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Posted: 5/18/2008 12:05:52 PM EDT
A reenactor brought in a M1 and a spare receiver for me to do a barrel swap due to a cracked receiver.. I dont thik those were standard blanks he was using!? |
it's what happens when you use rifle grenade blanks or other blanks that are too hot for the blank adapter aperture size. I've seen a few other brain-trusts in the re-enacting field do that as well. All were the result of the bolt striking the back of the receiver with a bit much gusto from hot blanks. |
Thanks, I understand the "what happened and what was done improperly". My question is: Is the heel of the receiver the weak point and this is a common area of cracks or only due to the misuse of improper blanks? |
The only time I've personally seen the receiver heel cracked or split off was from blanks that were too hot. Failures I've seen with live ammo normally resulted in some other failure, but not with the receiver heel. |
this can also happen from shooting overpower or overweight commercial loads through an M1 |
| I have seen many crack like that- all reenactors rifles. I saw one guy who continued to use his rifle with the whole back of the receiver cracked off!!!! Someone else reported him to the safety committee at the event and even after it was explained to him why he could not continue to use his rifle like that he was mad and siad he had no intention of getting it fixed since "it still worked fine". The problem is not so much with grenade launching blanks-which are now rare, but with homemade blanks since USGI blanks have all but dried up on the suplus market. Reenactors want loud which is fine but then they continue to use GI blank adapters which are set up for low power USGI blanks. What makes it worse is you have companies making blanks for semi aut 1919 and BARs with more power to cycle these and they are all made with regular unmarked 30-06 brass so when the get resold and or mixed at events you get even more problems. |
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