Pikula-bilia: Hollywood AR10 receiver forgings

I was going through some old emails and found some exchanges I had with Sam Pikula, author of "The Armalite AR-10", years ago. In this particular email he was selling off some of his AR10 collection.



The email is dated - sitting down? - October, 2003.

In retrospect I can't believe I didn't grab this, or at least request pics. Must have been a humpback upper I would guess. I suppose I was thinking "how would I finish this thing?" (short sighted on my part). Plus I'm not really a big fan of the humpbacks from an aesthetic perspective, but what historical significance!

Would sure like to know what happened to that stuff.

I asked Sam about that and he recalled that those were Specialty Arms castings.

Hmmm. In the same email there's this:



Not suggesting specious intent but I then I have to wonder if there's some selective memory going on here. The man did distinguish between the HA stuff and the SA lower...

I would love to have one of those original Hollywood forgings. Would settle for a Specialty Arms casting.

You got to wonder where all this junk ended up. I would like to think it is well loved now, and not mouldering in some widow's scrap heap.

When I bought out the last of Sam's stuff before he moved this came with it.

ETA: It is my underatanding that all the Speciality Arms lowers were 7075 billett only the last of the Telkos were cast.

Sam knew exactly what he had. As I recall, he had an upper and lower for the Hollywood rifle and a lower casting for the Specialty Arms.


Ahhhhh.....I wondered who ended up with the Specialty Arms lower casting. So it was you Dan. Nice catch. I knew I should have bought that!

I'll try to get you a photo of the Harvey Aluminum Humpback forgings.

Buying up the last of Sam's stuff makes you guys much smarter than I!

I didn't know the mystery might be solved so quickly. Can you please post pics of those forgings?

Holy freakin' shit! Thanks, arfcom. Just awesome...

There was a bunch of junk I have the corner on the spent Port HG-rings market.

... and the corner on the champer brush market.

If you post a pile of sling keepers I swear I'll shit my pants.

Your Hanes can breathe a sigh of relief!!

Hmmm didn't work

Yeah, I don't know why the pic won't post. So I put the link to it here.
forgings

Wow... speechless. Are they yours?

the fact that those castings are out there means we have hope of getting them remade :)

Thanks cb7!

That will have to do. I tried half a dozen times but couldn't get them to post

Rest assured they are not in some widows scrap heap.

Oh my!

If my kid didn't need to go to college...

Thanks boywonder! That looks much better

Could someone please post a photo of that Hollywood humpback from the National Firearms Museum?.

Thanks boywonder. This is the original pic ar10er posted - it's just a bit larger.

Where are the tools that made that is what I want to know.

Link to detailed close up photos of Hollywood Humpback at the National Firearms Museum

http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=3&f=123&t=528342

Could those not be molded to have duplicates made from cast aluminum?

I think a simple silicon mold could be created without damaging the original parts.

The castings could be finished out with modern or repro parts from various Mfg's or home brewers. Much cheaper than having forging die's done for such a niche weapon.

After a few glasses of wine a Hollywood AR10 owner once let me try seating a Sudanese AR10 upper on his Hollywood lower. As expected it fit just fine. If you look at the Knight collection you will see at least one or two rifles with a Dutch upper on top of a Hollywood lower. So if you wish to clone the Hollywood AR10 the critical issue is the upper. The real distinguishing feature of the Hollywood lower is that raised area above the selector.

My kids can go to college the old fashioned way, they can work and earn their way through on their own.

Now about these forgings, I wish I had been an AR fan earlier this century. As it was I was NOT, due to my exposure to worn out sewer pipe barrels and busted handguards in the post Vietnam era Marines.
But I had always been a fan of the AR-10 since the early 60's as a small boy, they and the FAL were the big time battle rifles of my youth.

I still wish I could afford one like OlGunner has! They are just way too cool!!!!!!

Yeah, geez... thinking aloud here because this is opening up a can of worms/Pandora's box (I'll figure out which later) I had not envisioned when I first posted. My epiphany is that one might be able to do a Hollywood AR10 build! A sort of first pass at it would be to use a Sudanese rifle and swap in a stripped humpback upper receiver.

ETA: also, forget about the side gas system thing. just way too problematic to repro I think

Yeah, like you will find a stripped humpback at the next swap meet. Then what would you do about the bolt-carrier group? I no longer have one for the Hollywood.

WisI I had the chance to give yours the once over but previously studying every picture I could I think a suitable unit could be created from a standard carreir. It would take a serious cutter to slot it and drill the angled hole back to the gas chamber and with a solid carrier key. The harder parts would seem to be the FSB and the barrel muffler I think followed closely by the grip which is several degrees steeper than the Sudan or Porto, the same angle and size as a 1911 grip. Do-able, not easily but do-able.

I agree that one could modify a Sudan bolt carrier. As for the FSB CarbineKid has proven himself quite creative in that department already. The Hollywood grips were made in two pieces and bonded together. I have two orphan right halves. I no longer have the complete NOS grip. Rest assured, all that Hollywood junk I parted with is now installed on the appropriate rifle.

You guys missed my point about a Hollywood build. My idea is less ambitious. Just take a humpback forging like the one pictured, and make it a Sud internally. No special bolt, carrier, gas system, etc. Just drop it onto a Sud rifle.

I caught the point but it can't be done the Cadillac upper does not have the space on the top of the receiver for a top gas system because the gas system was on the side. At the minimum you must adapt a bolt to use the side gas system and a FSB to use it as well. This picture pretty well illustrates the height difference in the top keyway.

ETA You would also need to make a charging handle as the keyway on the Cadillac upper is more narrow not allowing any use of adapted parts.

Thanks for pointing that minor detail out. I guess I can put that notion out of my mind. (What can I say, I'm a software guy so I don't notice that sort of thing!)

I bouught my first AR10, a Sendra, sight unseen on Y2K day, I had been looking for one for about a year before I bought it and since then its been a facinating journey studying the evolution of the AR, countless hours of picture study and emailing back and forth with folks who had been at it longer than me, I only wish I had started sooner.

Actually I've been at it a long time too. I just sort of wrote off the humpbacks as "oh, that's interesting", but I'll never acquire one. So I never paid much attention to them. I got my first kit from Peter and I think he was down to the bottom of the barrel. It was a Porto and the upper had the one piece plastic handguard. I absolutely could not live with the wooden pistol grip, sent it back and he sent me a decent black plastic repro. Yes, been quite a journey ever since...

About ten years ago I recall seeing a post on one of the boards where a guy was selling off a bunch of AR-10 parts including a complete Hollywood upper half. I tried to buy it but it was already sold by the time he got my email.

Always a day late!

Could you not modify a casting of the upper to modern standards?

You could make a copy of the upper in resin/plaster/wax/whatever, add the additional material to adapt it to fit modern spec and then mold and cast it again.

These aren't available to the general public. If they were, I have faith that someone would find a way to make them work.

I really like the look of the humpbacks.

Do-able, completely do-able.

We just got a CMM scanner at work. I need to learn how to use it. You can 3d model anything with it.

Do you know what the maximum dimensions are for an object being scanned?

We have one where I work, too, but in another department. They told me "printing" the 3D object is very expensive. I handled a couple of things they had made and they seemed pretty sturdy to me. I wanted to repro some AR10 furntiture but I think it was too big, plus the printing cost.

I've wondered if it's possible to do the 3D scan and convert the file to something CNC-ready? No need to "print" a prototype if you can use the file to mill a piece of aluminum.

Why don't you try to make some 80% lower receivers?

I'd buy a couple.

This ^^^ If there's going to be an AR10 group project no doubt the most needed things are lowers.

I'd be in for a few.

Use the CMM to make a "master", increasing the dimensions by whatever percentage 5/32" per foot would be (shrink rate I remember from my semi MP44 project), then either sand cast or investment cast the lower blanks, heck do the uppers, too.

One small problem I remember someone mentioning had to do with this type charging handles being discontinued by Armalite and that they are selling off the remaining stock on clearance.
Here's a link to the charging handles I mean, http://www.armalite.com/ItemForm.aspx?item=EA1116&ReturnUrl=Categories.aspx?Category=fae7c477-dda0-4b29-8bef-ed2b8dc075df,
At $100 each... some clearance price there!

The original Dutch AR10 used a unique charging handle that is not similar to anything the modern Armalite company has sold. Funny thing, is that Nodak's prototype charging handle is much like the old Dutch AR10 charging handle except it is downscaled. It is nearly impossible to find a spare sudanese AR10 charing handle (pic below).

Is there a website that shows the different variations of AR-10's and their unique parts variations? Something like RBR.com?

The Dutch AR10 website shows some of the variants.
http://www.ar10.nl/Welcomepage.htm

The original AR10 and modern AR10 share no common parts. Nothing interchanges. Period.

Thanks H for letting me know that. Now I dont have to worry about wasting $100 on a maybe.....
Gonna have to follow this thread more closely so I can learn lot's more.

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