Who Made The H.T. Rotary Safety ?

[painter777]

Has The Maker Of The H.T. Rotary Safety Been Identified ?
Known to be a Post WWII part.
NSN (National Stock Number) 1005-716-2080
I often see it in a brown wrap, 1 per package. Unmarked as far as maker.
Have seen Rotary safeties in the brown wrap dated 10-63, 11-63, 12-63.




Any and All Help Appreciated,

[jimb16]

Darned if I know. Checked my notes and I don't have any references to it.

[USGI]

I'd like to know also! - Bob

[painter777]

Last Monday I had to have surgery. Severe stomach cramps I thought would pass.
Wife took charge and off we went. The Saturday afternoon before I had helped load firewood in the truck for my son. Thought maybe I'd pulled some muscle, but found out I had Flipped a section of my Intestine causing a blockage. Feeling better..... but really glad the Wife took charge. So while little projects wait I've been searching away for clues on odds and ends.

What follows is my Best Guess at who the maker of the H.T. Winged (Rotary) Safety was:

I'm trying to just concentrate on the parts Japan (Howa) made for the US Arms, Post WWII under the Supervision of the US.

1946-1949 Howa
Under the US Army Ordnance: trained and supervised personnel of the Howa owned Toyokazu Industrial site so that they could manufacture parts with the same quality as the home country (US), and also provided equipment.

Howa Source: WikiZero - 豊和M300

Korean War,
1952 Howa and other Japanese companies continued to produce for the US military.
To include:
MK2 Hand Grenades, 81mm Mortar and Airplane parts, tanks among many misc other items.

Source for 1952: Our History （Howa Machinery Firearms Dept.） | Rifle | Our Products | Howa Machinery, Ltd.

Korean War ended in late July 1953.
I've seen NSN (National Stock Number) 1005-716-2080
This being the number for the Winged (Rotary ) Safety.
I often see it in a brown wrap, 1 per package. Unmarked as far as maker.
Have seen Rotary safeties in the brown wrap dated 10-63, 11-63, 12-63.
From these 1 per pack in the wrap came H.T. Safeties.
But have also seen same marked wraps with different maker marked safeties in it.

Thoughts being...
One of the most common late War/Post War parts used to upgrade US Carbines was the Winged (Rotary Safety). We know this from known makers of these post WWII Safeties. This part swap was carried on up to Vietnam, maybe beyond.

Could it be possible that the Winged (Rotary) Safety marked H.T. was a product of Howa from Howa's Toyokazu Industrial site ?
This is my best guess.

Here is a link from our Hard Working Buddy Jim M about Howa that also includes their Post WWII Production, to include the 10,000 Howa Model 300 sold in 1966 to the Thailand Police:
Howa Machinery Ltd. M1 Carbine

FWIW,

[jimb16]

Don't we know someone who is a specialist with commercial carbine who has his own web site???!! Maybe ha could confirm your suspicions. Never mind. I see you already noted Jim Mock's site. Someone needs to drop him a note to see if he can confirm,,,

[painter777]

JimB,
Jim M and Dan P have been searching with me. Part of a club search.
So far.... Not proved , not confirmed.
My Best guess.

[jimb16]

Maybe Bill Ricca might have a lead. If anyone has his email, they might try contacting him.

[painter777]

MR. Ricca stated back in 2014~ that the maker of the H.T. Winged safety was unknown and likely would never be known. To this date no Contract information has been found.
I noted MR Ricca's comments but didn't mark down where I read them.
Knowing how good Bill was at finding and documenting Contracts..... is partly why I believe there was no single recorded Contract to be found here in the US.
My thoughts lead to believing these safeties were contracted in post War Japan, as part of a bigger contract while we had them doing their version of our Rebuild program on the Carbines, Garands etc.
All this post war rebuild and build up was done under the leadership of the new *Emperor* General MacArthur holding the post as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) until 1951 when he was relieved by President Truman. From 1945 - 1951 Emperor MacArthur pressured and received from the US government over 3.5 million tons of food and $2 billion dollars of emergency aid. A long list to include setting up a new Constitution, education...etc etc all done during his time of dominance.

Back to Howa:

Howa built many rifles for Japans war use. AS part of the rebuilding of Japan they were used to built parts under US supervision to our specifications. Exactly as we would expect from our other Sub/Prime suppliers.
We set up the equipment for them, Supervised and Inspected the parts... and note that the measurements were built to standard specs, Not Metric.
It was easier to do this because of the logistics involved. And there was no shortage of workers. The US used Japan for support both during the post WWII Occupation and Pre/during the Korean conflict.
Japan had many enemies from before hitting us at Pearl Harbor, the Chinese, Korea etc.
The US used Japan as a staging area for the upcoming battle with North Korea. And for any potential area to curb the rise of communism at the time.

Again: Howa making the H.T. safety is still my best Guess.

Those (If any) who might want to research this needs to concentrate just on Howa's Post WWII history during the occupation years up to about the Korean era ~1953.

Building the Thailand carbines, the sporting models for Japanese hunters and the later commercial versions for export have nothing to do with the US/Japan contract or these H.T. marked safeties.

Again FWIW,

[jimb16]

Sounds like you already have a good handle on this. Maybe something will turn up in the future. If I come across anything, I'll let everyone know.

[Bruce McAskill]

Charlie, I can tell you that none of the three Howa carbines I have owned or used had a safety marked with H.T. In fact the only markings on a Howa was a large H under the barrel. Packages dated 1963 of course are all well after rebuilding work ended in Japan.