Warbird Information Exchange

Does anyone know of any sites or collectors that sell replica 50s for aircraft turretts?

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Cheers,
Peter

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Peter,

There are a couple sites out there that do sell reproduction .50 cals and some that sell the real deal (inert but with real parts) which run thousands of $$$.

If your looking for quality replica .50 cals for a turret project your best bet is to go with Carl Scholl's business (Aero Trader) out in Chino, CA. I believe this is where Gary acquired Diamond Lil's guns (compliments of all of us wonderful WIX'ers). They are expensive at about $900 each but also top quality...being machined from a block of aluminum. I'm planning to buy a set for my turret project once I'm a bit further along.

John

You can also purchase REAL Browning M2 aircraft machine guns that fire .50 caliber BMG ammo-------that is if you are not living in a communistic state that outlaws the ownership of automatic weapons. Oregon, for example does allow their ownership as long as all Federal regulations are followed.

I have always wondered why some mega-rich warbird owner does not outfit his P-51 or whatever with six REAL .50 caliber guns.

Trust me, it's not that easy to own a full automatic weapon regardless of what state you live in. Second, would you want that kind of liability with owning six .50 machine guns? I guarantee you that someone will break into your hanger and damage your warbird while they steal them. So why not have a replica or a de-milled machine gun? No liability and lot less likely to be stolen.

Isn't there an FAA regulation against that? I've been told this but have never seen any proof.

Full auto .50 BMG is probably $25K each if you can find them.

I was going to say the same thing...I'm almost certain there is a federal regulation outlawing the installation of any fixed armament on aircraft whether fully auto or not.

John

try looking at www.alliedarmament.com if a semi-automatic will do it for ya', you might be pleasantly surprised!!!

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When we built Lewis Shaw's Mustang when I was at Ezell Aviation, we built it with all of the gun and rocket stuff functioning (well, except for the guns and rockets, of course). However, Lewis just happens to be good friends with Jim Dillon (Dillon Precision... http://dillonprecision.com/ ). Mr. Dillon has a very impressive array of weapons that he regularly goes out to the desert to shoot. The plan when we were building Lew's Mustang was for him to take it out to Dillon's place and have the operational guns installed and let them go shoot up some targets with it! We had even installed a camera system in the Mustang to record all of this. Dillon didn't want to mess with the rockets, as they are, in his words, "Too unpredictible." I have heard that Lewis took the Mustang down there to do all of this, but I haven't seen the video from it, or even heard if they actually did this as planned. I'll have to call the Ezells to see if this ever took place.

Gary

Good thing nobody from the FAA lurks this website!

(My favorite t-shirt from OSH 2006: "Today's FAA: We're not happy until you're not happy.")

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

Check out the calendar you can order from their website, niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice

I think the 900$ US option is the best one but it is up to the group to decide on that.

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Cheers,
Peter

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Dan, I probably should have mentioned that Dillon always gets the proper paperwork (whatever that should be) with the Feds, ATF & FAA, before he goes out to do the "shoot-em-ups" with his aircraft. I think he's got some special waivers and whatnot for this type of activity, but I don't know the details. Anyway, the stuff that was going to be done with the Mustang was going to be completely legit......and probably loads of fun.

Gary

I bet that would be something to see a P-51 on a straffing run firing live ammo in the 21st century!


Dillon builds miniguns for the U.S. Govt. He has his own range in the desert. If you've ever seen footage on T.V. of a civilian Huey with a minigun shooting up junk cars in the desert, that was Dillon . I've seen them featured several times on either the TLC or Discovery channel. And I gurantee you that Dillon could legally equip an aircraft with machine guns do to their work for the Govt as long as they were just "testing" it.

Here's a link to the some of that video


http://military.discovery.com/interactives/arsenal/minigun/videoplayer.html

Peter--

IIRC Heinz Hormann at CWH used to build up replica .50s for their fleet; might be worth an ask...

Re the idea of Mustangs, etc., doing genuine strafing runs at an airshow, that's not far-fetched at all...it used to happen, during the CNE (Toronto) waterfront airshows in the late 40s. RCAF Aux squadron Mustang 4s and RCN Seafires would do strafing runs, firing concrete-headed HVARs at barges moored in Lake Ontario...man I'd love to have seen that, but I wasn't around until the 60s and wouldn't see an airshow till the 70s...

Cheers

S.