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The standard intro—“I’m wondering if anyone is stupid enough to attempt this”—seems particularly apt in this case. As Dyspeptic Gunsmith will tell you building a Frankengun is a bad idea per se. If you know what you’re doing. And approach the project with the kind of caution that you’d use when wearing a yarmulke in the Gaza Strip. Or you could buy an AR. Just sayin’ . . .

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43 COMMENTS

  1. WTF? I stopped watching them a while ago. Will pretty much admits he is throwing old parts together to make a profit. I’ll pass.

  2. Using the middle finger to pull the trigger? Ain’t nevuh been done befoh.

    These assclowns are the Orange County Choppers of guns.

    • Many bolt gun competitors will use their middle finger for the trigger and keep their thumb and forefinger on the bolt knob during rapid fire stages.

      • Sometimes using the middle finger to shoot works better. If you’re a short person and shooting longer guns like M91/30s and G98s, using the middle finger helps with the trigger pull.

        Then of course, there’s the SMLE technique.

        • I’d love to get my hands on a Sauer STR-200. I’m told by folks in Europe they’re another cock-on-close action (like the SMLE) and they’re wicked slick and fast.

          Perhaps the closest I could get is a SSG-3000, pull off all the tacti-cool crap and re-build it as a nice rifle.

      • Or if you just cranked out 60 or 70 rounds from a stock single stage trigger from an AR and your finger is tired. I find lots of uses for my middle finger.

    • Using the middle finger, to pull the trigger, was taught by many Old School Government Security, and Law Enforcement, Agencies! [ie. when a person, “Points” to something, using the index finger, “it” goes directly to the object; [holding this finger, down the side of the barrel, using the middle finger, to pull the trigger; directs the shot, right to that spot!… ].
      Giving this shooter, a split second, advantage, on an Adversary, [to direct their shot, quickly, and accurately; when in a “Jam”!…
      This shooting stance, isn’t to be associated, with the stupid stance, of recent street thugs, holding their guns “sideways”, when firing, “Not”, possible the least bit, Accurate!…
      Obviously, “schizuki”, the “Middle Finger”, shooting technique,”Has”, been taught, and used, “befoh”!… lol…
      Research, & know the “Subject”! “Befoh”, youse, open, your “Moufh”!… lol Trying my best, to write my reply, in Your “Street Language”!, So, you might learn something! … “Obviously’, this Failed, in English Class!… lol

      • ““Obviously’, this Failed, in English Class!… lol”

        How, would [You] “Know”?

  3. Hey, as a small business owner, if I could clear out a closet of some old parts and nab a cool $6,500.00, I’m there! I’m a bit surprised by some of the posts about SOG here. I mean, yes, most of their special project have nothing to do with those of us who sport shoot or carry for self-defense… or even for the LEO/security people here, but collectors? Where are the collectors? To have a one-off gun with the Red Jacket logo on it… AND if you have the show on DVD… imagine what that gun might be worth down the road. I also have to wonder; are they “out of ideas” or does the show simply record what happens as it happens? (Perhaps picking and choosing the most interesting bits, like “Cops”?)

  4. I haven’t seen this show in forever and a day. When I saw a part of one show where they’re flailing around with a clapped-out Bridgeport J-head mill and there’s a nice new Haas VMC, fuzzy, slightly out-of-focus in the background… that’s when I reckoned the entire show was a completely contrived waste of time.

    None of the TV presentation about gunsmithing is remotely accurate about what a gunsmith actually does, or gunsmithing skills. Want to see real drama in a gunsmith shop? Take a bit of footage of a gunsmith over a set of hot blue tanks where he’s just dropped in a metal part that isn’t made from steel. Watch the salt tank boil and froth like a witch’s cauldron. Watch our heroic gunsmith start flailing around, trying to get that piece of pot metal or aluminum out of the blueing salts before it disappears… without getting his flesh dissolved.

  5. Okay, so DISCOVERY Channel is showing Sons of Guns again after cravenly cancelling the show in the wake of Newtown…JEEEZ!

    “Will’s Monster” smacks of desperation. Build Frankenstein’s Monster just to see if you can, after begging viewers not to try this? It was my impression firearms design was based on better starting principles….innovation…meet a specific need…

    I met a guy once who was taking Mauser 98’s and refitting them with .223 barrels, machining a new bolt face for the smaller cartridge and getting $3k apiece for them because five rounds made about a 9mm size hole at 200yds in a stiff cross wind. THAT made sense…”Will’s Monster”?…maybe makes sense to the TV Producers looking to dazzle the rubes for viewer share.

    The clip on Discovery.com shows him in a nasty verbal fight with Vince over buying parts. The Show continues to conflate gun-making with Soap Opera.

    • The problem with this program, as with most “reality” programs IMO is they are quasi soap operas. If I sit to watch a program about gun manufacture, I frankly could give a rat’s @ss as to their feelings, which seems to be where the majority of this program lies. I’d rather watch a documentary without all the BS drama.

    • ALL producers want the drama… IF they can’t get it naturally, they’ll have it invented and inserted into the show one way or another. They could care less that it is supposed to be a show about guns, or that it features guns as long as they can stir up ratings and rake in cash. They run by the motto “conflict sells” (whenever they can’t use the slightly more preferred “Sex Sells.”

    • I’ve had that done to a clunker No4 Lee-Enfield. Half-minute Target sight on the back, externally stock, and it will punch a 6″ bull at 300 metres prone off-hand all day. Rapid courses? Really easy with a Lee-Enfield bolt. I can put out 10 aimed rounds in about 30 seconds, but usually do it in 40.

      • Nice! If I had the $3k at the time I would have bought one from that gent. He was Retired Navy Machinist and Small Arms Instructor. So, he did all the machine work himself and the stock work with exotic woods, scope mounting and testing. I met him at a Range in the Mountains nearby. He lived up there and coincidentally he would come to that Range on the same day of the week I usually came, so we struck up an acquaintance that lasted over a year and then my situation changed and I didn’t go there any more for a few years. Taught me the value of aimed fire over just unleashing a rain of bullets from an AR-15. I was shooting some old Mauser 98’s I had bought surplus and he liked my interest in those rifles. Said he was usually backlogged six months, and it took him two to three weeks to make, test and tune each rifle, so he was doing pretty good.
        I have a #4 Lee Enfield that shoots pretty good (for a surplus field grade gun) and I have been impressed with how fast the action is. Hard to believe until you do it yourself. Happy shooting!

  6. Explosions and gun never gets old for me. Yep, the show is completely unrealistic, the drama is contrived, and a lot of the stunts they pull are a bad idea. Whatever. Blow some more stuff up. thanks.

  7. This show is far more popular with non-gunnies than with gunnies. Good for Will and the rest of the yahoos at Red Jacket for helping to make guns attractive to non-shooters. Personally, however, I’d rather watch paint dry.

  8. kinda reminds me of the SKS/VZ58/FAL combo that was being talked about a couple years ago on some of the gun forums. Hey, if it works and you can, why not?

  9. I dumped this show at the beginning of last season.

    The whole “We can do it and you can’t – NYA-NYA!” thing just got on my nerves.

    • What annoyed me is that they made a piston AR and called it a “game changer” and that it was time to knock the AK of its throne in regards to reliability.

  10. I think earlier seasons were better (not good, but better).

    It was extremely obvious that they are scripting dialogue now. The exchange between Will and Flem, his confronting Vince, and then riding off in a motorcycle, taking a drag from his cig, and speeding off again…all TV cliches. Yes, reality shows have always been partially fabricated, but not usually so blatantly scripted.

    At least with Wild West Alaska you get some beautiful scenery. And while some of the things they do for the camera are silly (not Red Jacket silly though), in real life they do make some fine products.

  11. The last one I watch they ordered a bunch of 870s for “R&D” for a new Red Jacket line of shotguns. So the R&D was slapping some Magpul, flashlights, and tube extensions on there. That is cutting edge gun smithing and just like their ARs, they’ll charge twice what it’s worth. That is of course if you get your gun, the Better Business and Yelp horror stories I’ve read make that seem unlikely.

  12. Wild West Alaska is produced by the same company that produces SOG – Jupiter Entertainment. Seems to be off to the same start that SOG had. Will be cool for a season – then the suits at the network will insist on adding more drama. – and the show will start sucking… Just give it time.

  13. Hey so anyone ever here of a MPA 971. yeah it’s a MAC upper on a FAL lower made about or around the end of the ban. It looks like will bought a few 971’s and stripped them down and then rebuilt them. its shameful he has become a hack.

    Just Google MPA (MASTER PIECE ARMS) 971.

    Wait I had two, sold one on GB and the other one in to LA, hmm kinda odd Will has two as well……….

    http://s1188.photobucket.com/user/JBIArmory/media/Gun%20Sales/DSCN3470_zps40db9b02.jpg.html?sort=3&o=16

    • Damn, just missed my chance to point that out by an hour. Ah well, Schwarmenian luck strikes again.

      Jim here is absolutely right, though. And don’t let the video mention of “Uzi” mags fool you, the Uzi plays no role in the construction or use of this weapon. FAL lower receiver, 16″ barreled MAC-11 upper (the production version uses an AR-15 A2 carbine handguard), and it takes Suomi KP/-31 drum magazines. Think later models also sported picatinny optics rails.

      By all accounts it was a heavy piece of gear, and wasn’t too focused on being “high-speed-low-drag”, but reliability was apparently phenomenal, it was fun to shoot, fairly accurate, and (one of its biggest selling points) the 71-round Suomi drums are dirt cheap (CTD has them listed at $31.97 as of today; Midway USA, by comparison, has milsurp 32-round Uzi mags at $24.99).

      The odd looks and slightly higher price tag (I think roughly $600-750 range, sometime around the early 2000’s) are what killed it, if I had to guess. It’s a damn shame, looked like a cool piece of gear.

      Looks like yeah, Wil removed the handguard and shortened the barrel, held the disassembled upper and lower vaguely together, then pretended to have an epiphany. He sullied the name of MPA and, if he were short another chromosome, would probably try to sell it as his own.

      Why can’t Chris Costa get a TV show instead?

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