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Secret project

That's flattering, but I'm just doing what I like to do.

Some guys can go out and restore an old car to museum quality.

Some guys can hike to the top of mount Everest.

Some guys go to the moon.

I just tinker in my basement.

I am hoping to have some new video up next week with the expanding bullets though. That's going to be fun.

I'm going to have several cameras running at once. Going to put two 5 gallon buckets full of water on their side and try to recover a couple of them. Nothing as fancy as shooting through 2 feet of clear ballistics gel, but we'll see if I can make those buckets wiggle or jump when I hit them ;)

I am curious to see if making the dum dum HP's do anything. I doubt it'll have the velocity for a huge mushroom. Maybe even split the jacket some.

The Lehigh should open up like a spring flower.
 
You're probably right, but I have no idea. I've never used ashes in my soap.
 
Then Grandma bought lye instead of making it.
I've seen lye-water used and it was just made by soaking ashes for a few days or more.
Probably no organics left after that.
 
Then Grandma bought lye instead of making it.
I've seen lye-water used and it was just made by soaking ashes for a few days or more.
Probably no organics left after that.


I'm sure she did. Big red can of it with the devil on it if I'm remember correctly. Of course, that was probably 35 years ago or more.
 
The pistol length gas port location is cycling some of my fast burning handloads, but is still a little weaker than it needs to be. I'm getting cycling, but the bolt is not going back far enough to lock back on empty, which means that it's not getting enough gas. And ejection is about 5 feet out and at the 5 o'clock position.

So, I took the upper back apart and put the barrel on the lathe and shortened the gas block journal another 1.5" closer to the chamber and intend to make a micro gas port location similar to how the Russians did with the Vintorez.

I will either plug the original gas port off altogether, or I may leave it open for when I make an integral suppressor for it so it will port some of the gas into the rear portion of the long suppressor tube.

But, this is where I'm at so far with the project.

I plan to start with .089" wire gauge drill bit for the gas port hole and will fire for effect and will drill with each size larger in .005" increments until I'm happy with it, or when I reach the .125" max again, whichever comes first.

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The lower that I use it on is my SBR lower. I have it set up for 300 blk right now, which consists of a lightweight spring weight and a 1 oz buffer as well, so that part is already as low as it can get.

But if I didn't already have it set up that way, you are correct that would have been my first step before moving the gas port. Admittedly, that is invasive, but as I have said, I want it the way that I want it. And I want to use the fastest burning powders as I can to make it as quiet as possible, which the powder is an important factor in all of that.

Sure, I could use slower burning powders that would build more pressure and have a flame exit the barrel 8 inches long, but that's not where I'm going with this project.
 
It'll be a while. I'm going to try to get past this deer season the way it is before changing anything. I have an idea of making a diffuser chamber before actually entering the expansion chamber to bleed off and separate some of the gas to make it more quiet and have less first round pop.
 
Alright, now that my deer season is over this year, I started working on the integral project. I have done a ton of research on the Vintorez locating where to make the gas port, barrel length, integral port location, sizes and numbers. And I have began to seriously consider how I want to make my baffles.

The top picture is of the actual vintorez and how it is designed and where everything is located on the barrel
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The barrel of the VSS is approximately 12 cm longer that the Vikhr barrel, but the last 9 cm features barrel porting. The porting consists of six rows of nine ports spiraling along the rifling grooves. The twist rate is 1:210 mm (1:8.3 inches). Each port is approximately 2 mm diameter. The non-ported length of the VSS barrel is the same as the barrel in the Vikhr, which would lead one to believe that the muzzle velocities will be comparable. On the range we subsequently showed this to be the case. Visible in the second picture are the ports on the VSS barrel, as well as the large thread bushing that matches the interrupted threads on the trunnion for fast rotation of the suppressor on or off. This part is readily removable and should be cleaned, but if lost the suppressor will not mount or align properly, and will certainly put the weapon out of commission.
http://www.sadefensejournal.com/wp/the-elusive-vintorez-9x39-sniper-rifle/


So, here's a couple of pictures of my barrel now that I drilled a new gas port and moved the gas block back closer to the chamber so there would be more pressure available for using faster burning powders. I also used a piece of masking tape as a template of where to drill my barrel ports.
I don't have as many ports as they do. But it's easier for me to enlarge mine later so I know that I have ample pressure to cycle my bolt, which is more important to me right now since I'm using really fast burning powders that don't have a lot of excess gas in the first place.

The original gun has fifty four 2mm ports. Mine currently has twenty eight 1.2mm ports. All of that gas will be ported out over the barrel and underneath of the suppressor tube that slides back over top of the barrel.

I also threaded the original .125" gas port hole that was in the barrel to start with so I can use a plug screw so it doesn't bleed off too much pressure to give the gas system more dwell time before releasing it through the ports.

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I had some time yesterday evening and got the new gas port drilled.

I started off far too small and worked up .005" at a time until I was happy with the way it was working. I ended up with a .108"ish gas port and full function.

It's a soft shooting gun for sure. With the 20 ports in the barrel, I dropped about 70 fps in velocity. Which was expected. When I have done my research, that is on par with how the factory guns are shooting too.

I have plenty of room to add a little more powder to bump it up a little more. Not because I have to, but simply because I can. I'm never happy with just matching anyone elses' stuff.

I e-filed the paperwork to make an integral suppressor for it. Judging by how quickly other folks are getting their approvals, it may be as early as Christmas. Keep your fingers crossed.

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Since I'm still waiting on the stamp and I can't do anything with that part of the project, I've been barn storming and trying some more handloads.

Now that the barrel is ported, I have been checking function and velocity. While no surprise, my velocity has dropped but on par to the same level as the Russian Val and Vintorez at ~ 965 fps. So, I'm going to stop porting where I am because I don't want to starve the action or drop the velocity to useless levels and this is exactly where I wanted to be.

The Vihtavouri N310 powder just couldn't get those big heavy 270 gr bullets up to speed without struggling with pressure to cycle the action and I was getting some light swipes on the back of my brass and flattened primers, so I have stopped using it.

It makes for a really nice plinking non-cycling bolt load though. With my 9mm can on it, sounds really good.

The 8.2 gr of Titegroup is cycling the gun. With the .109" gas port closer to the chamber and the fast burning powder, the ejection is a little weak right now, but I think that once the can gets built and has more back pressure will be more along the lines of where I would want it to be. Currently, it's a little bit under-gassed but should be expected. The titegroup is cycling though and will only improve once I build the suppressor.

On a whim, I decided to try some Clays powder today since I had some in my powder cabinet and it works so well in my low brass shotgun shells. I figured that it would at least be worth trying to see how it did in the 9x39 since the powder charges was similar to the titegroup.

The clays comes in at number 9 on the burn rate chart and a slightly faster burn than the TG (number 15 on the chart) so the clays may turn out to be a little more quiet between the two. Only time will tell.

My average velocity using them was a little low though. 935 fps and that's about near the top of where I'm comfortable loading them with 8.0 gr of powder. But they were cycling properly and no surprises.

Next stop is some slightly slower burning powder than TG to try that to bump up the velocity a little more. Thinking maybe Unique? or #2? Maybe even some trailboss since I think Nitesite recommended it.
 
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