My recent post of a new nailgun, with only the information that I’d received in my e-mail, drew the attention of the DeWalt-16’s creator David Wiggins. Dave graciously provided us with more pictures and the story behind his cool tool-themed M-16.

It started when Dave saw the picture below, back in 2003, and thought, “I can do better than that.”

Dave says, “I’d just picked up a new (to me) M-16 and was in the process of fixing it up a little. It needed new furniture anyway, so I sourced the safety yellow stock, guard, and grip. Then, I went down to the DeWalt factory service place a few miles from the house to get a sticker. There, I saw they had brand new battery casings, so I picked up one of those too. I got home, found a short magazine , and got to work.

“I traced an approximation of the size hole I’d need in the top of the plastic casing, and slowly dremeled away the plastic I didn’t need. Once done, I epoxied the magazine body into the hole and quickly assembled everything so that I could make sure it all looked right before the epoxy set up. Once the epoxy cured, I took the mag back apart, cleaned up some of the bigger resin boogers, and then masked the top of the mag and hit it w/ some mil-spec glossy black coating (aka Krylon).”

Dave included these pictures for our viewing enjoyment: the Dewalt-16 on the cleanest workbench ever; details on the slingmount; details on the selector; and a great shot of the battery/magazine.

Three Toolmonger cheers for Dave — we always love a high-powered, fully automatic, cordless tool, and the DIY spirit just cranks it up a notch!