Inland spring tube conversion?

[alco3]

Hello Everyone. I have a low 5 digit Inland receiver & barrel in remarkable shape. However the drilled spring tube was near paper thin and it has not only cracked at least 2" but a small strip between two parallel cracks is actually gone. Is it possible to convert this to a spring tube? Without having an Inland spring tube on hand to pattern a conversion after it seems pretty tough, but I've got the tools ... advice please?

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[Mikey51]

Thanks for the post ! This could lead to some very interesting conversation ! Have you got the "books", (Ruth). While we are on the subject, I only have one, and have never seen another Quality, so is this finish right guys?, I suspect it is not, but have nothing to compare it to. I do know it's a mixer. Cheers, Mike. N.Z.

[gmbellew]

Hello Everyone. I have a low 5 digit Inland receiver & barrel in remarkable shape. However the drilled spring tube was near paper thin and it has not only cracked at least 2" but a small strip between two parallel cracks is actually gone. Is it possible to convert this to a spring tube? Without having an Inland spring tube on hand to pattern a conversion after it seems pretty tough, but I've got the tools ... advice please?

do you have a picture of the reciever showing this area? it sounds like my 5 digit inland, minus the cracks.

[ammodave]

I have a 6 digit Inland that sounds similar to yours. I took it to my local gunny and he TIG welded the cracks filling in the missing material with weld. I ground the exterior back down to near the original contours and it works great.

[Bruce McAskill]

Some early Inlands left the plant with a gap in the tube area similar. As it was not considered to be a critical problem it was used as such. The deep hole drilling was not perfected yet so any receiver that worked OK was used even if it didn't look quite right.

[alco3]

First, thanks to everyone who responded to my original post. I learned more in a few minutes from you guys than from all my reading. I’ve got a machine shop so I can do the work myself. Seem the first step would be to anneal the receiver as it is pretty tough (Rockwell 40-45) and if I go about trying to mill off the thin/broken tube area it is liable to tear apart and break off the already fragile top piece that you need. Then you do the milling and fit the spring tube. Then you heat treat the receiver and refinish. The problem with my particular receiver is that it has 4 cracks. Three are of no consequence as they will be removed. The troublesome one runs about an inch from the barrel end of the receiver in the bottom of the 90 degree V created by the top of the spring tube/slide area and the receiver. In other words part of the spring tube portion is detached from the receiver itself. All that said, I suppose I could TIG weld this crack and then surface grind the receiver back to original dimensions so that the weld would disappear … and then finally heat treat back to Rockwell 45 and repark. Sounds like a lot of work to produce a receiver that will have been repaired in a manner the factory would have had nothing to do with, I’ll bet.