Originally posted by lazs2
dago... the gunsmith in town told me that he had two m1's with cast recievers that won't hold headspace but I have never personally seen one.
I don't know if you are right or not about the "50,000 rounds" you may be... my gunsmith may be... all the companies switching back to forged recievers may be or the cheapo foriegn manufactureres and you may have the real answer..
My point? why take a chance... with 50,000 cpu of pressure in the typical ought six... I want the best reciever there is... My Garand has met the test over several battles.
mav... that is about how I feel about it... I would grab one of the 44's and make a silenced 22 semi auto rifle in the garage and stash all the other stuf for a while... If I needed more or the situation changed I could go to the stash or pick up whatever dead guys gun I liked.
Isn't someone gonna talk me out of spending a grand or so on a marlin lever carbine in 45-70 and the dies and brass and all that stuff?
lazs
Actually a good receiver should last closer to 400k - 500k rounds if fed the proper ammo, but that is not important as we will never fire that much.
Out of curiousity, I searched all the major M1A forums to see if this phenomenon was ever mentioned, and all I could find are the following three posts in one thread (in the order they were in ) with respect to receiver wear:
1) In Boston's Gun Bible, he mentions one SAI M1A that has receiver stretch. That's the only one I've ever heard of. 2) I'd like to meet some one who has the time to shoot enough rounds to wear out a M1A reciever. That said, even IF you could shoot enough to wear one out, Springfield will replace it, period.
No matter if you bought it new or used.
Pesonally, I just do not believe the M1A is prone to streaching. Futher more, if we knew what we do today about metal casting etc when the M1A was developed, I would not be suprized if they would not have been cast in the first place, IMHO. 3) I did have a nice discussion of the strength differences between a cast and forged receiver with my gunshop owner here a while ago who is a retired engineer from Pratt Whitney, working many years on military equipment and also a M14 enthusiast himself and the owner of 5 original class III M14's, one of them being a Smith build of a TRW receiver and parts. He said clearly that with modern casting techniques, a modern cast M14/M1A receiver is at least 80 to 90% as strong, if not as strong as a forged M14 receiver, and either way none of us would likely wear out or see a worn out receiver in our lifetime. I would have to say myself, that the main difference a person might see in a LRB receiver compared to a Springfield or other casting done right, might be the machining done closer to original usgi spec which would be better with mating some mounts and parts, but strength is not anything a person should worry about.There pretty much seems to be agreement on the fact that a good cast receiver even when fired regularly will outlast the owner and probably his sons and grandsons.
I suspect if your gunsmith couldnt headspace, it was more likely his problem, because certainly rebarreling a rifle would allow any good gunsmith to set headspace, and in most cases replacing the bolt would allow it also. He just has to cut the chamber to the right dimension, headspacing is done between chamber and bolt face in the closeed position, and there is precious little receiver between those points. How could that tiny amount of receiver stretch enough to prevent headspacing?
While LRB is making forged receivers, and another one or two may soon bd doing it, it is more to satisfy a customer demand than correct a deficiency. Same as a buyer who wants only TRW parts, when all USGI parts were pretty much built to exactly the same tolerance, same specs, same materials and there has never been any practical or proven reason to feel one is superior to the others when all meet USGI specs.
dago
