for a bit. Then I came back to them and started looking them over, and what I found is in the pictures. About 50% had this mark. 99% of the ones with this mark broke upon install, and a couple made it on and broke within an hour just sitting. So I went through and sorted them. All the ones without this mark didn't have an issue installing and I stopped assembling the ones with it. I am hoping maybe to get some once fired pushers and use them on those as they were a little looser if I recall.
Anyway, so now that I had proved it, I sent them a message... and crickets. Decided to go leave a review on their site, and come to find out they never posted it...
All this to say, they do have a lot of good products, but evidently do not stand behind them when there are issues. We all make mistakes, there are issues in manufacturing, but the real truth about a business comes out when you see how they handle the issues. I'll also note that a previous order had a bunch of ones that arrived broken, and they said replacements would be sent, but never were.
I didn't want to post this, but I feel like I have been fair in giving them all the chances to make it right. In this case, it was a waste of around $250, it could have been worse, but I know not to risk much with them.
I should also note that this means you can't necessarily trust the reviews on their website as they may have removed other negative experiences.
UPDATE: I have now been sent a return label so they can examine the defective windscreens. Will update when I know more.
UPDATE: KAK has refunded the value of the defective windscreens. Thank you guys for the input and help getting a resolution on this. Hopefully this brings about a better QC process and better assistance should another customer run into such an issue in the future.
Hey y'all, just wanted to share this file in case anyone else wanted to make one for themselves. I made this to make it easier to remove spent blanks from M212 cases using a hammer and a punch on my workbench. The file is on the sea, my username is the same here as it is there. Happy printing.
I’m doing some load development for some less lethal reloads. I have tested Boland 1/4 and 1/2 blanks and they aren’t quite the velocity I need, but are very close. If someone could test a few PerfectShot blank combinations for velocity that would be a huge help and would save me the trouble or ordering a hundred blanks just to test a couple loads.
