Drozd, Blackbird, and Hummingbird Magazines

[TBK]

I am making magazines for these guns.  At this point it is to promote a lot of experimenting with new ideas and methods to feed these guns at various rates of fire and energy levels.  I am currently doing 6mm and .177 mags. 

I am still curious about what others would like to see.  Is the stock Blackbird mag good enough, but would be better if it could handle ROF of 4K rpm?  Does anyone wish for more capacity out of it?  I am working on having it feed lead ammo well. 

What about the Drozd?  Is it just higher capacity that is desired?  Would 50 rounds be enough?  100?  Does anyone want to have a non-electric mag with more capacity? 

[RCMer]

I would love to have something more than the 30rd mag for the Drozd. After shooting the the Blackbird having to keep reloading the Drozd takes away a lot of the fun.100rd minimum I'd say or a motor fed like the Blackbird with high capacity. Very interested.

[Parellax]

I think if you can produce an electric mag that can handle 4K the spring fed mag idea might become obsolete unless it is for 6mm lead. As far as capacity is concerned if the design is like a BB mag the more pushing down will help with reliability. I always thought a follower was needed. Another potential problem is the windings on the solenoid might be too small to handle sustained fire at 4K. I haven't run one to failure because they are no longer available from EAA.

[TBK]

I have been learning a lot about the Drozd and Blackbird mags through building them.  I make LOTS of notes and drawings about these things and about a month or two ago came across a drawing from way back when that may be a quick, simple way to fix or help the BB alignment.  It does require some minor modification to the drozd frame though, so it might not be that popular.

I am going to be making some additional augers.  I am still thinking about the 4K speed and will try out a couple of things to be able to do that.  It seems like the limited time I have is spent hooking things up or taking apart guns and putting them together, so I am going to make a better test setup that will be more permanent.  My power supply gave up the ghost so I will have to use batteries for a while.  When that is going I will try some more versions of my auger.

Cam - do you still run your homemade blackbird mag?  How is it holding up?  I am working on a simple to build feed chute/auger/motor assembly and keep flip-flopping from making it from one piece (or a couple) vs. making it out of sheet material.  Any thoughts on that?

So much to do, so little time...

[camracer]

" So much to do, so little time... "
Heh, Yeah I know what you mean.

I do not use my homemade Blackbird magazine. It was really just to prove it could be done.
As for new mag concepts, a motorized high cap JimC type mag should be easy enough to make now that I have my machines. I need to revisit this concept I stared years ago, but gave up on due to lack of precision.

TBK, remember this:

[camracer]

TBK, as for your new "feed chute/auger/motor" concept, I would need to see what you are doing in order to advise you. (I'm think I know what direction you are going based on our old experiments...?? Maybe not.)

Anyway, I would still love to have a 300 round magazine that doesn't use batteries. But, any mag concept is cool to work on!

[TBK]

I was just looking at that magazine last week! 

I also found my airsoft mag conversion parts except for the glue in piece for the feed channel transition.  I did find the CAD model of it, so I think I have everything to make those as well.

And, at this point I am not sure how many yellow Drozds I actually have, because I had them apart a lot of the time trying different things.  I keep coming across parts of them!!

[camracer]

I am going to take another peek at my mag today and see if I can pick up where I left off.

I really need to learn CAD!

[Hodaka]

Hey Camracer, try "Design Spark Mechanical" Cad software, it is very intuitive and easy to learn and a free program.  I am using this one mainly now and I am proficient at AutoCAD and have that software too.  Sketchup is another free program but a fairly large learning curve, but still not as bad as AutoCAD!!!

[camracer]

Thanks Hodaka. I certainly will check them out. I need to relearn a lot of what I used to know how to do in a limited way about CAD.
I have a friend who is an engineer who has used CAD for decades. He would be my tutor, if I need advice.

I need to go take a course on CAD for sure.

[fred589]

I would love to see non electric drozd/bird mags with a capacity of at least 100 too around 1000 (spring fed maybe?)

[fred589]

I would love to have A mag THAT HELD 500 ROUNDS for the CLASSIC Drozd ... IF ANYONE HAS ONE OR A EXTRA JIM C HIGH CAP MAG PLEASE LET ME KNOW THE PRICE,,,THANKS......

[fred589]

TBK, DO YOU HAVE AN EXTRA HIGH CAP MAG OR AN OLDER JIM C HIGH CAP MAG YOU COULD SELL ME?