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m1a1fan
Hard Corps Got Para? Joined: Jan 01 2016 Location: Virginia Status: Offline Points: 1736 |
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Yup, the wagon wheel found on an M1A1 butt plate. Can you check and see if correct? Think there is more information. If so, we should start a new thread so the blanks can be filled in.
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tenOCEE
Hard Corps Knows rear sights! Joined: Jan 01 2016 Location: East Tenn Status: Offline Points: 1330 |
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I can't compare it one today. Could take closer pics of the wheel on the housing if someone else wants to compare. My camera isn't the best.
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New2brass
Moderator Group Dan Pinto, Photo Editor Joined: Nov 29 2015 Location: CT Status: Offline Points: 4656 |
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SMI (Saginaw Malleable Iron) was the supplier of M1A1 buttplate castings. Their symbol looks like a wagon wheel. 8 spokes instead of 6, but 6 spoke wagon wheel seems consistent in their castings
The wagon wheel is not an indication of Armasteel, it is the foundry symbol of SGMI. SGMI had different formulas and Armasteel was one of them. Red BAR trigger housing Notice the 9 instead of the 3 in other picture. Hmm, sound familiar?
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m1a1fan
Hard Corps Got Para? Joined: Jan 01 2016 Location: Virginia Status: Offline Points: 1736 |
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A wagon wheel, B-197491 and then a number. Great find! Fonts looks similar to those on a butt plate
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arthur
On Point Joined: Feb 18 2016 Location: dayton,ohio Status: Offline Points: 369 |
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m1a1fan, is there a number on the bottom of the gas cylinder?
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m1a1fan
Hard Corps Got Para? Joined: Jan 01 2016 Location: Virginia Status: Offline Points: 1736 |
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@navinator - thanks for the link
@arthur - I have seen the gas cylinder and barrel flat marks on #18 but this one doesn’t have any of them. No markings on the gas cylinder. No markings on barrel flat. Piston nut looks like a type 1. It is unstaked. Piston has four circular marks on it but is unmarked. |
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tenOCEE
Hard Corps Knows rear sights! Joined: Jan 01 2016 Location: East Tenn Status: Offline Points: 1330 |
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My sig: Seen an IP or S'G'? Add it to my registry. We'll check consecutives.
https://grandrapids.wufoo.com/forms/zzlnt0519k86xs/ |
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m1a1fan
Hard Corps Got Para? Joined: Jan 01 2016 Location: Virginia Status: Offline Points: 1736 |
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Hmmm....The number before the wagon wheel is different, 2,3 and 9. PMI=Pearlitic Malleable cast iron. ARMASTEEL was a registered trademark (#0393916) GM used starting October of 1937. Here's a 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10: Some snippets (I need to go back and read the Doerfner CCNL article). In 1919, General Motors bought the common stock for 1.1 million dollars
acquiring three plants: Malleable Iron, Grey Iron Foundry, and Saginaw
Steering Gear. GM called the acquisition Saginaw Products Division of
General Motors Corporation. In 1936, Malleable Iron developed a pearlitic malleable iron formulation
suitable for casting automotive parts trade named Armasteel (sometimes
seen spelled ArmaSteel in GM documents). In November of 1941, due to some GM management shuffles, William Doerfner, generally credited with being the driving force behind the development of Armasteel and the General Manager of the Malleable Iron Division, became the General Manager of Saginaw Steering Gear. Conventional wisdom has it that the U.S. was totally unprepared for WWII – which is not completely accurate. The Industrial Services Division of the Ordnance Department was shopping around for non-traditional producers of weapons as early as 1937 applying the lessons learned in WWI regarding the traditional commercial and government facility’s inability to mass produce firearms and everything else needed in wartime. Saginaw Steering Gear was approached about the manufacture of machine guns and agreed to undertake an engineering study contract and provide sample weapons, drawings, tooling and the production data necessary to set up a plant for air cooled Browning .30 caliber machine guns. There was only one problem: the War Department had no funds available to pay for these services. When Saginaw began working on cast parts an interesting situation developed. In the normal order of business, parts drawings were produced at Rock Island Arsenal (RIA) or some other ordnance facility and sent to the various manufacturers. Since RIA had no experience with cast small arms parts Saginaw produced the drawings and sketches in their own drafting room and sent them to RIA for review and approval. The Ordnance Department had no procedure for filing drawings received from contractors so they did the next best thing; they hand wrote the drawing number of the affected part and filed it away with their own drawings. Many of these Saginaw produced drawings were archived on 35mm film along with official Ordnance Department drawings and survived to this day.
While Saginaw was busy designing and implementing the cast parts, it was also making parts by the traditional forge/machining method as nothing was allowed to interfere with wartime production quotas. Eventually the idea of casting parts caused the Ordnance Department to issue specifications for several different alloys of pearlitic malleable iron Class A and Class B each used for slightly different purposes. Saginaw is the only known WWII user of cast parts for the M1919’s. One reason for this is that about the time that castings started to be used in mass production about the last quarter of 1943, Saginaw was the only manufacturer in regular production of the .30 caliber ground type air cooled Brownings. Post WWII, RIA and its sub-contractors continued to cast parts for maintenance spares, overhaul and production of new weapons. The cast parts are fairly easy to spot because in unfinished areas they exhibit a pebbly or grained surface. While Saginaw ceased production of machine guns in mid 1945, The Malleable Iron Division, later known as the Central Foundry Division, continued to use Armasteel principally to cast crankshafts for Pontiac and Buick. Armasteel cranks are thought by some gear heads to be stronger than drop forged crankshafts. GM stopped using the name Armasteel in 1966 when the lawyers at GM thought the term misleading because Armasteel is not actually steel. The Armasteel trademark expired in 2002 and was not renewed. Edited by moneawon - Aug 18 2022 at 12:02am |
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