If you happen to be at DragonCon this weekend in Atlanta, be sure to stop by Brute Force Studio’s booths, 309-311 and see one of my “Sojourner” model keyboards on display. This is the same model keyboard as the one that appears in SyFy Channel’s Warehouse13 show.
-~Doc~-
I took the Mosin Scout and the 10-round Mosin mag out to the range today and beat on them a little bit. Aside from the inevitable “sticky bolt syndrome” after about 75 rounds, the rifle and mag performed very well. Here’s a short video of me firing 10 rounds through the mag (maybe the first time in 70 years that someone has fired a 6th round from a Mosin!).
If you are just discovering this post randomly, this is a 10-round mosin mag that I invented, patented, and hope to bring to market in the coming year. Please feel free to join the mailing list for this product at www.Datamancer.net/mosinmags/and I will post updates as they occur.
-~D~-
Well, I couldn’t leave well enough alone so I started building a bipod for my mosin scout. This one is a little different because it folds completely away into the stock when not in use. It is also completely integrated into the stock and doesn’t touch the barrel at all, so everything is still free-floated. I had to dust off my old auto-body shop skills for this one and do a lot of welding, sanding, and bondo-work, but I think it was worth it. For the sake of simplicity and shared parts, I made the sling swivel stud double as the retainer mechanism for the bipod. You just spin the quick-connect clip sideways, spin the retainer latch 90 degrees, and the bipod pops out a little bit so you can grab it, swing it down, and lock it into the upright position.
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I finally got around to taking some pics of the Mosunov with the 8x POSP scope on it. I bought a POSP SVD-style side mount that was made for the Mosin, drilled and tapped the receiver and mounted it to the M39 action (I had to fight a little twinge of guilt while making that first hole in the Finn receiver, but hopefully this will be a little better than your average “Bubba” hackjob rifle).
The scope sits WAAAAY off to the left in this configuration, which is actually perfect for me because I’m right-handed, yet left-eye-dominant, but I’m confused as to how your average right-right shooter is supposed to use the scope in this configuration.
*shrug*
It works for me though so I guess that’s all that matters here.
-~D~-
I’ve always loved the styling of the Dragunov and PSL-54C rifles, So I thought it would be a fun project to integrate some of those styling details into a custom rifle stock for the Mosin-Nagant. I’ll be calling this rifle my “Mosunov”. I had the M44 stock left over from my previous Scout Mod, so I hacked off the original stock butt and grafted a Romanian PSL stock onto the back. I have also started collecting materials to build myself a “copy carver”, which will let me directly copy an existing rifle design and cut it into a laminate rifle stock blank. Originally, I was just going to whip this stock together quickly and sloppily to merely act as the master shape to be traced by the copy-carver, but once I stated building it, I figured I might as well put in the extra effort to make it a usable stock so I can play with it in the meantime and test out the design. The butt stock joint is seam-notched and triple-pinned with dowels, then all glued together with Mighty Putty (I really can’t say enough about that stuff…it’s like Bondo that dries into steel!).
Here’s where I’m at so far…
Looks awesome with my 10 round extension mag (after which I can now proudly blurt, “Patent Pending!”).
And now for the ugly pic of what’s underneath that paint…
I decided to try and fix the one major flaw of the PSL Dragunov stock which is that it’s just too damned short. I added 2 stacked slices of 3/4″ oak plank to the back of the stock which makes it a much more comfortable length, but still allows a decent cheek weld on the integrated cheek rest. I also carved a thumb groove on one side of the handle, and a trigger finger groove on the other to make the handle grip a little more ergonomic. Not too ergonomic though- I don’t want to lose the “milsurp” look of the rifle. I also had to fill in the M44′s bayonet notch on the right side of the stock near the front.
More soon,
-~D~-
For the removable lid on this Reliquary keyboard, the client wanted something interesting to put on his desk, rather than just setting the lid aside on a shelf somewhere. We kicked around a few ideas and eventually decided on building an array of gears that could spin with the use of an antique clock-winding key.
-~D~-
I recently built a Reliquary keyboard for an employee of Blizzard (creators of Starcraft and Wow) and he was nice enough to offer me a tour of the facilities. I also brought my friend Rahbi along because I know he’s also a HUGE Blizzard fan (note the Starcraft 2 shirt in the pics). The whole experience was very amusing to me because it almost felt like I was on one of those Discovery Channel builder shows like American Chopper- “Since we’re assembling the Blizzard keyboard, we thought we’d go take a tour of Blizzard H.Q. and get some inspiration for the build….” It seems like a really cool place to work, and we had the unique opportunity to hear the insider perspective (he’s been in Blizzard over a decade) on a lot of company history and they seem like a surprisingly conscientious corporation who never lost the core values they established when they were a 4-man operation, practically working out of a garage (as Silicon and Synapse). That’s a rare and pleasant thing to see these days when so many other companies who grow to the size of Blizzard treat their employees and products as disposable and interchangeable. Blizzard has a history of “missing” release date projections on games because they absolutely refuse to compromise on the quality and artistic vision of the games, and judging from the INSANE AND ALMOST UNSETTLING impact that games like Diablo, Starcraft and WoW have had on gaming culture, it’s obviously working for them (Google South Korea’s relationship with Starcraft some time).
Now for some pics…
Here’s a shot of the 12 foot bronze Orc Wolfrider statue (built by WETA) in the center of the building complex.
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Here’s a short video of one of the first feed tests of the magazine after I built the custom follower. SUCCESS!!
Cue Rocky theme music…
-~D~-
After I got my measurements correct with the rough and dirty welded magazine, I went and dug out the bead roller that has been trapped in my storage space since I moved to Cali a while back, clamped it up in my vise and rolled out a better version of the 10 round magazine.
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A romance author by the nom de plume, Ciar Cullen, recently released a steampunk-themed romance novel entitled “Steamside Chronicles”. She says that she often needs to “see” her characters as she writes and will often grab a person or thing from real life to act as an inspirational placeholder for her to build around. For the main character of Steamside Chronicles, she used yours truly, which is pretty flattering, I suppose. So, if you were ever wondering what it would be like to travel back in time, bump into me somehow, and sex me up crazy-like, here’s your chance to find out what it’s like, haha. From what I’ve had the chance to skim so far (just got my copy earlier today), it has a pretty fun and intricate plot so check it out over at Amazon and pick up an e-copy for only $5.
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE ON AMAZON
