Florida Shooters Network

Re-starting my CETME-L project. Wound up getting a flat from a different manufacturer. Seems to be a bit more "correct" than the previous one. Im pretty sure with enough "persuasion" I could have made the Prexis one work but its an uncommon gun, and not a cheap build so figured I'd go with the best available flat.



^ with old Prexis flat.



^ sizing up the new flat, checking it out. Looks like the layout of everything on it is pretty damn close from the get go.

Wit the Denial Bar installed, its time to commence the Bending;

Used some good sticky grease. Once in place and everything is lined up, time to tighten her down. Half turn and then switch to the other side. Repeat until it bottoms out.

Alright. Here is where I kinda messed up.

If doing it again, I would absolutely start welding it together in the FRONT first.

The holes in the flat line up clean/near perfect with the front weldment. The rear has holes oversized, and allows a little wiggle room for fitting all the stuff together. It has to be "right on". By starting the welding in the rear I really screwed myself out of that "wiggle room", gonna take quite a bit of fitting now. I'll chalk it up as a pricey learning experience.



^ Rear clamped, rear weldment in place and stuff pinned in. Checked that the carrier would ride nicely (not too loose, not too tight) Figured it would place everything nicely, I was wrong. Stuff shifted a little while welding. Ill make it work, just not happy about it.



^ Put a glob on the rear seam. Will go over and do a few beads on the sides and blend them in as well. But for the time being, it will hold.





Then on the front seam. I didn't use anything to back it, and I did blow through it a little right at that curve. Was able to get in there and clean it up though, should be OK. Still gotta get it blended nicely but for now, it will hold.


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Looks good!

JonathanW wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:04 pmLooks good!

Thanks. It will look better with a coat of paint. Two spots now have a little burn through I gotta clean up. But I'm running into a few other little issues.



So all the holes in the receiver, and corresponding weldments that came with flat are pretty much "right on" for diameter. The assembly pins have no real wiggle room, or room for adjustment with the exception of one in the rear, which gives maybe a 0.5mm of wiggle room.

Well.... The layout of all that is really dictated by the Grip/FCG housing. It has two pins (one in front, that runs through the receiver & front weldment and a pin in the rear, that runs through the receiver/weldment/butt stock).



^ That distance really cant be messed with. So, it pretty much "is what it is". Using the holes already there on the flat everything "appeared" to line up properly. Cool. Looking good.

Until I put the stock on. I had to remove a little over 1/8" OAL from the rear for the stock to fit, its extremely tight as well. Like pound it on tight. Seems like the height/vertical measurement of the receiver is a tad large. I filed down the top and bottom in the rear as best I could, it "helped" but still extremely tight.

So, it looks like the Grip/FCG housing is sitting almost 1mm too low. Hopefully not low enough to cause problems, but I know HK's (which are...similar) can be really finicky with shelf heights. I think there will be a visible gap between the grip and stock assembly. Minor, but looks like its down a hair lower than it should be. I may be able to correct that though.

But the real crappy part is that with the stock on, pinned in place I can no longer use the bolt hold open cut out in the flat. The rear sight assembly on the Cetme-L houses the BHO device. With the stock all the way forward, Its off a bit from where it should be. Enough that I would notice the gap if I just cut it further forward and it would piss me off everytime I looked at it.

So I'm not sure if the flat was out of spec, the sight block was out of spec, or the stock was out of spec, but something went wrong. The distance between those two pins on the trigger housing is set in stone, so everything spaces off that.



^ I think I'm either going to have to trim the rear of the sight to clear the stock, or cut the slot wider and try to somehow fill the gap in the rearward portion with some sheet metal and blend it in but that sounds like alot of trouble.

Either way. Getting there. Probably going to go over some of the welds and add/touch up where I can and attempt to get my barrel pinned and headspaced later this week so I can get that installed.




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Looks like your killing it.

Figured out the rear sight. Decided to "split the difference".

I took some material off the stock to allow the sight to sit back a little further, and very slightly enlarged the slot forward to let the BHO work. Put some globs of weld on the sight as well, I'll get the grinder out and clean them up better before painting.



^ Not pretty, but solid. Should look better after some dremel work and a coat of paint.

Then it was time to drill the barrel pin. This got a little wonky. I used a 11/64 as it was pretty close to the original size, and I wanted to reuse the original Spanish pin from the kit. It drilled pretty nicely, but wound up being awfully tight. Like "its in there, but its probably not coming back out unless its drilled out" in there.



^ just keep it level. I blew right through, clean.

Now its time to drill the receiver for the plug welds.



^ Sharpie Marker to locate where I want to drill. Two on each side, and one on the bottom. For now.



^ Drilled



Pinned barreled trunnion installed. Time to weld.

I alternate sides, plug weld left front, plug weld right rear, plug weld left rear, plug weld right front, plug weld bottom. I haven't welded the seam where the rails of the receiver meet the trunnion yet. I want to make sure it functions first.



^ one of the plug welds, ground smooth.

At this point I can "mock it up" and start looking at how the cocking tube is going to go. The fit and "gap" on the tube is critical to proper function. It will probably take me awhile to get that where I want it. Ill get pics when that happens.



^ mocked up.


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Didnt really get any pics of the cocking tube nonsense.

Long story short, it was a bitch. On the CETME's I've done the cocking tube has a sleeve that goes into the receiver, helps line everything up nicely. On the "L" it just kinda floats there. It was a pain in the ass to get it where it needed to be, while maintaining proper cocking tube support gap in relation to the bolt carrier. I also ended up "blowing through" a little when welding it, so that took HOURS of screwing to fix. But it went.

The front sight wanted to "spin" on its journal, making it difficult to pin in place too. I ended up putting a dab of weld on the bottom of the barrel and fitting it to make a better interference fit, she aint spinning around no more.












^Anyways, shot it in cheap Family Dollar rust-preventative Gloss Black just so it does rust up any worse than it has. Not sure when I'll get around to testing it. But will probably have to sandblast and redo the paint with something more durable (and do those two final welds on the trunnion) after I see that it functions.













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Damn that looks “great” . Like I’ve said once before I wish I had your talent. My mind just doesn’t work that way, all thumbs.

Clyde621 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2019 11:04 am Damn that looks “great”

From a distance, I'd agree. The welds certainly arent too pretty up close, but theyre solid. I should have spent more time with the grinder trying to make them more aesthetically pleasing. I may still do that, dunno.

Hopefully I'll be able to take it out and test fire it sometime in the coming weeks.

I have one of those KCI 100 Round "Beta" style drums here I might try to modify to fit this.