Welded Receivers

[ArtPahl]

My cousin (now deceased) was a USMC NCO. He was born in Nov., 1941 and went into the Corps at 17 so, 1959. He, no doubt, trained with the M1 and loved that rifle. As soon as he could, he bought one. I don't recall when, exactly, he got it but I believe it was from K-Mart. It was a Springfield with a welded receiver. Over the years, he shot everything .30/06 in it including hot reloads with slow burning powder like IMR4350 and MR3100. I don't remember him having trouble with it although I think I heard mention of an occasional dismounted op rod. Of course, he knew those rifles inside and out and had a bunch of spare parts.

Out of curiosity, I borrowed it from him in late Spring of 1996 to shoot it on my 100 yd. range across chronograph screens. I started with the regular loads that I used in my bolt guns but backed off when the numbers showed higher than I knew they should. What I remember best about his rifle is that the front sight was very noticeably right of center in order to get the shots to hit the bull. Apparently the two halves of the receiver were not lined up perfectly. The rifle shot quite well. I fired 5-shot groups and according to my notes, I must have used the same 20 TW53 cartridge cases for all 16 groups. The average for all 16 groups was 3.85" with the best load of 52 gr. of RL15 with 150 gr. Sierra spitzer bullets averaging 2.26" for four 5-shot groups. But that load at 2841 fps would not be one I'd use now--I'd cut it to 49 gr. or so.

I guess my point is that even those welded together M1's were more than useful. My cousins name was Michael Lem Gross: He served 20 years in the USMC including 2 tours in Viet Nam plus many years after that in the Army National Guard. He went by the nick-name "Mongo". RIP, Mongo!

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