bm 59 and m1a

[Brian Dick]

I have an early Springfield Armory Inc, (casting), an SEI/Smith Enterprise Inc., (milled from forged bar stock), and an LRB, (drop forged and machined as original). All are nothing less than excellent. I was blessed to get to know Hook Boutin a little bit and asked him outright about the quality of the cast receivers he'd worked on and tested over many years. He told me that the SA Inc. receivers were as good as any M14 receiver made. That is good enough for me. I think many who would consider them "junk" have no experience with them and I'd agree some of the Armscorp, Federal Ordnance and even Fulton Armory receivers I've seen leave a bit to be desired, cosmetically and otherwise. I had a Caspian receiver too that wasn't too impressive. I think like everything else, you get what you pay for. I've owned my SA since 1978 and it's on it's second barrel as rebuilt to M21 guise. I did replace all of the non GI parts with U.S. GI over time. The fact is that good quality receivers made from forgings are great but they have no real advantage whatsoever over the old Springfield which is also good quality. I've sold a few of their new rifles too with no customer complaints. Back to the Chinese rifles. I knew several competition shooters in the late 80's and early 90's that bought them just for the forged receivers and rebuilt them into match rifles with US GI components. I've never heard anything bad about them either.