Canada's War reserve weapons storage

When the C7 rifle was adopted, all of Canada's FN C1 & C2 rifles were placed in war reserve storage ,..from what i can gather that these rifles were not properly stored....after sometime...not sure of the time frame , but these weapons were inspected and found to be rusting and their general condition was not good....then the order was given to have approx. some 75,000 C1, C2 and 9mm SMG cut up into little pieces or melted,....why were these rifles not stored in cosmoline,.....is that not the correct method of long term weapon storage.

Who knows how they were actually stored or even if they were intended to be kept in "reserve".

Given the goverments in power during the '80's and '90's I'm sure very little thought was given to the possibility that the rifles should be kept as a "War Reserve". My belief is that they were stored til a disposal plan was in place, thus the condition was irrelevant.

I personally took part in the final preparation for war storage of the last of the FNC1's, around 2,000 from Base Chilliwack in 1991. They were rebuilt/repaired. Then dipped in the oil tank filled with water displacement oil. After a half hour of draining the rifles were placed into thick plastic rifle bags with a V capsule to absorb moisture. The bags were sealed/melted with sealer. Rifles were then sent to Montreal 202 workshop for war storage.
Most were recently destroyed at ArcellorMittel #2 Melt Shop. 300 kept for museums etc.
Ironically before I was a Reg. soldier I poured steel at Dofasco as thousands of Canadian firearms were melted in the early 80's under both Tredeau and Mulrooney. Now they are being destroyed under Harper. Go figure.
A total waste of hundreds of millons of dollars! Perhaps a billion!

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Originally Posted by The Queens Medalist 86,87

I personally took part in the final preparation for war storage of the last of the FNC1's, around 2,000 from Base Chilliwack in 1991. They were rebuilt/repaired. Then dipped in the oil tank filled with water displacement oil. After a half hour of draining the rifles were placed into thick plastic rifle bags with a V capsule to absorb moisture. The bags were sealed/melted with sealer. Rifles were then sent to Montreal 202 workshop for war storage.
Most were recently destroyed at ArcellorMittel #2 Melt Shop. 300 kept for museums etc.
Ironically before I was a Reg. soldier I poured steel at Dofasco as thousands of Canadian firearms were melted in the early 80's under both Tredeau and Mulrooney. Now they are being destroyed under Harper. Go figure.
A total waste of hundreds of millons of dollars! Perhaps a billion!

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Kind of pre-dates Harper actually. The C1 SMGs were all gone 3 years ago and the C1 & C2 rifles have been gone @2 years now.

And this was a "military" decision, as we have decided that we no longer "need" a "war reserve"....:banghead:

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Originally Posted by Lee Enfield

Kind of pre-dates Harper actually. The C1 SMGs were all gone 3 years ago and the C1 & C2 rifles have been gone @2 years now.

And this was a "military" decision, as we have decided that we no longer "need" a "war reserve"....:banghead:

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Why would we need a "war reserve"? Look how peaceful the world is now, and besides, we've got the UN to protect us.

It's probably b/c a C7 cna be made almost as cheaply as it costs to degrease ad re-commission a C1A1.

Well, us Rangers were annoyed that we didn't get the C1's. They would have been much more fun than the No4's.

AFAIK, the arms that went into storage were refurbished or rebuilt prior to being placed in storage. It is my understanding that Diemaco did some of the work.

When the C7 came in, along with the C8, the contract averaged out at $1,314 per rifle, of which $300 per rifle was being paid to Colt as a royalty on "their" design.

Being that I was editing a newspaper at that time, I queried this, knowing that the US purchased M-16s during the Viet-Nam War for $109 a pop (which included royalties to ArmaLite; complete rifles at that time were $198 retail in Canada).... and I was told that "the contract included spare parts"!

With inflation over the past 35 years, we can now expect to pay about 5 grand a rifle if the Government has anything to do with it, despite the fact that you can buy essentially the same firearm for a third of that. I really don't think it would have cost all THAT much to have degreased a bunch of FALs that were already bought and paid for...... and had double the effective range of their replacements..... especially as the actual work likely would have been done by defaulters!

But this is not a political discussion: it is about the economics of firearms storage versus replacement.

It would only be political if one of us were a Lawyer who was running for office!

LOL!

Further on the issue of the C7/C8 is the pricing of ammunition.

The contract for supplying the ammunition for these was awarded to a Canadian Company which shall remain unnamed (they hate me already). Grants were given for tooling up to make the 5.56, despite the fact that the plant had been turning it out by the shipload for the US ever since the introduction of the M-16.

Ammunition which was turned loose on pallets sold, FOB the factory, for 37 cents a round. This rose to 42 cents if the ammo was packed in regular steel ammo boxes. At that exact time, you could buy Federal or Winchester in NEWFOUNDLAND (most expensive place in populated Canada at that time)... for 25 cents a shot, packed in nice little boxes of 20... and DND attempted to tell me that they were getting a really good deal on the ammo by buying it millions at a time! They actually could have bought 50% MORE ammo for the same money if they had bought it a box at a time from the local sporting-goods shop in Grand Falls!

There have been times when the old newshound in me gets the idea that perhaps somebody might not be telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Makes it REALLY hard to write newspaper articles, I'll tell you that much!
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Small Arms in Ordnance stores as war or mobilisation stockpiles are, in pure economic terms, simply an expensive way of storeing fresh air. And when the accountants are running the show, they have the whip hand

A previous thread mentioned the torched Milsurps arriving for smelting at Dofasco, in Hamilton, Ontario.

THE QUEEN'S MEDALIST 86,87 reports "Ironically before I was a Reg. soldier I poured steel at Dofasco as thousands of Canadian firearms were melted in the early 80's under both Tredeau and Mulrooney."

I can confirm that, because I, personally, saw five Gondola Type railway cars loaded with Brens, Stens, and other stuff that the Government took out of the Quebec Armories after the FLQ crisis , torched, and shipped to Dofasco.

Of course, it was a bit dark at the time, and pushing 70, my memory is not quite what it used to be. The last I saw of these railway cars, they were in the rear view mirrors of a departing, heavily laden, half ton pick-up truck, whose bed was covered by a canvas tarp, and they were receeding in the distance in the early morning darkness.

I would venture to say that if anyone has converted semi-automatic Bren Guns, with the main body welded at the gas tube under the barrel locking nut, you now have provenance for your firearm.

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Originally Posted by smellie

Further on the issue of the C7/C8 is the pricing of ammunition.

The contract for supplying the ammunition for these was awarded to a Canadian Company which shall remain unnamed (they hate me already). Grants were given for tooling up to make the 5.56, despite the fact that the plant had been turning it out by the shipload for the US ever since the introduction of the M-16.

Ammunition which was turned loose on pallets sold, FOB the factory, for 37 cents a round. This rose to 42 cents if the ammo was packed in regular steel ammo boxes. At that exact time, you could buy Federal or Winchester in NEWFOUNDLAND (most expensive place in populated Canada at that time)... for 25 cents a shot, packed in nice little boxes of 20... and DND attempted to tell me that they were getting a really good deal on the ammo by buying it millions at a time! They actually could have bought 50% MORE ammo for the same money if they had bought it a box at a time from the local sporting-goods shop in Grand Falls!

There have been times when the old newshound in me gets the idea that perhaps somebody might not be telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Makes it REALLY hard to write newspaper articles, I'll tell you that much!
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You must be from Canada. Our media hasn't told the truth in 20 years at least. Where are Burnstein and Woodward when we need them.

Yes, I was the Editor of The Pilot, a rural Newfoundland newspaper, for about 3-1/2 years, then came back home out West and ran a paper here for some years.

It is extremely difficult to run an independent paper in this country. You must toe the line and, if you don't, lots of strange things can start happening: the police start handing you false information even about highway accidents, give the straight goods to the other papers, that kind of thing. And Government just controls so MUCH advertising (all at Line Rate, too: highest rate possible).

At one time you could get bits of truth out of the Gummint, but I am not sure that I would try to run an HONEST paper today. Journalism today, in very many places, is the playground for the intellectual Left. For this, I think the Journalism schools are to blame. Just look at some of their products: semi-literate at best but they sure know how to be politically correct. Most newspapers today are covers for advertising, nothing more. Look even at Letters to the Editor: they get fifty letters against the Registry, print one and mock it or the writer or both, then they get one letter FOR it and print that, with an endorsement, just to be "fair". Same thing, a journalist today does not DARE say anything against Muslims, Jews, Jains, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians, Wiccans, Scientolgists, Falun Gong or a hundred others but it's perfectly okay to mock Christianity, especially the church of Rome. Terrorists and bandits on the Left are called "agrarian reformers" or "freedom fighters", but anything slightly to the right of Trotsky is dead meat, described as "neo-Nazi", "right-wing extremist" or some other epithet which is semantically loaded against the subject. Outright Communists are termed "socialists" and Libertarians are termed "loose cannon" or "crackpots" or "anarchists". It is NOT pretty. I'm glad I am out of it, now write fiction about a retired wizard with 3 wives who drinks too much. At least, writing down Sidney's adventures, I can be a BIT objective about things: Sidney hates all forms of Government, but he hates them all equally!

I don't think ANY media today tells anything even remotely like the truth. EVERYTHING is politically biased and 99.9% of people don't have access to the facts so they can sort it out for themselves. Obama walks on water, Stephen Harper is a Tool of Satan and THAT is the way the media tells it.
I got a press release a few days ago saying that Global Warming is now PROVEN. What proved it? Why, the "record high temperatures all across Western Canada this Summer"! I live in Western Canada and we haven't even HAD Summer this year; it has been cold and raining 9 days out of 10 for the past 5 months. Normal rainfall here is 30 inches a year: we had 22 in June and it hasn't stopped yet. The media is lying.... and so is the Government agency which sent out that press release.
It's that simple.
ALL of North America NEEDS news media which is independent and unbiased. The problem is where to get it.
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I hereby apologise for subjecting you to the above rant. YOU don't deserve it.

For my part apology accepted and may I say it was a well done rant.Thank you.

Just a thought ..... If I was a commercial producer supplying the domestic market with something or other , priced at 25cts a pop and the gov'ment invites me to tender for the supply of a vast quantity of said product , this would probably require me to invest in tooling up with more trained employees and maybe more production space , then yes , I would tender at a significantly higher price .

Makes a great deal of sense, Bill, and I can really see it your way.

Only problem is that we are cnsidering a plant that already has very large production capacity, had been supplying the Canadian Forces with 7.62mm AND exporting ast quantities of 5.56 during the Viet-Nam War.

Biggest problem with Canada is that EVERYTHING is political: CPR, ROSS Rifle, Avro Arrow, C7, you name it. And certain issues must NEVER be addressed; if you talk about these things, you are a `racist` or even worse. These issues include illegal immigration, social-programs ripoffs, fraudulent refugees, the fact that one province regularly takes three times as much out of some programs as the rest of the country put together, the same province gets special treatment for its industries as a matter of course, it has the lowest productivity and highest costs... and still gets the government contracts.

But that is part of the price we pay for being Canadians, I guess.
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Don't 'spose "that one province" is the only one that refuses to be bi-lingual ..... or have things improved since I was there (Alberta) in the mid 70's ?
We have to accept that Western urban liberal culture is successfully demonising all shooting sports and they've got big money paymasters . What is their true agenda ? It does seem that gun control is not about guns . Western culture has the most secure government systems , so why are they so paranoid about gun ownership ? I think the price you pay to be Canadian is about the same price we are all paying .