I cobbled together a thing: .22 L85

[Adamdavi3s]

Just got reminded of this little project.
Not everyone’s cup of tea this but I’ve enjoyed crafting it and looking forward to picking the project up again after a rather crazy few months. 

It’s all working fine I just need to work out a better magazine system, have just picked up some cmmg mags from the classifieds. 
currently works with standard 597 magazines but it seems a shame not to finish it properly. 
 

 

[Deserttech Europe]

that looks great

 

[Catch-22]

That does look fab.

I once had a manual BB/air soft L85 as a kid.
Is the main outer housing from a plastic, repurposed BB/air soft gun? Or from a deactivated L85 that you’ve changed the guts within?

[Scotch_egg]

Some cracking engineering going off here. 

[Adamdavi3s]

1 hour ago, Scotch_egg said:

Some cracking engineering going off here. 

hahaha its mostly been filing and swearing, I think "Engineering" is a bit generous!

 

Sorry I should have added more detail to the original post.

Its based on an Army L85 airsoft RIF (don't get me started on the legalities of RIFs etc, had a huge debate before spraying this proper colours and ended up getting an airsoft defence to be safe) which has basically been gutted with only the shell, sights and the trigger mech being retained. 
I originally started out trying to do it with a Ruger 10/22, which as a barrelled action (over 24" of course as is the 597) fitted very nicely into the chassis. However the trigger linkage was going to be a pain and the magazines were far to wide to work sensibly with the mag well.

So I switched to the 597 which was an OK fit, but if you look closely you can see the barrel angles down a fair bit, I have a large shim under the acog to get enough elevation due to this. This is just due to the way it all sits together, but its not that noticeable that it annoys me. The trigger was pretty easy and its a direct linkage so very very crisp (unlike my HTA 90/22 which is smooshy as heck).

The only real issue left is to get it working with decent mags and re-introducing the airsoft mag release into it, currently the 597 25rounders just "push fit" 

[Fifty_seven]

Look great!

[seaturtle]

Looks good, well done!

[1066]

Excellent job, and what a fun project.. Reminds me of a little laser rifle I made some time ago for the grandkids. Just made from bits from B&Q and a few 3d printed bits. Shoots a laser flash at a reactive target,

[Adamdavi3s]

So lost interest in this when the 597 decided to **** out the extractor and plunger.

thankfully the extractor could be shipped directly from Volsquarten (ordered 3 🤣) and found the plunger dimensions and managed to design and 3d print it, and it works! 
 

so have been cracking on, designed my own trigger box for it so I can use AR mags,

but I couldn’t get the dimensions to work for it to feed from standard ar mags or 1522 mags, so I have also designed my own insert to go into airsoft magazine shells. 
 

Nearly there with it now I think!! 
 

[Sandy85]

I don’t know how hard it would be to find one now, but there used to be a proper MOD .22 conversion kit for the L85 (think it was used for the cadet rifles)
 

https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/hk-develops-smaller-calibre-sa-80-assault-rifle-for-training

But other than that it looks good

[Mattnall]

Would you be willing to share the STL files and your methods, etc?

Looks like a project for the summer.

[Adamdavi3s]

Maybe once it’s working, but not 100% sure as it’s taken a lot of hard work and I’ll probably be selling one of them as a kit