Happy Birthday: A 30mm is born! Video of the test fire added

Shooting the completed gun and carriage combination will probably happen the first week in August. Since I took the pictures I've also added the cleaning/rammer rod brackets and rods on the sides of the trailing arms.

Additional things that need worked on but aren't show stoppers for firing:

1) The recoil guard needs moved further back to give better clearance for the T&E handles.
2) The sight linkage needs tuned. It's not currently indexing properly for elevation changes.
3) I need to add a traverse lock to lock the gun more firmly when firing.

Oh yeah! I can't believe this project is 'done'! Thanks for the motivational support over the years. There were a few times I was ready to scrap the whole thing.

Matt

you win the "TOO COOL" award of the day

Thanks! Now hopefully the recoil system will hold together for the test fire. That's going to be an interesting test....

Amazing job! Congratulations on finishing and the fortitude to see this through.

so that gong @ 300 on birchwood's A range... yeah it has been pissing me off for a while...

time and place for the test?? i gotta watch this

tagged for the range report

Video it for us please!!!! YouTube gold right there!!!!

I think the .50 BMG Eotech and a magnifier in a LT FTS mount would be more fitting



Did I mention I am jealous


ETA:

Is there a reason the scope isn't inline with the barrel? Seems like that would complicate things when it comes to different ranges.

Wow man too freaking cool.

Is the recoil system the hydraulic looking piston thing hanging underneath the barrel?

What's the story with the scope and rail mount? Is that original or something you fabricated?

You just tow this thing around?

Truly impressive project

Surely I'm not the only one who would like some before pics and details on this.

Good work

I am green with envy.

The scope was the first scope that I grabbed out of my spare optics drawer. Eventually I'll mount a real 37mm AT gun scope or one that looks closer to the original. I think they offset the scope to allow the shooter to be out of the way of the recoil action and still operate the gun. It's fairly close looking to the original.

The recoil system is based around a couple of Goldwing shocks.

Thanks for the kind words.

The test fire is about 3 weeks out but I'll be sure to post video.

i am green with envy..

I'm awarding you 100 Internets!

Sweet! I know how this works. I first need to send you a cashiers check and then you send me my award of which I keep a portion and give the rest to someone else? I get emails like this all the time from Kenya and it's always worked out well in the past..

I'm currently heading up the "Internets Awards Department" so please forward all payments to me.
$15k or a Colt M16A1 will suffice.

Woooow!!!

Most excellent! Let me know when you are heading out with it.

Fixed for you


...

27 or so hours until the test fire!



.44 Mag round for comparison. The larger projectiles are 5818.75 grains in weight and are loaded with 1360 grains of SuperSlow.

Where do you buy the projectiles?

I've picked the projectiles up along the way as they were or are available. The hard part is finding components for sale at 'shooter' prices and not 'collector' prices.

LOL.

I recall an old advertisement in Shotgun News from a fellow who had a Lahti he nicknamed "boombeast". He was begging for essentially "shooting priced" ammo. IIRC his advertisement was something along the lines of "I am in desperate need of food for my boombeast. Won't you please help?"

Im sure I can get a few more for you, Ive got some that I've picked up along the way, they are already fired training rounds though. Shoot me a pm and I'll see what I can do for ya.

edit: is that a gau-8 barrel? On second thought I'm not sure an apache 30mm will work with this. Let me know if you have already looked into this.

So where is the video?

Thanks for the offer on the cases but yep - it's a 30 GAU. If you ever run into these cases please let me know.

The test fire went really well! The first shot shown is a 2/3 1F BP and 1/3 Super Slow load. The rest of the rounds we fired (9 total) were 75% of max case capacity Super Slow loads.



We learned that we need to reinforce the mount and tighten the T&E. The shot on the steel plate didn't actually hit the plate but blew the base off the plate. On the 55gal water drum shot the projectile just skimmed between the bottom of the drum and the dirt. The ground was pretty wet so there wasn't a ton of dust kicked up on the impacts. We'll have to set up both of these shots again in the future once we make the gun enhancements and get this thing dialed in.

I tried using Bullseye as the initator charge instead of the normal BP. I think this is what is causing the delay when firing. Next time out I'll go back to BP.

One of the rounds had the primer set too deeply to set off the round. It was pretty exciting when opening the breech on that round!

Thanks for the interest!

Matt

bump!

That is AWESOME!

Bullseye is not good stuff for the initiators. I just looked inside my cases and the initiator tubes are opened up like flower petals. It's back to BP for me on the initiators. I should have stuck with what worked.

how is the cases holding up can you give us a over report on loading an how the different projs are doing

This!!

I've been following this build all the way. Congrats on the birth of this labor of love.

Awesome cannon. Just awesome!

Very cool project.
Has a shotshell cartridge or 50bmg sabot round been considered?

I picked up some 50BMG APIT projos a few years ago in anticipation of a sabot but never got further than that. I'd love to build a shotshell projectile for it but haven't figured out an easy cup system yet to hold the shot. There is a guy on g503.com that is playing with shot holders for a 37mm so I'm hoping he comes up with an easy way to make it work.

Thanks for the interest. If anyone has ideas on how to build the shot cup please let me know.

Matt

You could roll shot cups out of paper and a 25mm dowel.

Yep. You have one amazing toy!

What are you intentions for more projo's? Can you just pull one from an existing round you have and have a machine shop turn down some AL or zinc? I have idea what I'm talking about. Just wanted to know. Very cool project, man.

The projectiles are available from time to time so I buy them when I can. They're not too hard to find for sale but they're harder to find for sale at a price that makes shooting them 'affordable' when compared to making my own projectiles on a lathe. It looks like I can keep the cost under $10 per round for the primer, powder, and projo.

The retrofit work is planned for the end of the month. The biggest item is adding the traverse lock. We were getting traverse movement (due to slack in the traverse chain) when pulling the cord which made accurate fire difficult. The lock will also brace the wheel hub that the gun traverses on so that the recoil doesn't bend it. We got a slight bend off the initial test fire. The brace will resolve it.

Thanks for the interest.

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