Win Garand Receiver Weld Question w/pics

[Bob Seijas]

Griff is right, they were all not worn out, it was the intention of the anti-gunners to destroy
M1s rather than sell them. It was only stopped by a concerted political effort on the part of a few heroic collectors and the NRA.

The "Reweld" (the collector term used for 50 years, Rick, LOL) was invented by Bob Penny and copied by many others after Bob made so much money doing it. Those first ones were really good and hard to spot -- I got hooked with one, too.

Although I have never heard of one that failed and injured a shooter, I question the cumulative effect of firing one over a long period of time. I would not personally shoot a welded gun, as they are all quite old by now.

[Rick Cummelin]

Although I have never heard of one that failed and injured a shooter, I question the cumulative effect of firing one over a long period of time. I would not personally shoot a welded gun, as they are all quite old by now.

While I have also never heard of a failure where a shooter was injured, I agree that I would NEVER knowingly shoot a welded receiver again. Pages 79-84 of Jerry Kuhnhausen's most excellent "The U.S. .30 Caliber Service Rifles" are several photos of welded receivers that have failed by cracking at the weld(s). Jerry also feels that the silver-soldered barrels are much more dangerous to a shooter than the welded receiver. Plus, as Bob mentioned, heat-treated steel that has been welded does not get better with age--it's not a fine wine. In fact, a friend of mine who is a precision welder for Ball Aerospace (works on satellites and other space junk) has told me on several occasions that he believes welded receivers on any semi-auto rifle, that haven't been re-heat-treated, are equivalent to a grenade with the pin pulled, except we don't know how long the fuse is. Possibly a good analogy.

IMHO, shooting a welded receiver, especially with one of the silver-soldered barrels is engaging in some sort of weird Russian Roulette. Granted, you may never have a problem, but then again, it could fail tomorrow. Remember the movie "The Deer Hunter"?

Anyway, I'm still hoping we can somehow convince zrunr that he needs to find something better than a welded receiver if he wants a good shooter. Or, maybe not......

[zrunr]

I am convinced to not use a welded receiver in any firearm. I was just exploring constructive uses of the remaining GI parts other than the barreled action or just hanging the thing on a wall.

[xroads]

i replaced the receiver, bbl and trigger housing with good, used, gi parts from my parts bins (stuff left over when i disassembled complete rifles for parts i needed for restorations). cost wasn't an issue for the owner, he wanted something that he could shoot without safety issues. i cleaned up the trigger for him and properly lubed and sighted it in too. he could have had a really nice service grade CMP rifle and a couple of cans of lake city ammo for what he had into it when all was said and done. i kept the "interesting parts" for show-and-tell.

[Broken Rifle.]

This is my first post here and actually the first thread I have read. It tells me all I really needed to know and boy, did you guys put the last nail in the coffin of an already ruined week.
I inherited from my dad an "tanker" Garand that he had purchased some many decades ago. Before I was born actually. He never shot it himself and only found out it had been welded when my uncle borrowed it and blew the whole back of the receiver out.
Two things interesting about this rifle:

It's a welded mock tanker with a busted butt receiver.
And it is a .308.

I think my goofy uncle tried to stuff it full of 06 if that's even remotely possible.

I have several Garands and even a couple functional shorties but was still hoping I could make a working rifle out of this.
I'm thinking now there are many reasons I shouldn't even try unless I can verify the barrel is a good one and decide to swap out the receiver with a Blue Sky arsenal M1 I have with a bent op rod.

This is starting to look like something too expensive to jerk around with.

Anyway. Good info in here.

[browningautorifle]

Broken rifle, you're correct. The tanker's busted. Salvage any parts you can and forge ahead. Why fool with questionable rifles when you in the US can get mint guns from CMP. These guys will guide you through it. It will be far cheaper in the long run than messing with put togethers...

[Broken Rifle.]

Salvage any parts you can and forge ahead.

Yeah. I think that's the new plan.

[Joe W]

Back in the early 1970's some of these M1 receiver halfs were welded together a 1/2 inch shorter to accommodate the 7.62x51 cartridge for either en bloc or M14 magazine, work was excellent. The M1 carbines receiver halfs were also welded together too, sometimes you could find an M1 receiver with just one side of the receiver cut !

I heard that the probability of an out of battery accident is much higher with the receiver halfs welded together.

Back in the late 60s maybe early 70's a friend ordered a match conditioned M1 in 7.62 from a firm in California. It was a beautiful rifle and the match conditioning work seemed to be well done. He used the rifle in many local matches throughout the 70's, and 80's. In the late 1980's he was injured in a construction accident and left a quadriplegic. As he could no longer shoot in compitition he started collecting Military weapons. One day I was helping him clean his growing collection which included that 7.62 M1. And, you guessed it, the M1 was a "rebuild". I now wonder if it could have been one of the M1's you referred to. Sorry Rick, but I have used this term for to many years to change now. As it is said, old habits die hard.

[DaveN]

the M1 was a "rebuild". as quoted by Joe W (still trying to figure out how to do that originally posted by Joe W thing.)


Joe I'm guessing you meant "Re-weld"

[Prince Humperdink]

I shot a "Winfield"in My crazy days that actually showed light through it(a lot).It fuctioned flawlessly,except I couldn't hit anything.I tell You this only to say that the front takes most of the firing force,but in no way am I saying to shoot anything welded.That was just Me,and I'm kind of a Moron.