Webley MkVI Buttstock (build)

Those of you who have been following Vintage Airsoft for a while know that the Webley MkVI is a firm favourite. So far, we’ve made replacement shells, shotgun shells and added a hop unit.

There are still a few accessories to complete however, namely the removable butt stock which allowed the pistol to be used as a carbine and the Pritchard-Greener bayonet. The latter of these are rare, with no recorded use in combat, the former however was common enough.

The practice of producing a butt stock to fit pistols was commonplace among manufacturers from the introduction of revolvers. It allowed the shooter to make the most of a pistol cartridge out to ranges that would be quite difficult to achieve useful accuracy by hand only. A more commonly recognised use of this idea is the Artillery Lugers, issued by Germany to troops not wanting the bulk of a full rifle but needing something easier to use than a pistol. Essentially, this is the fore-runner to what in current Western parlance is called the PDW or Personal Defence Weapon.

Firstly, a digital design to work out what needed to go where. This could then be printed out to check the proportions were correct.

This would then be converted into steel in a batch of laser cuttings.

It is made up of three layers to make the shape without having to perform milling operations. The thickest inner layer (4mm) is chamfered on both sides around most of the length to allow deep penetration of the joining weld.

You can see in the photograph below the two screws full-length protruding from the grip. These run through two corresponding holes drilled in the butt of the pistol itself, which is the only modification required to fit this unit.

These, along with the excess weld can be ground down to a smooth finish. It can then be laid out on the wood for the stock and drawn round, using the screws at the back as reference points. The excess material can then be removed.

Once the parts were all in place, they could be separated and finished. The surface of the metalwork was gone over with a sanding drum for a smooth finish, then slightly oil blued to achieve a similar finish to the original.

The walnut stock itself took a thick coat of danish oil. Several more will be applied before it is complete along with a coat of hardwax oil to give it a tough, wear-resistant finish.

 

Photos of the finished product to follow!

 

If this post has inspired you to want a custom gun of your own or has given you a great idea for an accessory, drop us a line on enquiries.vintageairsoft@gmail.com to discuss or get in touch on Facebook!

You can also buy many of our finished products in our Etsy store.

Sten pistol grip

At some point in the Sten’s history, someone must have thought: “This thing is too long, and too easy to handle. Let’s make it shorter and really hard to handle!”

So they stuck a pistol grip where the buttstock should go and created the iconic shape of the gun (apparently) used by Commandos and Resistance fighters all over Europe.

So of course I had to make a replica for the Airsoft ASG Sten. This piece is custom-made for Airsoft Stens. It does require the use of LiPo batteries in the receiver as there is no space to hide it in the grip itself.

The unit is steel and is forged and welded. The piece shown has been oil finished but it can be left plain or painted.

The price is £40, posted within the UK.

Want one? Drop us a line at enquiries.vintageairsoft@gmail.com. Also, have a look at our new PRODUCTS page to see more finished products.

Welrod Build Part 2

Further progress was made on the Welrod yesterday! This project is coming together quite quickly as it is already starting to look like the original gun.

Below you can see the internal cylinder pulled out as if the gun was being cocked. This also aligns the feed system for loading. The gun cocks on opening when the piston locks into the sear.

Next job is to make the piston (it will be a custom-made piston in aluminium, turned on the lathe) and the second sear. I’ll also have to buy in the barrel and the spring!

If this post has inspired you for a project or you fancy one of your own do drop me a line on enquiries.vintageairsoft@gmail.com.

Welrod build Part 1

Last week I collected a whole host of parts for various projects from the laser cutters, among which were the bits for the Welrod MkII.

It’s always an unnerving time when the parts come back as there’s almost always something missing or slightly wrong that you have forgotten to correct during the development of the design. In this case there was a little to-ing and fro-ing on the size of the cylinder and the guide washers that suspended the cylinder in the original deign became somewhat redundant by the time the parts went for cutting and the stop-post (that prevents the spring sliding back with the rest of the cylinder) was built into one of these. An easy enough fix though and one that will both simplify manufacture in the longer run and make the Welrod much easier to strip.

While I was waiting for the tubes that make up the shroud and cylinder I decided to make progress on assembling the groupings that make up the gun.

Key: Blue-foresight blade and rear sight, Red-spring guide and back cap, Green-loading mechanism, Yellow-front caps, Pink-pistol grip. Purple is a front view of the original stopping post.

In this picture I have left out the spring (as I haven’t bought it yet) and the second sear (as I haven’t made it yet) but as you can see, it’s pretty simple, much like the original. There may have to be a few tweaks to the design here and there as the build progresses but so far, so good!

As per usual, if this post has given you an idea for a project so drop me a line on enquiries.vintageairsoft@gmail.com!

The Welrod

A client recently contacted me and asked about the feasibility of building an Airsoft Welrod. This is a project I have wanted to do for some time so I came up with an initial design within three days and have revised it a little since then.

Anyway, a brief history of the Welrod is in order:

Design and Variants

By the Second World War, the science of suppression was pretty established. Suppressors had been made for the Maxim gun and were available for automatic pistols. However, the noise of the action cycling was an issue with suppressed automatic pistols and British clandestine forces (and indeed Resistance movements throughout Europe) required something more discrete.

WWII-era suppressed M1911

The answer came from Major Hugh Reeves of the Special Operations Executive’s Station IX, where a great number of novel inventions came to life. He designed the rather ugly Welrod Model 1. In .32 ACP this design had a few shortcomings:

• Magazines had to be loaded through the ejection port one round at a time
• The pistol grip, though short, made the gun an awkward shape to carry
• The trigger was a thumb-activated push-switch in the left of the gun, meaning that accuracy was impaired through a loss of purchase

Model 1 Welrod

Just to confuse you, there is also a MkI Welrod, which looks a little more like the pistol people recognise today:

Welrod MkI

Featuring a trigger guard for the more conventional trigger and a grip safety, this design had many features that appealed to the end users. It did however still look a bit gun-like, which for secret operations isn’t greatly desirable!

So, a re-design was in order and led to the MkII and MkIIa. This is the Welrod people recognise, it uses the magazine as the grip and is a simple bolt-action using a knurled round grip to operate it rather like the MkI.

Welrod MkI (bottom) compared to Welrod MkII (top).

Due to the removable nature of the grip magazine, this version was significantly easier to hide, the main body of the tube was affectionately named the ‘bicycle pump’ for obvious reasons. When taken apart it could easily hide in a cyclist’s pannier or a plumber’s toolbox and be quite unidentifiable to the untrained eye, made less obvious by the deletion of the trigger guard.

The MkII/a was available in .32ACP and, perhaps more sensibly on the continent, 9mm Parabellum, the standard round of many German submachine guns and handguns.

The nature of the suppressor is also definitely worth a mention here. As well as the usual close-fitting metal rings found in a normal suppressor that eliminate various pitches of sound, the Welrod contained a number of rubber washers with a hole in the centre, just *slightly* smaller than the round that passed through it. This makes the suppressor extremely effective, if a little less accurate! Most Welrods were measured to make about 73db of noise.

 Service History

Obviously a weapon designed for secretive use such as this gets little mention in the annals of history. However, there are suggestions that as well as extensive use with the SOE and Resistance movements through Western Europe, a US version saw service with several of their forces in the Far East not only in WWII but also possibly in Vietnam. Some sources suggest that Welrods were used as late as the 1991 Gulf War by British Special Forces, as well as in Ireland and the Falklands.

If any of you are familiar with the stay-behind units of NATO designed to slow down and harry the Soviets in event of war (Gladio teams), Welrods also featured in their weapons caches.

So much of this is of course, somewhat speculative. There are many rumours and tall tales about who was issued these unusual guns, and they add a romance to a story that a suppressed Browning Hi-Power just doesn’t quite carry…