Victory at last! Kinda.

[feets]

Some of you may recall my thread about trying to resurrect a rather hacked commercial carbine here. Others probably put it out of their mind (for good reason).

I got my new glasses and finally found a little time to mess with the carbine again. 4d Reamer Rental was nice enough to send me a reamer and gauges in exchange for a little wad of cash. The goodies arrived on Wednesday. I tore the carbine down on Thursday and got busy.
It turns out the factory barrel was about 10 thousandths smaller than the Criterion barrel at the muzzle. Great. The front sight wouldn't fit. I broke out the Dremel once again and attacked the front sight. After far too much time, I got a good tight fit between the front sight and the Criterion tube. I compared the angle of the front sight with the flat on the barrel. They are dead on. Good Job Criterion!
Once that was squared away, I pulled the barrel off the receiver and cleaned the threads and mating surfaces. Doing that allowed me to line up the barrel so close that the front sight is exactly 1 degree to the right of center. That is better than most carbines will ever shoot and therefore good enough for me.
Thinking it would be a good idea, I stripped the bolt to make sure the ejector would not mess with my readings. Not having the tool to strip the bolt I did it by hand. The bolt didn't fight me much at all and was stripped with all pieces accounted for in 20 seconds.
I then removed the sight so the barrel would fit in my lathe. Once it was zeroed I mounted the reamer and shot it into the barrel. Apparently Murphy either took the day off or felt pity towards me. My first cut had the head space right where it needed to be. All the parts of the carbine jumped back together and it started looking like a (commercial) War Baby once more!
That's when it hit me. Unlike working on old cars, having pieces left over when you assemble a gun is a bad thing. Yep! I left the firing pin out of the bolt. No biggie. It was easier to strip than I expected. Once more, I headed into the garage with the bolt in my hand. It went to pieces easily enough but fought me on reassembly. That's when it happened. You know what I'm talking about. *ping* *zing* *clatter*
Yep! There went the ejector with the spring in tow. I did hear a distinct rattle that sounded like the garage door. A brief search found the missing parts in the channel between the garage door segments. Lucky me! I thought the parts were gone forever.
Anyway, a little more careful fussing and the bolt was done.
I ran a brush through the chamber and a few wet and dry patches through the bore to clean out the swarf.

This evening, my friend brought his Inland over to play. We went to our preferred indoor range (it was only 104 degrees outside today) for a little testing. The first round fired resulted in a failure to eject. The rest of the mag ran with one stoppage. It was not what I was hoping for. The second mag had two bolt over base failures to feed but this time the bullets were poking their heads inside the chamber.
We stripped the Inland of it's bolt and slide so we could drop them in the Iver.
*POOF* Magic happened.
The little carbine ran through it's first full magazine with no stoppages. The sights were even dead on at 25 yards.
We swapped my bolt back in and it carbine continued to run well.
When we put my slide back in the stoppages came back. It seems my slide is hanging up at the disassembly notch in the barrel. If you cycle the slide while putting a slight bit of upwards pressure on the op rod it will stop the slide.

After returning home (they closed the range after our late arrival) I measured the slide tabs and compared them to the Inland. There are two differences:
1) my tabs have a wee bit more taper as seen from above
2) my slide is .020" wider between the tabs than the Inland

There is a noticeable difference in the amount of slop between the slides when mounted on the carbine.
My slide is cast and I am not comfortable trying to squeeze it slightly in a vise. Instead, I will probably put a small bead of weld along the tabs and fit them to the barrel.

In all, it was a productive couple days and I feel much better about my little carbine already. It's soooo close to being perfect. Believe it or not, the 110 gr soft points, 100 gr semi-jacketed lead, and 110 gr Varminter spire points (chambered individually) all had very similar points of impact at the 50 yard range. Each load was capable of chewing a 1" ragged hole in the target despite me lighting rounds off as quickly as the range would allow (every couple seconds).

Information

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[shadycon]

All thought it's not a GI carbine sounds like you are going to have a FFUUUNNN GUN! Sometimes persistance pays off.

[Harlan (Deceased)]

I think he's having fun just trying to get it to run. Sometimes projects, or challenges are there own reward for me.

Keep us posted on the progress, feets!

[feets]

I think he's having fun just trying to get it to run. Sometimes projects, or challenges are there own reward for me.

Keep us posted on the progress, feets!

Hey! I think someone else understands now.

I don't do this for the money or for the collectors value. I mess with this stuff to escape from the pressures of the real world. After the day I had at work I'm ready to do really bad things to lots of different people. To say I'm stressed out is an understatement.
I'm having lunch now (6 hours late) and am debating whether I should drive 45 minutes to help a friend wire an attic in the 104 degree heat or if I'm going to tell him what he can do with that new house and work on my own stuff.
Sometimes the little machine shop in my garage is my happy place. No more Mercedes. No more Bentley. No more Bugatti. No more disturbingly overpaid children whining about this or that. Just me, my machines, and a hunk of metal that is in desperate need of becoming something else.

Sorry if it seems like I'm venting. I am.