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PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 2:21 pm 
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Feldmarschall
Feldmarschall
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Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2007 1:48 am
Posts: 1051
Location: Washington state
In the 1960's, there was a rash of M-1 rifles and other spin-off's that were put together from parts and rewelded or cast receivers. Some of these were put together by Golden State Arms (Pasadena, Calif.) under their brand name of Santa Fe Arms. Other names that come to mind are National Ordnance and Federal Ordnance (Fed Ord), both in California. Santa Fe also assembled BM-59's, apparently under a license agreement with Beretta. Quality of the Sante Fe BM-59's has been said to be not as high as Beretta.

Then there was the morphidite cut-up M-1 rifle parts gun that I got in a trade (for a Red Nine Mauser military pistol). This was a thing called an "M-11" and was marked "Alpine" on the receiver. I have read online that Alpine was another company that assembled M-1 rifles and bogus "Tanker Garands" from surplus parts and rewelded receivers.

The M-11 was cut off so as to eliminate the forward wooden handguard, so the barrel and op rod were shortened accordingly. Here is an old, blurry picture of this horror:

Image

Originally, it had a long flash suppressor on the end of the barrel that was probably supposed to make it look evil. the suppressor was cut so as to have vents along the sides and bottom, with none in the top. This suggests an intention of having a muzzle brake. It sure didn't work very well; this rifle had all kinds of recoil and keeping the muzzle down was interesting. This rifle was chambered in 7.62 NATO, not .30-06, and the magazine arrangement was changed from 8 round en bloc to the same configuration as an M-14 and used M-14 mags.

The flash suppressor on this thing had the gas cylinder retainer made onto it. What would happen is, the weight of the suppressor would cause a harmonic to set in while being fired, and it would loosen up the gas cylinder plug. When this happened, the suppressor would get wiggle just enough to interfere with a bullet leaving the barrel. It comes as some surprise when you see your suppressor flying down-range. When I owned this rifle (1969-73), I could go to the gun show and buy a replacement suppressor. After wasting two of these, I gave up; the suppressor didn't make any difference in the use or performance of the rifle, so I just left it off. The picture above shows it without the suppressor.

These bogus "M-11" parts guns were made from rewelded receivers and retained their original M-1 US Army rifle serial numbers. Just out of curiosity, last night I looked up the serial number of the M-11, and that serial number shows that it was a Springfield Armory M-1 rifle originally manufactured in April, 1943.

Now, you are probably wondering, "Why did that idiot trade a nice (it was near mint) Red Nine Mauser military pistol for that piece of trash M-1 parts gun???" Please remember, that in those years, the Red Nine hadn't gotten anywhere near the value that they are now. For one thing, there wasn't a lot of knowledge out there at the time about Mauser pistols. The books about them were just coming out, and the internet was still decades away, much less on-line auctions. On the other hand, M-1 rifles and their clones were fairly costly in relative terms, plus the bogus M-11 came with 800 rounds of factory military ammo and some other accessories. A classic case of "You had to be there."

Here is some information re. the "M-11" that I scabbed elsewhere online:

"It should also be mentioned that “BM59 Type Rifles” were being built in the early 1960’s. Most notably, Walter Craig of Selma, Alabama offered the “M11” which was a Garand based rifle modified to accept M14 magazines. Again, these were built on re-welded receivers, and the original Garand serial numbers were used. The “M11” designation was actually stamped (or carved?) in the top of the stock, just behind the heel. I have wondered if These were designated the “M-11” to suggest to the buyer that they were just a couple of models before the M-14?"


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