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Old July 25, 2020, 03:38 PM   #1
dajowi
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Auto-sear on a handgun

Anyone ever hear of an auto-sear installed on a pistol making it a submachine pistol?
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Old July 25, 2020, 03:53 PM   #2
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Yes. There is a replacement cover plate (with some additions) that turns a Glock pistol into a selective fire full auto.

A push button type selector on the rear of the slide selects semi or full. Installed on a G17, push the button and its in effect a G18
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Old July 25, 2020, 04:10 PM   #3
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Beretta had one as well with a small folding front grip
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Old July 25, 2020, 04:33 PM   #4
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Beretta had one as well with a small folding front grip
Thats true. A number of companies have made full auto versions of their pistols. HK, Colt, Glock, Beretta to name a few. I took the OP to mean non-OEM modifications.
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Old July 25, 2020, 09:04 PM   #5
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Here’s an article on it...



Any semi auto pistol can be made full auto quite easily with the requisite knowledge and tooling via lightening link principle. I know a few 07/02 FFL/SOTs who do it.

Making it select-fire is much more complicated...or it can be very easy if you don’t mind ATF kicking down your door at 5am.
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Old July 26, 2020, 06:28 AM   #6
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This MAY be related to the Fox article about three arrested in Chicago for federal firearms violations. It was noted "...the firearm was equipped with an auto-sear device, or “switch,” allowing the gun to fire more than one shot without manually reloading.."
https://www.foxnews.com/us/three-men...ts-to-the-city
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Old July 26, 2020, 03:21 PM   #7
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"...the firearm was equipped with an auto-sear device, or “switch,” allowing the gun to fire more than one shot without manually reloading.."
Either this is incorrectly reported or the agent who is the source of the information is an idiot. Probably both.

to my way of thinking, every repeating pistol, has a "switch" that allows more than one shot without manually reloading, its called the TRIGGER!!!

Are these people really that stupid? Or do they just think we are??
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Old July 30, 2020, 10:29 AM   #8
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Probably referring to a selector switch.
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Old August 1, 2020, 12:47 PM   #9
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yes, they are probably referring to a selector switch, BUT, they are using terms incorrectly AND adding a completely bogus "definition".

An "auto sear" is NOT a selector switch. It maybe a part in the fire control group necessary for full auto fire, but its not the switch itself in any design I am familiar with, and some select fire guns don't even have an "auto sear".

but even worse is this...
Quote:
allowing the gun to fire more than one shot without manually reloading..
Just what is that supposed to mean? That's the gun is a repeater, holding more than one round of ammo?? Or that the gun is a semi auto, so it doesn't require manual operation of the action to reload the chamber??

Probably the latter, though I also get the impression that they are implying that "more than one shot without manually reloading" is a bad thing, as well.
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Old August 8, 2020, 01:40 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 44 AMP View Post
yes, they are probably referring to a selector switch, BUT, they are using terms incorrectly AND adding a completely bogus "definition".

An "auto sear" is NOT a selector switch. It maybe a part in the fire control group necessary for full auto fire, but its not the switch itself in any design I am familiar with, and some select fire guns don't even have an "auto sear".

but even worse is this...


Just what is that supposed to mean? That's the gun is a repeater, holding more than one round of ammo?? Or that the gun is a semi auto, so it doesn't require manual operation of the action to reload the chamber??

Probably the latter, though I also get the impression that they are implying that "more than one shot without manually reloading" is a bad thing, as well.
On top of that, there are SEMI auto guns with an "auto sear" it is simply called a "safety sear". The auto sear is not what causes FA, interrupting the disconnector is..... which typically results in "hammer follow" unless there is an AUTO SEAR to PREVENT the hammer from following prior to bolt closure.

Yea, ya don't have to know much about guns to write about em
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Old March 7, 2021, 10:58 PM   #11
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H S Lebman of San Antonio made select fire 1911s before the NFA34. He may or may not have made some informally AFTER the law. +Lebman+Machine+pistol should get you info and images in your preferred search engine.

He grafted TSMG foregrips onto the forward frame. Some had compensators installed on the bushing. Examples exist in both .45ACP and .38 Super ACP.

Tyler, the SOT proprietor of Ozark Machinegun in Lebanon MO has one he's built as a post-sample for range rental. He, last I discussed it with him, could never get it reliable. The selector would bounce itself back into semi auto under recoil. He had trouble with getting through an entire magazine in full auto. At least it was so as of late summer/early fall 2020. So it's not even a range rental.

This gun was built as a visual copy of a Lebman pistol. Mechanically, it's based off a written description, but Tyler did not have an original to examine.

He has a website and a phone number. He's the only person I know who has actual hands-on with such a marvel.

Last edited by Leviatano; March 7, 2021 at 11:05 PM.
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Old March 8, 2021, 01:50 AM   #12
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Thanks. Interesting read. Lehman's 1911 wasn't select-fire though. It was full-auto only.

Edit: Auto sear is confusing, at least to me. I know the BATF considers the auto sear alone is a machine gun. Mechanically it is a device that catches the hammer / striker till the action is in battery. Some gun designs have such device, but they are not considered machine guns. So who determines an auto sear an auto sear? And how?

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Last edited by tangolima; March 8, 2021 at 02:36 AM.
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Old March 8, 2021, 11:10 AM   #13
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Glock 18/17 conversions
Beretta 93r
Smith 659
HK VP70m
Stenchkin (spelling)
I THINK there were some HIPowers
Broomhandle Mauser

That is a few off the top of my head.

Most of these turn money to noise exceedingly fast but aren’t much good beyond that IMO.
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Old March 8, 2021, 02:09 PM   #14
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They are fun toys for sure









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Old March 9, 2021, 01:19 AM   #15
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Quote:
Edit: Auto sear is confusing, at least to me. I know the BATF considers the auto sear alone is a machine gun. Mechanically it is a device that catches the hammer / striker till the action is in battery. Some gun designs have such device, but they are not considered machine guns. So who determines an auto sear an auto sear? And how?
The ATF considers the M16 auto sear a machine gun, a decision many of us still find incomprehensible.

To be clear, generally when speaking of the auto sear, one is referring to the auto sear from the M16 fire control group. It is named the auto sear by the maker, most likely because it performs the function of the sear during automatic fire.

Other guns have parts that do that in automatic fire and call them something other than auto sear. It is entirely up to the maker what they name the parts.

The "regular" sear catches and holds the hammer/striker until the action is in battery. Some designs use the regular sear during automatic fire, some save wear on the regular sear by transferring the load to a secondary or "auto sear" which catches the hammer/striker and then releases it when the action closes, as long as the trigger is held back.
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Old March 9, 2021, 03:32 AM   #16
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Autosears are machineguns because the law clearly says they are.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...leE-chap53.htm

(b) Machinegun
The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.
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Old March 9, 2021, 07:11 AM   #17
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In the early 1960s, I was a new member of a Gun Club in the suburbs of Liverpool in Lancashire UK. They owned a Broomhandle Mauser!
The range was 20 yards in length. It was kept in a safe and as a joke, it was given to the new member of the Club, me. With 5 rounds of Sten Gun 9mm.
I was 25. One round hit the target, 4 went through the corrugated roof.

It was fixed by one of the executives.

I left the UK with my first wife, and two young children, in 1965 on the SS Auriana, a Greek-owned Ship for a 5-week voyage to Australia. Across the Indian Ocean, via the Suez Canal. For the so-called rest of our lives?

As I now reside in Florida, that obviously did not happen. I fired a Glock 18 in the Glock plant in Austria, at the invite of Gaston Glock whilst touring the Glock manufacturing facility. I was not too good that time either!
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Old March 9, 2021, 09:12 AM   #18
Jim Watson
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Long ago there was a device for the 1911 that had the same argument as the bump stock and "binary trigger." Pull the trigger, the gun fires and cycles, the device resets the trigger. If you still have finger pressure on the trigger, it fires again... and again.
So you were "pulling the trigger" for every shot. But the mechanical reset was so quick, it gave effectively automatic fire.
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