Production of a rotary drum magazine

[DeathBlade]

Well since the 'assult weapons' ban is gone, I've been stocking up on high capacity mags for my sks, pistols, etc. But there is one weapon in my collection that I shoot the most but only has a seven round clip, a mossberg 'plinkster' .22 And as we all know reloading after seven shots is a drag, So I trying to make a high capacity magazine for the .22 and after digging in my junk box I've come up broken windup alarm clock for the main spring some strips of stainless steel some deltrin and pvc blocks, and another clip for the plinker. I've gotten stuck when I try to visulize if this would work or not. The diagram below should help, can someone see something I'm missing? Also does any one know of some 'exploded' diagrams of other type of drum clips, that might give me a better idea?

In the image the Red object is the follower, the Blue coil is the main spring
The Copper colored circles are shells, the main problem is that some shells will stay in the verticle section of the clip.
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s156/DeathBlade556/clip.gif

[Khalnath]

That is the general idea of a rotary drum magazine, yes, but I doubt you will be able to make one yourself easily. It's tricky engineering to get those kind of magazines to feed reliably.

It'd be nice if it worked, though. In Canada, we have magazine restrictions but not on rimfire rifles, so hicap rimfire mags are in high demand.

Also, what you describe is a magazine, not a clip. A magazine feeds ammunition into the chamber. A clip is used to load a magazine. The En bloc clip of the M1 Garand is a good example. Generally, if it has a spring, it's a magazine. If it doesn't, it's a clip.

[ChippedHammer]

Drum magazines are difficult to build and are not too reliable, they also put strain on the magazine release mechanism due to having 100+ rounds inside. If you shoot 100 rounds you still have to reload 100 rounds, personally I would just buy heaps of a magazines rather than go to the trouble of making a drum magazine.

[InfernoMDM]

If you want to attempt this and you are going to make your own might I suggest looking at the 1022 high capacity magazines. You might just be able to take a old magazine for yours and jury rig it to the top and then have a follower with a few extra dummy rounds to push the last round in.

Besides even if you dont want to go plastic the internals of the magazine might give you some ideas to work from.

[nbk2000]

I know there are drum mags made for the 10/22. Buy one of those and replace the top with a magazine that fits your gun.

The problem with drum mags is that reloading them is a drag too, unless they're like the chinese AK drum, which pops open so you can just drop in the ammo, not feed it in one-round-at-a-time.

[DeathBlade]

With a stick mag you might have an extra foot of magazine under the receiver, and I want it to be somewhat compact, so its a drum mag. And as for modifying a 10/22 mag, I never thought of that. So I guess I'll look into modding a 10/22 (or maybe a calico .22 helical mag). And NBK's comment about a removeable back to the drum is great, it would ease up reloading the magazine.

And as for fabbing one I was doing some math and I can use a strip of 1/16th inch steel strip and Tig it in a spiral to a disk of 1/8th" and I can use a .22 shells as spacers as I'm welding it. I think the clock spring might be too weak, but I have the spring from the pullstart from a weed trimmer so that should be stronger. I'll post picture of the progress as I get to fabricating it.

[sobreroHWE]

The price of AK's,mags,parts etc has been going up quite alot recently (DeltaForce, my Ultra rightwing state etc.). AK ammo is on it's way to being unaffordable to the common person($90/1000 4 yrs ago-$170/1000 today), and I have seen drums go from $75 when I bought mine in 2000 (Chinese type NBK mentions) and today I can't find one in any gun show or shop for less than $140. When mine was damaged from a "science project malfunction" a local gunsmith told me to fix it myself and look for higher prices in coming years.

It is interesting to note the almost textbook process by which "bad" things are removed. As with our beloved books, it seems AK's and other assault rifles (even mags/drums) are well on their way to becoming unaffordable and or simply "out of stock". But that does not seem to have stopped any of us from learning from each other and improvising. I believe the same can be said for creative souls like DeathBlade. I'm sure improvising a nice drum can't be much harder than the ultra scientific mixtures and calculations you people seem to casually recite off hand with ease. :confused: Very interesting topic!

[Khalnath]

You can get magazine loaders for the 10/22 where you just turn the knob to fill the magazine. Of course, if the magazine is modified at the feed end, the loader won't fit anymore either.

Loading those mags without the loader IS a pain in the ass. (I have 25rd stick mags.)

If you really want hicap, consider getting a 10/22 instead.

[prespec]

The design looks OK, but you will have trouble with the transition from rotary travel of cartridges to vertical . They will tend to jam up at the point they change direction.
You could shorten the vertical stack , and placing the spring outside the mag will save space as well as making adjustments easier to accomplish.

Prepare for a lot of work, and several fabrications, then you may get it to work.........or simply build some extended clip mags out of existing ones.

[amachinist]

The jamming which prespec can be overcome by utilizing a design similar to the Beta Magazine, a roller link chain style with rollers being larger than the links it will follow the curvature around the spiral path.

[Khalnath]

The design looks OK, but you will have trouble with the transition from rotary travel of cartridges to vertical . They will tend to jam up at the point they change direction.

The usual solution to this is to have the tower (the straight part) come off the tangentially instead, like the opening on a snail shell. That way the cartridges don't HAVE to change direction.

[prespec]

Totally agree Khalnath. This obvious solution occurred to me shortly after posting.
As for the follower, it could be a pin moving in a spiral groove milled in the mag body with the spring travelling externally
All could be enclosed in a dust cover, with an exposed butterfly lever to pre-tension the spring and ease loading.
Not a whole lot different from an MG 34/42 drum mag.

Also, if you are just intending to use the perimeter of the mag, you could make the drum smaller and fabricate a fairly powerful spring out of music wire, and house the spring internally as it would only need to function on a constant radius.

[nbk2000]

It'd probably be far easier to adapt an existing .22 drum magazine to work with your gun, than to make a magazine from scratch. I've seen drums for the Ruger 10/22 for about $60.

[DeathBlade]

Well I've not got much work done on the clip front I was able to get a semi working clip done, but the maxium amount of rounds I could load was 19 shells before it would jam up. The maxium I ever got to fire was 12, So it's still a learning process. But I was able to modify the rifle enough that the barrel is now easily removable and held in place with a .25" locking pin. I'll post some pictures of the progess soon.

[Bugger]

I understand that machine-guns with rotary drum magazines were the "WMD of choice" of the Prohibition-era gangsters on the 1920s and early 1930s. They were frequently used for drive-by gang executions of informers and rival gangsters, spraying whole areas with bullets.

[festergrump]

I don't think you'll ever get a CLIP to work with the drum MAGAZINE you're working on, DeathBlade. *SMACK!* (bad habits are hard to break, but do please try to work on them).

You stomp on every firearm enthusiast who resides here's nuts every time you refer to a magazine as a clip. This forum (and all forums under the "roof" of Roguesci.org) demand attention to detail, terminology, grammar, spelling, etc.

We demand people to learn from their mistakes here. You've made the mistake once already in this thread, just posts ago. Learn the difference between CLIP and MAGAZINE and commit it to memory, pretty fucking please.

On topic, I think the problem you are having is with the spring binding inside the magazine housing if you've already gotten 19 to load.

Now, did the 19 you loaded "dry-cycle" through the weapon it was intended for, or did they bind up upon firing? Did any of the rounds load past the elbow joint in the magazine?

You can only expect answers as detailed as the input you provide... pics (real ones, from this point on... you promised) would help since we can't be there to witness the faults of your design ourselves...

[IriOfTheSnow]

If you going to make a .22 rimfire magazine, remember that the primer is located on the rim of the casing, a particularly soft casing. You should probably avoid putting any pressure on the rims (ie with thread spacers) or you might just die. Traditional rimless magazine designs won't work because you'll end up stacking the rounds rim-to-rim. If you let the magazine spring slam shut on the rounds, or if the the cycling action does so, I imagine that the results will be none to good.

[neetje]

IriofTheSnow is right that the .22 lr has a soft casing, but I have yet to see the first .22 lr explode on reloading a mag. I don't think it's going to be a problem...

And I don't know if you've ever watched Mythbusters on Discovery channel, they did a test with .22lr used as a fuse in a pickup truck. Although it might hurt when they explode, the bullets don't penetrate soft tissue. Without the barrel a .22 lr loses a lot of force.

[funwrecker]

Another spring that may work for you comes in one of those retractable dog leashes.

As for that hard transition from round cylinder to vertical, just have it transition using a longer slope ( if you get my meaning, just trying to put thought pictures into words, if this is even possible........... :) )

[mackamitsu]

You are better off modifying an existing magazine to fit your rifle. You may have to sacrifice a stick mag that is known to fit your rifle and adapt it to your .22 cal cal drum for another rifle. You will have to remove the spring and platform when you join the 2 mags, so they don't get damaged by the heat if you use a welding process. You also won't be able to make "guides" internally as they will stop the bullets from being loaded and fed properly. Also after welding you will need to smooth the beads on the inside so the platform won't bind and cause misfeed issues.