Has anyone seen this before? - Barrel to receiver weld.

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Originally Posted by Devil Dog

I'm sure what Joe says is true in theory, but do you really think, at this time, there is someone in the Dept. of the Army that is concerned about M1 Garands that the Army has loaned to veteran organizations 30 to 40 years ago?

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True story - Our MCL Detachment had for a number of years, four (4) 03A3s and six (6) M1 Garands in our possession. Nobody had a clue as to where the 03A3s had originated from. The M1s had been in the hands of the local High School Marine R.O.T.C. program for many years. About 4 years ago the H.S. principal issued a directive that weapons would no longer be allowed to remain on school property. As a member of our Detachment was an instructor in the ROTC program, he removed the rifles and stored them in the MCL arms locker at the local DAV hall that the MCL also meets.
The local American Legion claimed that those M1s belonged to them and that they had loaned them to the ROTC back in the 1980s. They contacted the Dept. of the Army who asked the MCL to send in a list of all rifles in our possession. Our Commandant at the time screwed up and sent in the list of the 10 rifles serial numbers (6 M1s and 4 03A3s) listing them ALL as M1 Garands. At that time TACOM ( Dept. of the Army) identified 5 of the M1s as belonging to the American Legion and we were directed to return said rifles to the Legion. This we did.
We now had one M1 and the four 03As. Last November I started the paper work to obtain six M1 Garands for our Detachment. About 2 months after submitting the paperwork I received a letter from TACOM stating that we had in our possession five M1 Garands. I contacted TACOM and explained that we had four 03A3s and one M1 Garand and it came to light that our Commandant had identified the 03A3s as M1 Garands.
TACOM checked there records and determined that the M1 had also been on loan to the American Legion and reported as lost by them. One of the 03A3s had been loaned by the Army to the local VFW post in 1983 and reported lost. The other three 03A3s had been loaned to a Vets Organization known as " Veterans of WW1, Lodge # ??" which had went defunct some time in the 70s. We were told to return the M1 to the Legion and to hold the 03A3s until such time as we received our 6 M1 Garands.
Last month we received the six M1 garands and returned the four (4) 03A3s to the CMP. All seems to be back on track and everyone, the MCL, the American Legion and the Dept. of the Army are happy.

My guess as to what happened in the case of the 03A3s was that when the WW1 organization went defunct whoever handled the disposition of whatever property they had did not know that the 03A3s belonged to the Dept. of the Army. Thinking they were property of the defunct organization they were donated to one of the other Veterans organizations in town. Marines being Marines ,some how ended up with these rifles.:dunno:

Point of all this is that, believe it or not, the Dept. of the Army does have records of weapons loaned out years ago and that someday lax record keeping and control can come back to haunt you. Joe

I came back from the range. The rifle still shoots about 6 inches at 50 yards. I did find before taking it out that the stock was in contact with the barrel. I couldn't even slip a dollar bill between them. I shaved a little wood off the stock. It didn't seem to help. I can't see any noticable bend in the barrel, but according to my math, 5.4 inches right at 50 yards would indicate a push at the barrel of .003 inches. I find myself hoping for a bent barrel. The other problem may be a warped reciever.
Here is a list of the things I have done or had done,
1. pulled the barrel
2. re-installed barrel and corrected the indexing
3. Have swapped out the gas tube three times.
4. Shaved wood that may have been in contact with the stock
5. Barrel recrowning
6. Cut gas lock off of gas tube, filed the weld.

Have I missed anything? Is there something else I should check? What is the likelyhood that the reciever is warped? The op rod doesn't jump track (which would indicate to me a warped reciever. There doesn't seem to be an abnormal wear patterns outside of the park on the left side of the barrel where it was in contact with the stock.
Any advice would be appriciated.

As others have said the purpose served by the weld at the barrel is hard to imagine. I do believe there is but one logical reason: The barrel didnt tighten sufficiently by the time it reached index. The weld keeps it in place despite not being naturally tight. I would never try and shoot such a rifle. Why take the risk-there are millions of good M1's out there!!

There has been a little blow up with the vfw in texas they were sent a letter from the army that wanted an inventory of all stores LOANED( rifles ,tanks, cannons) and warning of possible repercussions if they were not located and accounted for I will look for the link and post it.

Here is the link. They are demanding an inventory of weapons that may have been in their inventory one hundred years ago.

Government Demands Inventory of All VFW Weapons

I am giving up on my cerimonial garand. It still shoots right and I think the weld warped the receiver. It seems to be a crap shoot with the cerimonial rifles. Some on this post seem to have great rifles (I personally know someone with a great rifle), but in my case it is too messed up. It is not a complete loss. I have a great parts kit for another garand . Many of the parts were new old stock. If you find one of these at a gun show, keep in mind it-

1. May be stolen government property
2. May be so messed up it is only worth the parts
3. Not a collectable, can never be made into a collectable
4. It may possibly be a complete pain in the neck and not worth the hastle to make it servicable or function correctly.

Don't pay top dollar for these and view them as parts kits. Given the fact that there are so few parts kits, they may be worth the hastle. You may even get lucky and find that the rifle needs very few alterations, but you might have an experence like mine. This is the second one I have dealt with. The first was a relitives. He bought his as an investment. It is a great shooter, but not an investment. My experence has been fifty fifty.:)

Give the CMP a call. It may well have been a former CMP sell. Good luck.