Springfield, Smith Corona, Remington, Rock Island

SAFETY of Reactivated drill rifles

Subject: Intentional Circulation and Distribution of Defective Firearms

The Problem Statement : There is a company in West Virginia called Navy Arms http://www.navyarms.com they are the parent company of two other companies Gibbs Rifle Company http://www.gibbsrifle.com/ and Old Western Scrounger http://www.ows-ammo.com/catalog/. And a company on long island Orion 7 enterprises. All save for the last are owned by Forgett Militaria, LLC.
These people are selling and distributing firearms which have been created from reactivating deactivated "Springfield 03" firearms. These firearms are deactivated by having the barrels welded to the receivers or actions, having the cut off switch welded on the receiver and welding a rod in the barrel in the chamber.
The welds were made with stainless welding rod the receivers are carbon steel. Little or no heat/process control was used and certified welders did not accomplish the work. Especially critical is the weld where the barrel was welded to the forward receiver RING. No controls were in place to control heat effected zones and I can say to you with authority that everyone I have looked at has had the heat treatment of the forward portion of the ring breached by this process. I have now examined 37. Attached are some images where we etched the weld and you can see the Weld material extends greater than 50 % through the ring. The heat effected zone extends 100% of the thickness of the ring. Further look at the weld porosity. One of these images should shows extensive pitting and gas inclusions.

Other Rifle Welding Examples

M1 Garand rifles were not welded on the forward ring, they were welded on the back soft portion of the receiver. Secondly, the heat effected welded area was reheattreated after the welding to stop the seventh round fail to feed problem. The Seventh Round stoppage repair for the first 50,000 or so were made to the bullet guide channels on the rear of the receiver. I have 5604, 1064 and 20295 here on the desk in the office you can see the repairs in the discolored Parkerizing. These receivers were then run through the heat treating process a second time at Springfield Arsenal, Springfield, Mass. These were made during a large factory recall and few of these receivers escaped the recall. So the assertion that receiver rings were ever welded on this model rifle on cannot be made.

Modifications to bolts of Springfield 03 and 03A3 rifles are made all of the time at the rear of the bolt and with huge copper heat sinks stuck in the hollow bolt bodies to protect the metallurgical integrity of the bolt face and bolt lugs. I have one here whose face blown off I found at a gun show in junk that was not accomplished correctly

Demilled M-1 Garand's are not welded on the rings but about 3 inches back from the face of the receiver. There plenty of written documented resources that state never fire one of these. It is universally agreed these should not be fired under any circumstances.

Col EC Crossman has extensive commentary on the early 03 failures due to heat treatment issues in his book. He looked at about 3 dozen failures. There is a great concern/prediction that quite soon one of these reactivated rifles will blow up and injure someone. I personally contacted Ed Flynn of Rock Island Arsenal in Moline Illinois told me on the phone last week that in his opinion I was correct in saying none of these rifles should NEVER be fired again. Mr. Flynn is the chief science and technology officer there for military small arms.
Next I contacted Orest Michaels of the Civilian Marksmanship Program at Anniston Alabama a government owned corporation and he has agreed in writing and will place a notice on their web pages identifying the defect and that the Rifles should never be shot again. Further he stated that all deactivated drill rifles came with a disclaimer that stated that all of the drill rifles sold by CMP

I am writing you because this whole scheme of reactivation of these rifles in inherently dangerous and because these rifles in these described conditions have been sold in your states.

I personally am concerned because it is hard to tell if you are shooting near someone in competition if one of these explosive devices is present or not.

You can tell if you're shooting next to someone who has one of these hand grenades by the staining on the Parkerizing at the cutoff switch sometimes. There two differing crystal structures present and they discolor differently. The other way is to separate the metal from the stock and look on the bottom of the ring for weld marks or grinder marks. If this was re parkerized, a phosphate coating, there is a stain there. I would suggest to any sponsoring organization that any Springfield, Remington, Rock Island or Smith Corona 03 0r 03A3 or 03A4 rifles be gone over with a fine tooth comb before you plunk your money down. Use extra effort to determine if they were reactivated especially ones from Navy Arms, Old Western Scrounger, Gibbs Rifles or Orion 7 enterprises.

What I want you to do. Help prevent someone getting hurt. ATF and SAMMI have no jurisdiction or regulatory authority because it is not illegal to reactivate firearms. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has no authority over firearms safety. The industry is supposed to be self regulating.

So please help get the word out before someone gets seriously gets hurt

Thanking you all in advance



Notice the weld bead at the bottom of the front ring and that the receiver has been faced off




Notice the cut off switch has been reactivated by reaching the welded area here. Feel free to pass this on to whom ever
It doesn't look like my pictures took write me and I will send them along

Michael Macky


References:
Orest Michaels [omichaels@odcmp.com]
edward.flinn@us.army.mil
Director of Science and Engineering Rock Island
309-782-7924
Paul Briggs Manager of Shop Rock Island
309-782-3592
JMTC 309-782-6854 Rock Island
Safety Office 309-782-1380 Rock Island
309-782-6116
309-782-0104