Hi, Wirb here. The Black Lotus Coalition has been a serious force over the last couple of years in shredding gun control. But Harlots aren’t the only thing they’ve been making – some designers have been busy from an even more creative perspective. Enjoy the following printerview!
The Interview
Please note this interview has been edited for grammar and punctuation.
Wirb: I’m here with Stubbs of Stubbs Customs, one of the most prolific people in Guncad. How’s this evening been?
Stubbs: Dying of tomato allergy rn. Pizza always makes my ass blow off. I am severely allergic to tomatoes and I eat a pizza weekly. In one sitting.
Wirb: Good Lord. You gonna be okay?
Stubbs: Clogged it with no paper fr.
Wirb: What led you to design your first homemade gun?
Stubbs: I’ve always been a mechanically oriented person though and nothing else has such nicely designed moving parts. I made a pipe gun immediately because I was bored and loud noises are hilarious.
Wirb: Classic. How’d that end up evolving into the perfect visual replicas you’ve been making?
Stubbs: I’d cloned AR variants and become intimately familiar with every dimension and part while I was doing it. I realized how simple it really was and where it drew inspiration from as well.
Wirb: Is it really that easy to put AR guts into an STG or MP40 shell?
Stubbs: After I realized how close they are it seemed much of the AR was derivative of the STG, as are most cold war rifles. It’s a recoil spring in line with the barrel and made of the lightest most advanced material available at the time. Then I realized the 9mm ARs are just a 1-1/4″ tube with a spring in it and the MP40 is so long and unwieldy it’s literally the size of an AR upper and buffer in one.
Wirb: Didn’t you make a literal tube AR that was essentially an upper made out of a piece of pipe?
Stubbs: That was an early one and it was groundbreaking in many ways, but hindered in the fact that it also sucked.
Wirb: On a scale of 1 to SIG Sauer, how suck are we talking?
Stubbs: The gas key was just open on the top and the charging handle was a wine cork.
Wirb: Wine cork – this is starting to make sense.
Stubbs: Unfortunately it’s reliable and I’ve seen behind the curtains of this reality. An AR-15 is just a 1″ inner diameter tube.
Wirb: You’ve done a lot with guns, but a lot of people forget your work on grenades and mines. What’s the story behind your ordnance?
Stubbs: They’re also simple machinery and if you have handled fireworks, you know it’s easy.
Wirb: True, but some of the fuze work had to be relatively difficult – I know you developed your own homemade fuze system in lieu of people using rebuilt M228s.
Stubbs: Mine are also mostly M228 lever style and can use similar parts but I’m trying to make them as DIY as possible.
Wirb: There were some very interesting designs there – the white phosphorous grenade, a copy of the M47 riot grenade, and even copies of the V40 and SOHG. I loved the replica of the RGN impact grenade especially.
Stubbs: I have many replicas end users can make either fun desk toys, flash bangs, or the full send out of.
Wirb: Your recent designs are highly adaptable – I know the MP40/41 in particular are basically the same gun. Are you planning to make any other replicas built around the same core SMP system? Same question applies to some of your other designs, like the VSG and STG.
Stubbs: The SMP40 was the first tube gun because the MP40 is the definitive submachine gun. The internals are simplified 9mm AR parts and DIY options, with the options for the outside to be made into many of the similar 20th century guns. It’s also adaptable to obtainable magazines outside of what would normally work with a 9mm AR-15.
Wirb: What sorts? I know Sten mags and Colt 9mm mags seem to be big options, and I’ve heard Suomi mags might be on the menu.
Stubbs: The Colt pattern is a modified Uzi magazine and the definitive choice. Glock magazine ARs are hideous and the double stack to single feed limits it greatly.
Wirb: Glock magazine ARs look wrong and I’ll stand by this.
Stubbs: The Sten magazine is a commonly available surplus magazine, and ironically the perfect clone. The Sten is the result of stripping the Lanchester SMG down to as cheap as it could be and still shoot. The Lanchester SMG is a 1:1 copy of the German MP28 because Britain didn’t have SMGs. The MP40 takes the same Schmeisser patented magazine. As a result, the British ended up churning out a ton of cheap magazines perfect for MP40s. Not very well and with fitting needed of course.
Wirb: Makes sense given how cheap the Sten was – I’m guessing in the future we’ll see Sten variants, and possibly the Lanchester/MP28/MP18 as well?
Stubbs: The MP28 and 18 are on my list. A DIY bolt was in the works and a parts kit producer for my MP40 is making side feed single feed bolts. The MP18 is the one appropriate situation for the swept back Glock magazine. I’m also making a snail drum baseplate for the Glock magazine.
Wirb: Feels appropriate for sure, all things considered, though won’t it look a bit chunky given it’s double-stack?
Stubbs: I considered using Glock 43 or 43X pattern mags briefly to take advantage of those otherwise useless ETS magazines for them, and since the end user can 3D print whatever one they want, options are always better.
Wirb: What turned you off from them to the standard Glock-pattern mag?
Stubbs: The regular Glock magazine while ugly for a standard AR-15, is the pattern that is the most available and the double stack should give end users more useful capacity if I can make the double stack fit the curved path much like an MWG 90 rounder.
Wirb: What got you into German reproductions specifically?
Stubbs: My German and Czech heritage demands only the most bizarre of mechanical contraptions. Only the most over the top nonsense will do. I obtained a few bits and pieces as well as some complete examples and I want to make them more accessible.
Wirb: What do you think of your peers in the Black Lotus Coalition? I know they’ve very heavily promoted your releases.
Stubbs: BLC is an organization with a simple goal of making these things accessible and they have a good simple “no fighting in the war room” stance where everybody gets along and works on guns. I design what I want to, but they pair me with the testers who are interested and offer me great feedback. BLC also set me up with additional parts kit vendors and there’s potential commercial interest.
Wirb: Have any firearms companies tried to pick you up? I’m genuinely surprised a lot of major developers in the community haven’t been picked up.
Stubbs: I have 10 years of experience in manufacturing and I’ve done things for all sorts of end users from medical to military, but I’m not cut out for a desk job. I suffered a few major TBIs in an electrical engineering field so I’m basically deaf and mentally uncoupled from societal norms.
Wirb: I saw a picture a while back of you with a hearse and a camoed M231. That your daily driver? Also, how did you end up getting a gun that rare?
Stubbs: The hearse was my one and only car, and it’s had the whole undercarriage redone. It doesn’t have mufflers, and EGR, a PCV, or a rearview mirror but it does have infrared floodlights and some armor plates I keep in the garage. The port firing guns are made from bits and pieces I’ve made or acquired as favors over the years. The one in the photo only has one real part and it’s the stock. The upper, lower and even barrel are 3D printed, with a metal rifled liner and a CMMG .22 kit providing the moving parts.
Wirb: You ever plan to release that one? I know there was a lot of interest in it after the Forgotten Weapons episode.
Stubbs: The port firing gun was put on the backburner for years but now PSA makes the Colt 9mm SMG handguard it needs and FRTs are falling from the sky. My Colt LMG and port firing guns are available if any manufacturers feel up to the challenge of associating with me.
Wirb: Wait, you’ve done a Colt LMG too?
Stubbs: The Colt M16A2E2 (ACR) and LMG were two of my first AR platform clone projects.
Wirb: What other things are are you working on right now gun and grenade-wise? Any previews we can get on upcoming projects?
Stubbs: The STG-556(V) and optic are down the line, and name gives away the SMP-44 SMG now that there’s an SMP40/I. An AA-12 I was working on is also being revived now that I have access to a better private range.
Wirb: AA-12? That’ll be interesting to see, especially after the collapse of the Invictus Arms attempt to produce them.
Stubbs: The AA-12 is a series of tubes.
Wirb: A dangerous one, apparently, hence why the ATF has been so insistent on meddling with any attempt to make them on the non-military side.
Stubbs: The ATF decided theirs was a machine gun because it could potentially accept original parts after modification. So can a refrigerator.
Wirb: You think they’ll try and pull that now?
Stubbs: Not once I put a super safety in it, unless they like the Nicolas Cage movie FaceOff.
Wirb: A Super Safety-compatible AA-12 – is it going to have AR-15 FCGs?
Stubbs: It’s an AR-10 platform affair but with FRT and Super Safety in mind.
Wirb: Very interesting – people will definitely be looking forward to trying it, especially in the wake of some of the new Turkish shotgun offerings.
Stubbs: The AA12 is a skeletonized lightweight frame inside a big bulky shell. It’s perfect for the classic FDM printer method. Or as I started calling it, “made of pipes and Silly String.”
Huge thanks to Stubbs for giving some of his time to take part in this interview – our next guest is still pending, but hopefully you enjoyed this dip into Stubbs’ mind, his story, and his work!
Polymer 80 Alternative
