Suit top cover separation

[mrclark303]

Evening all, last Wednesday I was happy shooting my Lithgow L1 at my local range, alongside a good friend, fellow L1 owner and Milsurper, when the inevitable happened and my SUIT and mount sheared its rivets, ejected from the spot welded top cover mount and bounced off my hard head...

I checked my spare SUIT and mount and that's had two holes neatly machined into the underside of the top cover and two new rivets installed (pics when I get a chance).

Was this a standard repair, or where failed mounts rare in service?

Cheers John

Information

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[browningautorifle]

I think Peter has spoken about this very failure here...

[nzl1a1collector]

John, if you can post pics of covers I will let you know whats original. I think the main issue is there are a lot of covers out there at were from the SAWES equipment. The covers didn't need to be as robust as the system used blanks, not live rounds.

All original covers I have and seen have two or three square holes on the underside of the body cover so you can see the mounting plate.

[skiprat]

The original mounts had the 2 square holes in the topcover for the rivets I think these original mounts are stronger than the reproduction mounts that don't have the square holes (these reproductions also have aluminium rivets!!! I believe that doesn't help their robustness)

I have repaired these by drilling out the rivets all the way through the top cover, then enlarging the hole in the topcover to take the head of a machine screw, tap the (now detached) mount to accept the screws, then rivet over the screw threads... you also need to make sure the screw heads don't interfere with the bolt carrier.

There are some new reproduction mounts (with square holes in the top cover) that have 5mm screws formed over to look like the rivets and they are also plug welded to the pressed steel mount.

[mrclark303]

Thanks Kev and Andy, my back up mount has two square holes, I asumed that was the repro and my main example (without holes) was the original .... Wrong!

Goes to show, always something new to learn from our very knowledgeable team!

Pics when I get a chance guys, just hope my hard head hasn't damaged the SUIT!

[Peter Laidler]

Mind you, the originals weren'a all that much to shout about. Remember. SUIT = Shooter Usually In Trouble

[CINDERS]

[mrclark303]

Well, this shooter was in trouble Peter, narrowly avoided a black eye as my SUIT smacked into my forehead!