Here's a link that should take you to the U.S patent application that was filed by the inventors David Harris and Arnold Presley:
https://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?PageNu...%2F20100083818
If you look up the history of the application, it was abandoned in 2012, even though it could have been amended and patented.
From what I've read, as is case for the AM-180 machine gun, the host machinegun for the AM-180 drum adapter apparatus often required "tweaks" to function reliably.
MHO,YMMV, etc. Be well.
I’m pretty sure the Bazooka adapter was originally manufactured in my hometown in Indiana. I spoke with an acquaintance a few years ago who still works at the machine shop where these were manufactured. He said all the jigs, fixtures and parts were sitting in a box at the shop. It was my intention to follow up with him on getting one made for myself but I never did. I believe the inventor passed away several years ago.
As is noted in my above post and as derived from the hot linked website, there are two listed inventors - not only one as you are asserting - and both inventors are listed as IN residents. As of the 2009 filing, Mr. Harris was said to be a Kokomo, IN resident; and Mr. Presley was said to be a Peru, IN resident.
MHO, YMMV, etc. Be well.
I also did a patent search a few days ago and also found out that it was abandoned.
I’m thankful my adapter works great along with my 22 sub cal conversion. Unfortunately, the 22 conversion kits appear to not work, kinda work or work great. I would bet that if your Lage 22 kit works well, it’ll work well with the adapter as long as it’s loaded right and you know how many turns the winder takes for your gun.
My Lage 22 works great. Has from day one and many, many thousands of rounds later it still does. I had a semi-auto SAR-180 which 'ran' great. I used the same mags and winder on the BB adaptor with a bunch of different ammo, different winder turns, and later messaged the fine details to smooth feeding. I never got more than about 10-12 rounds in a burst. The rounds just wouldn't feed up the magazine shaft. I'm pretty sure that it was the transition from the pan magazine to the stick magazine that was the cause. The pan mag didn't fit very tight to the stick mag even with shims. In the end I just decided that it wasn't worth messing around with. If I could find one that works like yours I'd buy it.
Skoda,
The transition from the American drum to the feed tower is a concern.
Any chance you chamfered the bottom of the feed tower?
Do you know if the person that purchased it from you had any luck?
Thanks.
KickStand, It's been far to long to remember exactly what I did. I regularly mess around with such projects so I'm sure that I did everything possible to get rounds up the tower. I don't know who I sold it to so I can't report on that.
I like the idea of the adaptor. I think that it need an intermediary piece with a curved slot to go from the pan to the stick magazine.
No, I mean a curve from the sideways 'flow' of the pan magazine to the vertical 'flow' of the stick magazine. I believe that when the cartridges made the transition from one mag to the other the nearly 90 degree change in direction caused a jam in the system.
Something like the red piece in the middle. Please excuse the crappy sketch.
[IMG][/IMG]
Last edited by skoda; 04-13-2022 at 05:17 PM.
And tilt the pan mag relative to the stick mag. Good idea if you can get enough structure so that it stays together. Probably easier than my idea.
One thing that I never did was to try to fix the transition in end of the pan magazine path. A little epoxy filled in and then 'massaged' might help. I had an SAR-180 that ran really well and didn't want to mess with that. I used the same magazines.
I tested the BB adapter again today and the video is below,
Ringa ding!
Check out my Youtube channel
Thanks guys.
My brother had a chance to shoot it twice yesterday.
Unfortunately, it jammed once each time he used it. The two times it jammed was likely ammo related because he was using crappy Thunderbolts but that’s all I‘ve been using too. One was a bad round as the primer was marked and the other round went nose up.
Loading this American 180 mag is damn near unbearable. I’ve got E&L loading tray with their stand but it’s a painful process.
It’s time to clean my can as I can’t get it off the 3 lug. It’s likely got a crap ton of lead around it at least in the past it did. I’ll get some pictures when I get it off.
Last edited by KickStand; 04-15-2022 at 08:50 PM.
The mags are a pain to load but I found them no worse than stick mags when you consider the time vs. number of rounds. Loading 275 rounds for an AM-180 is about as much time and effort as loading 11 25 round stick mags for a Ruger 10/22 (also 275 rounds). You need the loading tray, just dump about 30-40 rounds on it (not too many that your fingers are buried in cartridges but enough that you aren't stopping to add more too often). The real pain is that one AM-180 magazine empties a lot faster than 11 Ruger 10/22 mags.
Yeah, it takes some time to get the hang of it. I also recommend the E&L loading stand. It angles the drum so that once u line up the rounds in the loading tray, you just turn the drum and they kind of just roll into the slot. Also, there’s no comparison between a 275 round dump versus having to stop 10 times to change a magazine!