Paco Kelly's Leverguns.com

What a Sweet Little Rifle!

Trim, Slender, Beautifully proportioned, Sexy Little Action, fun to look at, and fun to play with.

Not only that, this is where it all began, "Lever Guns" that is.



Below is a 21" Barrel Carbine.



The original Volcanic shot a short little Bullet called the "Rocket Ball", it was less than .650 Lg. and had very little power, but this Rifle had the genes to become the legendary Winchester.
It goes like this;

The Volcanic was enlarged to become the "Henry",
The "Henry" was improved to become the "Winchester 66"
The 66 was improved to become the "Winchester 73"
The 73 was enlarged to become the 76.
And then Mr. Browning came along with a much stronger, smaller action, and replaced the "Toggle Link System", invented by Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson, which was used in the Volcanics through the 76.

Above is my design, based on the Toggle Link System. My design is stronger than theirs, and easier for me to build.
While designing this gun, I tried to copy the original dimensions and proportions. I do not have access to an original, so I have had to "scale" photographs to come up with what I have.
The first problem I came to was this Little Action would not shuffle and shuck any available cartridges except the "22 Short"! This did not excite me so I designed my own "Wildcat 40". I will describe it to you later.

This is not a "Kit", or a modification of another "Lever Gun" I will not be using purchased parts, or parts from other Guns. I will use a purchased Barrel Blank from "Douglas" (40 Caliber, 1 in 14 twist) cut it, mill it, thread it, and chamber it for this Rifle. Everything else, including the Springs and most of the Screws, I will make from scratch.

I do this for fun, nothing else, I do not build guns for other people, or plan to go in to the business someday.

I am here to share Guns and Friendship with you Guys.

I hope you will enjoy this build.

Later,

Charlie

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing your incredible hobby with us all.

This is a neat project.. I'm pretty sure I've read about this somewhere else on the net.. The 40 cal ammo rings a bell..

Same here ...

Keep us posted, Charlie.

Please, please, PLEASE take lots of photos along the way. This is going to be a fascinating project to watch!!!

Just make sure you include your feet in a couple of 'em...

Yes don't leave us out on the details. I am most interested in seeing how this project comes together for you.

I for one, might be interested in the .22 short version. I think one in the short would be a fantastic squirrel rifle. And we sure do have limited selection of a clean line high quality .22 short lever gun IMO.

Ed

I suppose if you wanted to stick with a rimfire, you could build it in a 41 remington rim fire used in the old derringers. Still plenty low powered. I will be quiet now. Good Luck.

What a great project. Please post pics

Cool. Can't wait to see the final project. Hope you don't pull too much hair out along the way or you're like me and don't have any left to pull.

Cant wait....... Can you post drawings of the parts or sell drawings for those wanting to try their hand at fabing one up? There are several here that are handy enough to do it.

Like many here, it seemed like I heard of a project like this before with a 40 caliber round. I dug through the archives and found a thread posted by Old Ironsights about a Homebuilt Volcanic

http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16783&view=previous

The round was a modified S&W 40.

Homemade Volcanics just seem way Cool

or "2 cool"

maybe, three cool

I am the builder of that Pistol.

I documented that build on another website that required money to be a member.

Over here, it's free!

Enjoy it my Friends, that is my only reward.

Let's just have some fun doing things that have not been done before.

Later,

Charlie

Well Charlie, now that you have it figured, here's a pick that would have made things easier to scale from..Easy to see the changes you made to the toggles now that I finally saw your pistol from where you originally posted.. cool!

Charlie,

I find this really interesting. I am curious about your background, machinist by trade? Self-taught? And will you please tell what kind of lathe and mill do you use?

Bob in NE Indiana

That picture was taken by a well known Gunsmith named "John Taylor", he had this gun in his shop doing some restoration.

Yes, that would have been a great help, but I didn't have it at the time, so I did the best I could.


About the Cartridge that I'm shooting,



It has been correctly noted that this gun will shuffle, shoot, and shuck the "22 Short", also the (sometimes available) 41 Derringer.

Even though these are an improvement over the original "Rocket Ball", I am not very impressed with either of them.

The actual caliber of the #2 Rocket Ball was .41. So that is why I set out to develope my own cartridge.

I figured it like this; if I can't build my own cartridge, then I'm not gonna be able to build this gun.

I do agree somewhat with the Guys that would want this gun in "22 Short", it's not for me, but it would make a nice little Squrrel Gun.

I shortened a 40 S+W case to .550, I reamed out the inside to accept the Bullet. The Cartridge shown is loaded with "Berry's 135 grain" copper plated bullet being shoved out of an 8" barrel at 1020 FPS in front of 4 grains of "Bullseye". I have fired this Cartridge out of a 25" barrel and lost nearly 100 FPS ! I don't like this load as it does show signs of pressure. I have been shooting a 140 grain cast bullet in front of 3.5 grains of "Power Pistol", here I am getting 890 FPS, and visual inspection shows only moderate pressure.

The Cartridges shown above are shown in compairson to "22 Long Rifles"

HEY I LIKE THIS PLACE.

There is a lot of enthusiasm here.

Overlook my spelling please.

Later Charlie

I am a Mechanical Engineer and Machine Designer. I was a Machinist a long time ago.

I have a "Bridgeport" and a "1955 Tool Room Hendy". I also have a small, but very robust "CNC Tabletop Mill", which I built myself.