Confusion Mounts

I’ll tell you what I need. I need someone to show up in my driveway with a lathe on a truck, and I need him to put it in my garage and drive away.

I cannot come to a conclusion concerning which lathe I should get. It is impossible.

At first, I thought all lathes were about the same. Then I thought it was a good idea to buy a 40-year-old American lathe. Then I found out a lot of them are beat up to the point where they’re not accurate. And Og complicated things by asserting that the Chinese stuff (not just Taiwanese) is now up to American standards.

Today things got worse. I realized that a lathe will utterly ruin and consume my life by allowing me to make CUSTOM GUN PARTS.

That’s just too much. I know it’s stupid that I didn’t think about this more in the past. It’s so obvious. But that’s how my brain works (or fails to work). Now I realize that whatever I get should be usable for gunsmithing.

Right now I have a Saiga-12 shotgun. It’s fundamentally a great weapon, but it was made in Russia, so that means virtually everyone who touched it was full of cheap vodka at the time, and aside from that, AK-based guns are always loaded with cheap parts that can stand upgrading.

Example: it has a stupid plug up front that controls the gas. To remove the plug, you’re supposed to use two metal tools. I managed it with a screwdriver and my fingers, I think. Most people say “coin and a key.” But it’s unacceptable. An AK you can’t strip without tools? Unthinkable.

Look what one of the guys at Tromix just did. I’m stealing his photos from the Saiga-12 forum, but I doubt he’ll care, since it will only serve to convince people they should give him money to fix their guns.

He started with a Home Depot flashlight. I am not kidding.

He turned the bezel or whatever it’s called, to make it less monstrous.

He installed it in front of his gas tube, and that meant he had to modify the plug. So he made a new one.

I can’t stand it. I would almost sell my admittedly worthless and undersized soul to be able to do stuff like that.

He’s going to make something to replace that thumbscrew, but even as it is, it’s great.

Okay, I realize this has nothing to do with gunsmithing lathes. You could do this on a Taig. But work with me here. Once you’ve started puttering with guns on machine tools, you’re not going to stop. Sooner or later you’ll want to make a barrel, and then you’ll need 36″ and a big spindle bore. And if you don’t have them when that time comes, you’ll have to kill yourself.

Arrgh. GET THE TOOLS OUT OF MY HEAD.

I already want to make furniture for my Vz 58. I have a beautiful piece of untouched walnut sitting on the floor, waiting. And the stock furniture is definitely cheesy. Aside from that, it heats up. A better design and all-wood construction should solve that problem. I already have the tools to handle that. Man, they would hate me at the range. Me and my tricked-out Vz 58 furniture.

I wonder if there’s a business opportunity in this. I suppose there is. It takes years to become a real gunsmith, but a total doofus can confine himself to a limited number of simple jobs and do everything exactly right. You don’t have to be a genius to make a pistol grip or a flash suppressor. And nothing is easier than improving existing products. Manufacturers do all sorts of stupid things for ease of assembly or to save two cents or for NIH reasons. The opportunities are endless.

You probably have to be proctoscoped by Nancy Pelosi herself to get a gunsmithing license.

Doesn’t matter. I’d be perfectly happy even if I could only do this stuff for my own guns.

Why, oh why did I ever let myself get interested in tools?