Early WWII M2 Armorer Conversion in Belgium

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 David Albert wrote:

A European member posted photos of an M1 Carbine that is currently in Belgium that appears to be one of the initial armorer conversions to full auto (later designated M2) during WWII.  Larry Ruth provided a couple of crude drawings of this conversion on pages 827 to 829 of War Baby II, which were apparently drawn "by a Sergeant in the advance Armament party Ordnance shop in England in the fall of 1944."  I believe the photos on Machinegunboards are of one of the conversions.

Your thoughts?

If you are saying that the one posted was one of the originals made by then Sgt. Conway, ordnance specialist,  I would have to say that the picture you present is not exactly consistent with the account of Lt. Col. Conway. He stated that the trigger housing had to be drilled and tapped. The diagram further shows the spring located on the outside of the auxiliary sear.
Those crude drawings were made by Lt. Col Conway.
He also makes no mention of a rotary safety. It does look like one of the Winchester experimental safety

Lt. Col. Conway wrote to Larry Ruth and included some more information which furthered on the tapped hole.

So no, I do not think it to be one of the initial conversions. Later version? Copy?

The picture in WB3 (of unknown origin) does not appear to have the spring on the outside as does the one you picture. It is possible that it was later copied and had a design change to spring inside. It is possible it is a WW2 conversion.
What I do not have is any of the gun show conversion books that were all to commonplace back in the day. If this was laid out in any of those books I might be a little more skeptical.

In all a very interesting find. The safety I find interesting as something similar was on a Winchester tool room or prototype. Though I base this on outward appearances without regard to function.

One clue of when the safety was made might be how the flats were machined.

Edited by New2brass - May 27 2019 at 8:23pm