Browning Transit Chest

Cick on this link to see some of the chests that have been made & a few Tips too.

   First, I want to thank those of you who gave me feedback early on. It was helpful in sorting some things out.
   An important point to remember in transit case design is how quickly it becomes too heavy to lift. The 1919A4 is 31 lb.. I made my transit case out of very light pine, and it is 40 lb. empty. A small amount of weight could be saved by leaving out the armorer's mount and some of the compartment partitions, but it would still be heavy. Also, the box is 45" long (The gun is just over 41") and I can barely reach the two handles (I'm 6 feet tall). I'm probably more gimped up than most of you, but I realized as soon as I put the gun on the stack of wood I was going to use and lifted it that I would not be able to carry this thing if it had more than just the gun inside.
   So, the first thing you will need to decide is what your weight limitations are going to be, and exactly what you want a transit box for. I knew mine would be used mostly to hold the gun and parts here at the house. I live in the country and my shooting range in outside the back door. Once I realized the box would not be something I could carry alone, I bought a small dolly (pictured below), and the gloves were off. I put all of the basics in the thing - it weighs a little over 100 pounds. But I have a dolly - I'm good to go. You will come up with the layout that suits you.

The dolly pictured was $30 at our local Staples office supply. It's rated at 200 lb.. They had one rated 100 lb., but the wheels were too small for uneven ground. This is a more versatile solution as I can also haul my tripod case, ammo, gear, etc. And $30 - I couldn't have gotten off cheaper putting wheels on the transit case, if my time is worth anything to me.

What did the original shipping crates look like? Click on image at right to see some photos.

Click on any image to enlarge.

Here is the finished box crammed into my little computer room where I keep most of my WII goodies. I pushed the back legs of the M2 tripod together so the gun would sit on the box. I got the 30.06 dummy ammo from Northridge - dated '43. Belt is dated 1942.
The makeup of the case is simple. It's basic ammo box construction. I have tried to keep the box as small as possible. This version is:

45" long
11" wide
11 1/4" tall

Olive drab, of course. I made a stencil by printing it on a sheet of card stock (landscape and as big as will fit), covering the lettering with clear packing tape (top side only and don't overlap tape), then cutting the letters out with an Exacto knife. See below for a stencil font. You can see the stencil in the above photo, at the far right.

Here are some weights and dimensions which might be useful in determining the size and weight of a proposed design.

ITEM WEIGHT LENGTH

1919A4                                            31 lb.              41.155"
1919A6 (w/stock & Flash hider)     32.5 lb.              53"
Extra Barrel                                          7 lb.              24" x 1 1/4"
Barrel Bearing (2 piece)                     14 oz              3" x 1 7/8" approx.
Tripod                                                14 lb.             27" L, 6 1/4" W, 4 3/8" Deep - Folded
Pintle and T&E                                     5 lb.             Pintle: 3 3/4" x 3" (Top view) x 5" Tall
                                                                                T&E: 3" x 5 1/2" x 8 1/4" approx.

I made this True Type stencil font & named it Browning. Word processing software is really just a graphic program which specializes in images of letters, but they are still just images, and a picture can easily be substituted for a letter. For instance, in the Browning font, if you hit the ">" key, you get this:

Click on any one of these for a larger version. I used the bomb to make a stencil. The others are just cool.

If you want to see more of the Browning related images contained in this font, click on the machine gun above. If you want to download this font, click on the "Browning.ttf" graphic above. Once the font is downloaded, drop it in your Windows/Fonts directory.

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