A Belt Fed 1911? No way!

That's what I said when I got a call from a friend of mine. He had been tinkering with a 1911 design and thinks that he could EASILY make one feed from a belt. Being a good sport I offered to spot him a 1911 and sponsor this project.

Off went my 1911.

Now let me tell you a little about this gunsmith, I met him years ago during a little foray I took to Ireland, we'll just call him Seamus, Seamus McPhisticuffs.

Well Seamus and I hit the drawing board and came up with what you see, some modified M60 links work for the feeding device, and get this...it uses standard 1911 mags when you run dry!

Here is a photo of some linked 45 ACP ammo, note the gun prefers the 230gr ball or 230 JTC, no lead or lighter bullets, Seamus said something about recoil lock time, transient barrel vibrations or something, yeah, ok....whatever.

It works with Ball ammo, and works VERY well.....

Amazingly enough there was not many things modified to make this gun work, Seamus made up what he calls an "articulating ejector" that feeds and strips the links as well as doing ejecting duties. This is device has a patent pending so I won't show any pictures of it, nor go into it's actions, lets just say that it works, and works flawlessly.

This gun looks BONE STOCK from the outside, nothing gives away what hides inside nor what it is capable of. Since we got it to work semi-auto, we decided to go a step further and make it, er....uh.....more "fun".  Seamus scurried back to his corner and whipped up a fire control device for the ol' 45.

Now, I don't know about you but I hate little knobs and levers all over guns and I expressed that to my little Irish buddy. Once again he performed admirably. I could NOT tell that the gun was changed in anyway. One think I did notice was a number "3" on the rear sight as I looked at it in my firing stance..I pulled the trigger and 3 rounds fired out damn near touching each other on the target. Seamus reached up, grabbed the rear sight and turned it 90 degrees to the left..it said "2",I pressed the trigger, damn, 2 rounds neatly centered. Slowly I got the clue, the rear sight IS the fire control.options for 3 and 2 round burst, single shot and FULL AUTO are all controlled by twisting the sight. He somehow
made the sight to twist (sort of along the lines of the HK rifles) instead of different apertures, it has different settings for the rounds to be fired!

I thought this might be a little to fragile so I loaded up a few belts and had at it, 2000 rounds later the gun worked flawless, a few failures to feed (my fault for not linking the ammo correctly.duh) no breakages. No loosening, plenty good accuracy and far too much fun for one guy to mess with. I invited the local constabulatory to come and test the gun with me.

A set of mag well grip greatly increases the feeding in full auto mode, here is a set next to the 1911, note how cavernous body of the mag well is MUCH larger and more ramped than the mag well that is stock on the gun. I prefer thin stocks and carry it as seen above.

January '03: a shipment of these 1911's has now gone overseas. No further public production is expected.

Due to the ever increasing tensions, all further production is limited to the military, my apologies to anyone who wants one. We have no definite date on when these will go public again.

New Products from Seamus McPhisticuffs!

(January 2003)

Ok, as we all know, I love my belt fed 1911. Well I also love my Scout Rifle (I make rifle slings, http://www.shottist.com I host these pages!). Well I wanted Seamus to work his magic on my favorite Scout, a Ruger Based rifle. He far surpassed my expectations!

Read on!

Bone stock rifle comes with no Scout Scope, open sights. This is "International" model with the full stock which I find pleasing to the eye. The rifle handles well too!

Off comes the normal magazine that Seamus lovingly called "CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!".....into the trash went my (supposedly) good parts!

Well Seamus measures, files, mills, drills, taps, measures again, files some more. Out comes an M14 magazine conversion for the rifle! He must have read my mind as I love the M14, love the magazine setup, I really like the idea of a drop magazine for my rifle! DAMN this is nice! Magazines are not cheap, but they are plentiful and easy to find. A few can be loaded and kept on hand in house, cruiser, truck etc. Let me tell you, this is one hot setup! It feeds my Hornady TAP ammo perfectly!

A Close up!

Hey, wait...I'm not done (and either was Seamus!)

So Seamus decides that he needs the rifle "Just a few days" says he...

A week later he calls me on the cell and I meet him at the local range. I figure he refinished the rifle, sighted it in, something nice like that. Boy was I wrong. He was in fact shooting the rifle, did some nice groups with some handloads, a few 200 yard shots with some Federal Match, he wasted a few boxes of my beloved Hornday TAP too! I was happy with the performance, ecstatic in fact. I now had a High Cap bolt gun in the Scout Rifle format (note my lovely Ching Sling installed that I make and sell!)

So Seamus drops the magazine out tells me in his thick Irish accent "Stand back" ( which sounds more like the Lucky Charms Leprechaun saying "ShhhhtanBuck"  luckily I can translate!) He reaches into a Mil-Spec pouch and out comes a belt of .308 ammo. Thinking he has an M60 hidden amongst the treasures in his truck, I get excited for some full auto-rock and roll action!

Once again, I was surprised.

He opens the bolt, jams the belt into the mag well and closes the bolt, he fires a shot, cycles the action, out pops brass and a link, he does this again and again (only 10 shots, the skinny barrel gets HOT quickly!) I am shocked....he made me a belt fed bolt gun!!!!

Brown Leather Ching Sling is available HERE!

If you read my 1911 pages you get the idea that Seamus likes this stuff, he used the same idea for this gun, sorta. Oh heck, it's all levers and springs to me. I can't begin to tell you HOW it works, but can tell you that it works well. Seamus won't tell me what parts he used, but he did tell me that some M60 parts work, a SAW (M249) part fits and he used something from my Garand (which for the moment does not work, but it is worth it!).

Only one word described this gun "AWESOME!".

AR-15 in 308, Yes, Belt Fed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By now you are used to my prose, praising Seamus and his works, telling you how much I love his 'smithing, blah blah blah. Well, the upcoming paragraphs of over-emoting will be worth it. A years worth of work, testing, sweat, swearing, more swearing, broken guns, bulged barrels, machining, swearing...you get the drift!

As you know, I pretty much sponsor Seamus' lifestyle, my gunsmithing bill is higher than my car payment and my mortgage. You realize by now that I like belt fed guns, and I like weird things.

This is my converted AR15, it is now belt fed and in the .308 caliber.

Close up shot of the Leupold CQ/T and ammo! Nice Combo huh?

US Military tests a competitors belt fed AR...

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Shrike,,00.html?ESRC=soldiertech.nl

Due to the recent troubles overseas, these products are not available to the general public, we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Coming Soon: Belt Fed Semi/Full Auto/Burst Fire Handgun, 22RF 1911 as made by apprentice Nigel Billingsgate. (it's lovely...)

Please note that we are currently working on a few more firearms for civilian/citizen use. Stay in touch.