I got the bug to buy something bigger than an sbr. Mortar or 20/30mm rifle.

What all is out there?

M224 60mm....be prepared to pay 20K for a complete system.

The look on my semi liberal Neighbor when I placed the aiming stakes and ran a crew drill with the neighborshood kids....priceless!

Over the past, maybe, 3-4yrs, I've been building my knowledge of 60mm systems. I will be building one, soon enough. I'm not worried about 100% authenticity, but it will be modeled off the real deal. I have a 300+yd range, at my house, so we can at least have some fun. I plan to use Aluminum and concrete shell bodies w/ 3D printed heads for chalk dispersion. Cheap. reusable, and the chalk will easily mark where to find them.

Hey refer to 2800 and realign aiming posts just doesn’t happen without practice.   Remember to knock down the first candy cane before grabbing the far one kids.

ETA I will never own a real one but I have a big chunk of stainless in the basement and a grizzly lathe in order.  My plan is a golf ball mortar.

You can build them? Like get pieces and parts and reactivate?

Yes. You do need an approved tax stamp though.

You technically don't need any original parts. If you're savvy enough, you can build one from photos and available postings.

You could build a 60mm for under $3K... but it won't be an M220.

I'm 75 days into the wait on mine (for the stamp to be approved)... I'm fairly excited about it.  Everything is bought and paid for...just waiting for the stamp.

Mine is a Yugo M52, which is a pretty dead nuts copy of the US M2 from WW2, but the sight is different.  I have a dozen or so practice rounds, and plans for more.  Reloading data is available

I've got a form 1 M57 60mm Yugo from Apex surplus.

My M2cup and barrel are from Ordnance.com.

I've also got a near mint sub cal kit for mine.

Anybody going to Knob Creek (will be there Friday and Saturday) and want to meet & talk mortars, let me know.

Cinti-russj

Actually, I'll be there Saturday. I'd be very interested to speak with you about them.

I have a WWII 60mm M2.  Love it!

Does anyone know where to obtain plans or schematics for a mortar?  I'm thinking about form 1'ing one.

Has anyone done this before?

I have the complete original arsenal blueprints for the M2 mortar, scanned in at the arsenal one at a time by hand.

Also have them for the 57mm Recoilless Rifle.

Yes it has been done before.

It's easier to just buy the parts and drop a form 1, but if you can carve metal, you can do it that way too.

A live mortar cup without a barrel in your possession is a Title I firearm, same status as an AR15 stripped lower.  You can get a live cup and file a Form 1, then collect all the remaining parts necessary to build up your mortar.

Or if you are lucky you find a parts kit that didn't have the cup molested in the demilling process- these are usually just tack welded.  Grind the tack welds off, a little cleaning up, and you have an original cup in title I configuration.  File form 1.  The advantage of this route is you'll probably already have all the pieces you need except maybe the firing pin and a new barrel.  And those are the easy parts.

@Wingnut116ACW

There are efforts afoot to produce new m2 cups and barrels this year. I'd drop a form 1 and get associated parts. That takes the time.

I'm still interested in this.  Keep us updated on the progress, I'm getting close to finishing my bipod and will be looking for a cup to form 1 soon, then a barrel.

Any idea which companies? I'd like to keep an eye on the progress as I'm interested!

Best set up I've seen was an M2 60mm being used by an Airborne Reenactor who built it as blackpowder.  He used 3 bathroom Dixie cups hot-glued together, two mouth to mouth, the third base to base to act as stabilizer fins.  He had a small BP lift charge in the fin cup, cardstock disc hot-glued overtop, with the cannon fuse running into the two mouth to mouth cups, where he had a burster charge and baking soda as filler.  He was getting a few hundred yards range with them, enough he could fire Direct Alignment over a stand of trees and have corrections sent back by hand signals or field phone.

Our KG had a Russian 82mm demil with a blackpowder sleeve, used the pineapple-grenade-looking juice bottles from Walmart, using a 35mm film canister for lift charge hot-glued into the mouth opening, and cannon fuse extending into the juice bottle for a burster charge surrounded by baking soda.    At a particular reenactment in Nebraska, I demonstrated how you can use a mortar system to bring an Allied attack across an open field to a complete halt, first by firing a spotter round to mark the left limit then conducting a Traverse and Fire Mission to the right, I think we did 4 Rounds, 3 Turns (between), then traversed back left and lastly, to the right again.  At that range, I was dropping rounds about 15-20yds apart, 3-4 rounds in the air at a time (no weapon recoil like live rounds), first skirmish line practically rounds landing at their feet.   The follow on troops not so motivated after the first half dozen rounds, broke off their attack.  Probably gave them a realistic feeling of troops in open under fire by a well-registered mortar section.

81mm were my shit during my time in the 5-0-Deuce, first M29A1s in the M125A2 Mortar Carrier tracks still in Rifle Co with 4.2in M106A2 Mortar Carrier tracks in Combat Support Co/HQ Co, but we humped the 81s most of the time, supporting our dismounted Rifle Plts.

Second tour, we still had 81mm in the Rifle Cos, but M252 with the Squad working out of a slant back Humvee.  We still humped them most of the time, supporting the dismount Plts. but just the difference in maintenance from tracks to Humvees was incredible.

The best set up I've seen is a proper milspec mortar shooting GI ammo according to the firing table.

It's very, very doable, just don't be in a hurry, and realize you're going to have to spend some money.