Custom VM-68 video!

[DocsMachine]

Customer sent in a VM given to him by a now-deceased uncle, and it was the first gun he'd ever played with. It had been dismantled and stored for many years, and he wanted me to try to bring it back to life.

Some interesting modifications, with a considerably lightened hammer, and enough milling to just about halve the weight of the body.

One of the side plates was missing, so I made a set of new aluminum ones, and since I'd been making VM backs a few weeks ago, I slipped one out of the production line and popped it on, too.

Didn't get too carried away with trying to polish out all the corrosion marks and whatnot, as the gun has sentimental value to the owner. But, she airs up, seals tight, and cycles perfectly.

Video's a bit of a mess, though- I'm under a couple heavy deadlines and I had to rush this just to get it out the door. Let me know what you think, and feel free to critique. I want to make them better, if I can.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Oh right, and a good still pic:



Doc.

[Toestr]

To what size did you open the hammer seal slot?

[Yamess191]

Wow, that is a cool VM! My first semi auto was a VM and loved it.

[DocsMachine]

To what size did you open the hammer seal slot?

-The VM hammer is incredibly tough. You have to have good carbide and a very rigid setup to turn it, and even then it's a bit of a pain. On these, I generally "cut to fit", since just because you dial in .010 on the cross slide, doesn't mean the slot opens up that much.

But it's a 1/2" ID, 11/16" OD .110 cross section O-ring, and there's lots of charts online that can give you the exact specs.

It's worth noting that something like a paintball gun hammer is not exactly a high-precision application, and tends to need to be a tiny bit looser compared to what you'd have in, say, a hydraulic cylinder, etc.

Doc.

[un2xs]

Cool piece. How many hours do you think it would take to bring another VM down to half it's original weight? Especially if it only needed to become field ready instead of show piece?

[FredMnkyDad10]

I see VM prices going up and Doc being busy milling.

[Ecapnation]

So they will sell for $60 again? Lol

[DocsMachine]

Cool piece. How many hours do you think it would take to bring another VM down to half it's original weight? Especially if it only needed to become field ready instead of show piece?

-If you didn't necessarily want the 'fancy' milling, a couple or three hours could shave off quite a bit of weight. The trickiest part, as I said above, is the hammer.

I've tried milling them before- it takes good cutters and a rigid setup to do it. Then again, I've made all-new hammers from scratch- the only part that might wear is the sear notch. And the trick for that is what the old Pro-Comp kits did, and extend the delrin bumper up to the sear notch, and sandwich a hardened washer between it and the hammer body.

Really, apart from the sear and maybe the nose where it strikes the valve pin, you could make the whole hammer out of aluminum and delrin.

Doc.