M1 Auto Ordnance Advice

[browningautorifle]

Has the Thompson arrowhead

A bullet my brother...it's a bullet.

Bolt shouldn't be so hard to draw back, it does fire from an open bolt? The long barreled ones I had occasion to shoot were a closed bolt affair and yes, they were hard to cycle a round from the mag. They were a different design to original T-Guns though.

[Aragorn243]

This fires from a closed bolt. Design is supposed to be almost identical to the originals with the exception of what is necessary to make it semi-auto and commercial legal and that negates the open bolt operation. I read that some guys swapped out various parts to make them as original as possible but I don't plan to do that.

[browningautorifle]

I had one in hand some years back...about '95...and it had the long barrel and fired from a closed bolt. It had a huge actuator knob, twice as tall as original. It fired from a closed bolt. When stripped for cleaning, it had three springs in the bolt. One regular center spring, two smaller ones, located on each side up top. All three were in the bolt. The bolt was an M1 bolt and the gun was called the 1927A1. The lower had not been machined to take F/A parts, only half the machining was done and the parts had been altered. The bolt had a firing pin inside that used a long hook downward to catch the trigger and the big center spring drove it. Putting a drum on was a two man thing. One hold the bolt back and the other mount the drum. When shot, the gun actually had recoil... Eventually I swapped the 16" to a 12" barrel. It worked OK but was far from being able to just swap parts to make it F/A... It MAY have been an Auto Ord...long time ago.

[Aragorn243]

I don't think these can be easily converted to F/A. They usually make the bolts smaller or something similar to originals won't work. That's the way the Soumi rifle are. I read where guys like to swap out the stocks and stuff like that. I wouldn't mind doing that maybe to make it look more used but not a huge deal. Original magazines need something filed off the top so they work I think they are slightly taller or some such thing. This one will not accept a drum, strictly stick, like the originals, it also has the knob on the side rather than the top like the older, more expensive to build type. This is the military simplified version that started service in 1942 or so.

[browningautorifle]

The mag catch hole was usually stretched with a drill bit upward, looking oblong. Yes, yours resembles the M1, the one I had in hand was a copy of '28. It took a drum. The bolt was an M1, just more holes. The lower needed massive milling to change to auto parts.

Now, to get pics and take it out and go through a case of ammo...and tell us...

[Aragorn243]

I am hoping to get photos tomorrow, believe it or not, it's still in the box. I'm also hoping to take it to the range on Sunday but I won't be shooting an entire case. It has a 10 day repair warranty from Cabelas and I'd like to verify it doesn't have issues.

[browningautorifle]

We'll be here...