Stretch that drill bit

[Frank S]

Jamman, Most professional gunsmiths who I have had the pleasure of knowing over the years have spent most of their lives learning their trade. Most may be willing to offer a novice some pointers when it comes to repairing an existing gun, but very few if any who I have known would step up and tell someone who has not spent years learning metallurgy and who are also know to have become accomplished machinists. There quite simply is no free lunch to learning the art of fire arms repair let alone the manufacture of a quality gun which must posses a combination of high precision parts made out of very high grade materials, to be first and foremost safe to shoot then to be able to be reloaded and fired repeatedly with an expectation of the discharged projectile hitting the targeted object with a degree of accuracy.
As I have stated I am not a gunsmith have never been called one nor have i played one on TV. I know just enough not to be a danger to myself or others when I do repairs to my own fire arms. I say this with all humility even though I have owned dozens if not tens of dozens of long guns and quite a few short guns (IE Pistols & Revolvers) over the years. I like to buy ones that are sold as non functional firearms then completely disassemble them inspect them and repair or replace any and all worn missing or broken parts. And yes I do sometimes have to machine form roll or weld my own parts especially for guns that are over 100 years old sometimes I might have to buy 2 or possibly 3 like parts guns in order to complete a single gun.
Would I try to build a gun from scratch for myself? Possibly! I have in the past made a couple of .50 cal muzzle loaders and 2 cannons one was a 2 pounder or a 0.5 bore (2.104") for a guy who used it in civil war re enactments for years , another was a 1 bore ( 1.670")breach loader it had a quick lock threaded breach 2.5 threads per inch the breach was made out of 1036 bar stock 6 inches long and 4 inches in diameter the block was 8"square bar the barrel was also out of 4" 1036 and was threaded into the block about 8 inches smooth bore the bullets were rifled instead of being ball ammo the first time it was fired we had it surrounded with 24 inch thick concrete barrier blocks stacked 6 feet high and we were behind a d Cat dozer. it fired just fine but it took 3 days to get the breach open afterwards
SO my advice again is study study study every aspect of your project figure out what tools you are going to have to make to form the stock find a more suitable piece of material to make your receiver out of what taps you will need to buy and if the thread sizes are going to require you to actually make your own taps and or dies if you don't have a mill and a lathe and can not afford to buy one study some of the homemade mill and lathe threads here as there are some real good ones . you will need a sheet metal bender as well to make the stock out of. spend a year spend 2 or even 3 if need be to accumulate every thing your need as well as the necessary skill set to accomplish the task. Any project such as the one you want to do needs to be done right and done safe the first time because the world has far too many Darwin award winners already.
Good luck