Garand help...
So..working on a "tanker" garand in 308....yes I know it's not really a thing....the receiver is not one of the big producers (i.e. Springfield, HRA, IHC, etc.) I am trying to figure out if it was a weld job or just crappy finishing in the channels. Where the oprod and bolt move I can see continuous tooling marks like my cmp Springfield one has but the discoloration had me wondering. See pic.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4tqh3csqjtzf7rz/20160520_232913.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fngsfe9c5n8zu9k/20160520_232930.jpg?dl=0
Sorry, I should have mentioned it's a federal ordnance inc. receiver. The rest of the parts seem to be a mix of IHC, SA, and some other manufacturer whom I can not identify. The barrel is a two groove, I understand that sometimes two groove surplus 03A3 barrels were modified by other companies to fit M-1s and this appears to be the case....there is no chamber sleeve or anything like that, looks to have been cut at the chamber end for the rifle. There is a solid steel spacer block that I took out of the magazine well. I am giving it a solid cleaning and greasing now as the owner seems to have neglected the rifle for some time (inside of barrel was nice and blue from muzzle to chamber). The owner said they have fired it before and that it had multiple failures to feed...given this is a design that has departed the desingers specs and the fact it was dirty and grease free when brought to me I imagine it could have been a multitude of issues.
Mark, do you know if federal ordnance welded receivers? I could not really find anything about them when Google searching or reating mY book abut m1s..
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4tqh3csqjtzf7rz/20160520_232913.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fngsfe9c5n8zu9k/20160520_232930.jpg?dl=0
Sorry, I should have mentioned it's a federal ordnance inc. receiver. The rest of the parts seem to be a mix of IHC, SA, and some other manufacturer whom I can not identify. The barrel is a two groove, I understand that sometimes two groove surplus 03A3 barrels were modified by other companies to fit M-1s and this appears to be the case....there is no chamber sleeve or anything like that, looks to have been cut at the chamber end for the rifle. There is a solid steel spacer block that I took out of the magazine well. I am giving it a solid cleaning and greasing now as the owner seems to have neglected the rifle for some time (inside of barrel was nice and blue from muzzle to chamber). The owner said they have fired it before and that it had multiple failures to feed...given this is a design that has departed the desingers specs and the fact it was dirty and grease free when brought to me I imagine it could have been a multitude of issues.
Mark, do you know if federal ordnance welded receivers? I could not really find anything about them when Google searching or reating mY book abut m1s..
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When I was 18 I bought my first Garand, a Harrington & Richardson. Brought it home to show my brother and he said it was a reweld and showed me the welding channel, I'll never forget what that looked like.
Unfortunately you have a reweld, and I was able to zoom your first
picture up to 200% and it's just not discoloration, you can see the
weld channel.
The second picture is too fuzzy, but that side looks only discolored,
and cannot tell if it was cut all the way through.
I was afraid to shoot my first garand and brought it back to the gun
store, he refused to refund me so I had sold it there on consignment.
I would be afraid to shoot your completed rifle, just my 2 cents.
Thor0 -
When I was in high school, I and a friend would go see Mr. Elmer Balance on Weir Road in San Antonio, Texas. Mr. Balance would buy cut up M-14 receivers as scrap metal for dollars/ton. He would have them sent to a forge where they re-welded the receivers back together. Some of the receivers where select fire ones and the BATF officers would show up and seize them as machine gun parts. When that happened it was always an interesting thing to me. Mr. Balance would see me and ask me to look in the box of machine gun parts and ask if I thought they were machine guns. I looked and the BATF officers would ask me politely to step away from the machine guns - we both thought that was really funny. Anyway, Elmer Balance ended up I believe founding the company called "The Springfield Armory" or at least the name of the company. 0 -
I've heard a couple of stories about Fed Ord, but we have little documentation of their operations; this was before Al Gore invented the Internet, so Google won't help.
Fed Ord DID make cast receivers for their M14 rifles. I don't think that they ever made M1 receivers. Since USGI M1 rifles in civilian hands were scarce in the '60s & '70s, welding demilled receiver halves was not uncommon for small shops. So, since your rifle has Fed Ord markings, it sounds likely that they "manufactured" receivers by welding.
The main reason that most "tankers" malfunction is the op rod; that had to be cut & welded, then bent (by trial & error) & fitted to the rifle. If THAT is your problem, you may not be able to fix it. SA Inc is the only production shop that consistently made reliable tankers.
The barrel worries me. As I recall, 1903 barrels were sometimes altered by cutting off the breech end, & welding to an M1 barrel breech stub. Your chamber may have an adaptor that is stuck tight, & can only be seen if you have a gunsmith's fiber optic bore scope. I assume that you are sure that the chamber is really .308.
It might be best to return the rifle to the owner with a CONDEMNED tag, rather than risk injury to yourself (or him).
Neal0 -
i think all m-14 receivers were deemed full auto machine guns and needed to be regestered. mr myopic. 0 -
So based on the info shown in my last link of pictures provided I am very confident that it is a cast reciever....I'm not seeing the weld channel previously discussed. 0 -
FedOrd did make M1 receivers, but they had a worse reputation than their M14 type receivers. The receivers are cast and their issues, in addition to being misaligned and poorly machined, included being out of dimension in a number of key areas, most notably in the bolt engagement lugs and the receiver bridge surfaces. The engagement lugs and receiver bridge are critical because if those dimensions are even slightly out of spec the bolt won't lock, and the hammer, which cams with the bolt, cannot strike the firing pin.
Some of these FedOrd Tanker rifles work fine, while others are best parted out. Hopefully yours works.0 -
quote:Originally posted by mark christian
FedOrd did make M1 receivers, but they had a worse reputation than their M14 type receivers. The receivers are cast and their issues, in addition to being misaligned and poorly machined, included being out of dimension in a number of key areas, most notably in the bolt engagement lugs and the receiver bridge surfaces. The engagement lugs and receiver bridge are critical because if those dimensions are even slightly out of spec the bolt won't lock, and the hammer, which cams with the bolt, cannot strike the firing pin.
Some of these FedOrd Tanker rifles work fine, while others are best parted out. Hopefully yours works.
Thanks for the info...I'll let the owner know.....as for me, I'll stick to my SA service grade:-)0 -
I could not get an interior receiver photo of quality so I had to take this off the web, but this shows the key point of the receiver interior and the source of most of the trouble: 
Notice the deep recess in the left side of the bolt (8 O'clock). There is a spur on the hammer which must seat in that recess in order for the hammer face to strike the firing pin. You can see the spur at the upper right side of the hammers shown in my photo:
If the receiver bridge is out of spec then the firing pin cannot be rotated properly, the bolt can't lock, the hammer spur cannot cam with the bolt, and the hammer face cannot strike the firing pin. These are all key safety features that will prevent the M1 from firing out of battery, but are also the cause of numerous failures to fire in rifles which have receivers which are out of spec.0 -
Mark! You are a wealth of knowledge! Thanks so much....it amazes me the kind of thought that was put into this design to make it function as safely and reliabily as it does. Makes one wonder what the next big thing will be in firearm design. 0
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