Battlefield 1942 Mods, Modding Tutorials & Forums

hey all, just a couple random questions..
first off can anyone tell me how to create a totally new weapon in bf1942.
What I wanna do is replace the colt with the beretta, the thompson with the mp5 and the bar1918 for an m16 and the sniper for a scoped m4carbine. Now the models have been made and Im confused as to how to add those weapons to the actual game. Ive imported them by replacing just the models but i want to completely replace the entire weapon.
I know editing certain .con files can tweak things a bit but i need a little more advancement here...

Do I havto fool around with animation or player files? the arms and reloading animations are messed up for all the new guns except the beretta.
Any tips/tutorials on texturing weapons? Ive looked all around the net and still am empty handed.

Thanks all!

Sorry. All of my Battlefield modding skill is in the scripting and moving files around. I know nothing about how to create new files/objects.

Most logical thing I can think of is to use an existing weapon's info and base your model around that. I would think that makes animating it much easy. Just wait until mrhowdoimod or Archimonday (so many ways to spell your name >.<) responds, they know their stuff.