CZ Raptor Cuts
A lot of my custom machining jobs come from customers who see something they like on a friends gun or on the internet. They show me a picture and ask, “Can you do this?” This customer brought his CZ slide in and showed us a picture of custom cuts he had seen on the internet. Tweaking the design a little bit, we machined these “Raptor Cuts” onto his slide. They’re kind of a mix between window cuts and lightening cuts. I love this design on the CZ slide because they match the geometry of the slide really well.
Before machining on the slide, I designed the cuts in CAD. I made sure the dimensions on each cut were correct. Then, I programmed the pattern into the CNC attached to my mill. Before pressing Go, I did a test run to make sure everything is correct. You can see the CNC hard at work in this video.
As I’ve said in previous blog posts, machining is one of my favorite parts of gunsmithing. I love the design process, the programming process, and ultimately the removal of material. Isn’t it satisfying to see the metal chips fly off the machine?
This mill is my baby. Before I got this CNC Bridgeport, I had been doing all of my machining on a mini-mill I had purchased for only $900. While it got the job done, it was extremely inefficient and not ideal. But getting this Bridgeport and the CNC attachment up and running was quite the saga—an adventure full of searching the internet for deals and crossing my fingers.
I got this mill from a friend of Josh, our customer who had the orange and black CZ feat of the week. We drove up to his house outside of Portland to see this Bridgeport he had for sale. He had several machines—multiple CNC mills, a large CNC lathe, and many other fun toys. He had been an owner of a machine shop for a while and clearly had a lot of success. He also collected tractors—he had two huge sheds full of old and refurbished tractors. A collector of heavy machinery, this man could talk for hours about each piece of equipment. He knew the in’s and out’s of every machine.
After touring his collections, he demonstrated that the mill worked and showed us that it was in great condition. This was a great find, and I was super excited to have the opportunity to purchase it. The mill had been converted into a CNC, but recently, the computer attachment had broken. He wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong with it but was hoping for our sake it was just the screen. Knowing the computer was broken, we purchased the mill anyway. Even if the CNC didn’t work, a full-size manual mill was way better than the mini-mill I had been working on.
The CNC computer is ancient. At least ancient for technology—the thing still uses floppydisks. Buying an updated CNC computer would cost thousands of dollars so I set out to fix the one that came with the Bridgeport. I called the manufacturer of the box, and they quoted an insanely high price to fix it or buy a new one. So, instead, I called around and scoured the internet for a used one. I found someone who had one in his attic somewhere. He wasn’t sure if it worked, but I bought it anyway. I’d rather risk buying a broken computer for a few hundred bucks than drop thousands of dollars on a new piece of out-dated hardware.
Low and behold, I got the CNC to work. But during my first few practice cuts, smoke started to come out and there was a burning smell. The motor had burned out. So once again, I scoured the internet and called around. Luckily, there was someone just outside of Portland who had several of the motors I needed. We drove up to his shop to take a look. He had piles of things—thousands of things, everywhere. It was a huge shed full of anything and everything you could think of, and somehow he knew exactly where everything was.
I bought a few motors and a few other machining accessories, and within a few days, the mill was up and running again. I couldn’t have asked for a better machine. And while the CNC conversion is ancient, it allows me to be much more productive. I’ve nailed down all my processes and certain jobs like optic cuts are incredibly efficient now.
