OT but still Commonwealth

[jmoore]

Interesting, never heard of them!

What, Pedersen rifles or warbird restorers? You would find incredible how little original equipment is part of some flying aircraft. We were doing brand new factory interchangible fuselages for P40s. 100% new. Including engine mount forgings. New stringer extrusions. Canopy rail extrusions. Tail gear attach brackets. Castings, everything!

Had started on brand new wings, but the workload bacame too much- this wasn't my primary job, and I had aging parents.

How small is that market?!!!

[TonyE]

The clips for the Vickers Pederson rifles are extremely rare here in the UK despite quite large amounts of ammunition being made by both Kynoch and Greenwood & Batley, including Proof rounds.

Picture shows British made rounds for the Vickers by both manufacturers. Note the round on the right is a Proof with the bullet seated further out to accommodate the additional charge. Case head has purple stripe.

Regards
TonyE

[Gibbs505]

Pedersen Rifles. I have heard of the pedersen converson of the 03 but not this little item!

[m4carbine]

Mr Moore,
New fuse for P40's??? Very cool, I am a hugh Warbird fan. The University of WI. Madison had a P-51B hanging in the Mechanical engineering building COMPLETE! A year before I went to school there (1981) they got a new Dean. He came in looked around and said "this is all in the past, We need to BE the future... get rid of it!" so they pulled it down, took it apart and stuck it in an ally behind the building. It leaned against the wall with the wing behind it and the horizontal stabs propped up next to it... waiting for the trash service to haul it as scrap! it was not rescued, it was cut and crushed!!! I guy I worked with at the school had a picture of it in the ally, I almost cried!

[Paul S.]

... The University of WI. Madison had a P-51B hanging in the Mechanical engineering building COMPLETE! A year before I went to school there (1981) they got a new Dean. He came in looked around and said "this is all in the past, We need to BE the future... get rid of it!" ...

The new Dean must have been the only twit on the planet to have not heard the old adage that we learn from the past.

[jmoore]

Georgia Institute of Technology had a Bf 109 and a FW190. I met the fellow who bought the 190, he sold it for ten times what he paid , but that figure is about 1/20 of peak valuation!51s litter the countryside in comparision, but folk like 'em.

Yah, the madman I was helping quit his car painting job to restore P40's. No money, but personality, enthusiasm, and a certain ruthlessness made him probably the best and most accurate reconstructor for Tomahawks, Kittyhawks, and US P40s out there. We even back engineered the main landing gear attach forgings. The engine mount forging dies were constructed so that they would work with everything from P36s on througth the late models. It's also where I learned not to trust factory drawings.

[Victor Six Bravo]

The Pedersen was the 'other' rifle the M1 really competed against.

.276, greased IIRC to feed correctly as nobody had figured out fluted chambers yet.

When MacArthur (right or wrong) ordered it changed to .30-06, that toggle system (designed for the .276) apparently couldn't be changed so quick (major redesign) and the M1 could be quickly changed.

Both the Pedersen and M1 were tested in England. I've seen many pics, but never seen a Pedersen rifle "in the wild". Assumed the MOD had all of them, or they had been destroyed.

That is a serious piece of history you have there.

[jmoore]

The M1 clip conversion to the Pedersen may be a variation on this bit of prototyping I did to fab up a 10 round Garand during the late "ban" years.








A bit of skilled TIG welding (in this case I was just going to weld the sides and leave the back alone to preserve the "springiness") and it might just function- after a whole lot of trial and error work!

[Peter Laidler]

Was/is that jig just a symmetrical cutting jig JM?

[smelly sam]

A rifle that oozes some of Pedersen's finest design work helped by the exceptional VA engineering. He would have driven them nuts during production.

The same man that beat Colt's patents with the Rem Model 51, the most ergonomic of handguns, me thinks, that today shoots as good as it feels and not to forget the slide action centre fire rifle family, design elements of which still appear in today's Remingtons' products.

There are clips are out there, we just need to help m4carbine find them.

Guns America has / had a listing (Item Number: 999909747) for around US$15k.