Informational post on Gibbs 1903 a4

[Calif-Steve]

jdmcomp:I think he was actually thanking you for a straight up review. Not a snide comment. One thing does bother me about the magazine review. They had a real 03-A4 AND a replica rifle in the article. I could not figure out which the article was talking about. More then just a little confusing. Calling a drill rifle a "dewatted training rifle" tells me what? I thought dewats were machine guns. I would like to see some photos of a customer's rifle. Would someone post some photos? Thanks guys.

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[JGaynor]

jdmcomp:I think he was actually thanking you for a straight up review. Not a snide comment. One thing does bother me about the magazine review. They had a real 03-A4 AND a replica rifle in the article. I could not figure out which the article was talking about. More then just a little confusing. Calling a drill rifle a "dewatted training rifle" tells me what? I thought dewats were machine guns. I would like to see some photos of a customer's rifle. Would someone post some photos? Thanks guys.

Steve you are right. The term "DEWAT" stood for deactivated war trophy. these were mainly fully automatic weapons that had been deactivated by having a steel plug welded into the chamber. Some of the more concientious sellers also welded the barrel to the receiver.

"DEWATS" were widely sold over the counter or thru mailorder ads from outfits like Service Armament Co.(Forgett again!), Interarmco, Hy Hunter and many others. Some of the deactivation jobs were not very good. A writer for the Saturday Evening Post (IIRC) picked up a Thompson from one source and a new barrel from Numrich put the two together and wrote a story about it for the magazine.

At any rate the 1968 gun law killed the DEWAT program once and for all. Since then the term "DEWAT" has had little meaning except as it refers to the pieces registgerd under the 68 amnesty.

Since that time the govt DEMILLs surplus weapons by cutting them in pieces, crushing them or burning holes them to the point where it is real diffficult (but not necessarily impossible) to put them back together.

Regards,

Jim