USGI Oilers

Thinking a bit more about oilers....

1. I found some notes from my International Silver research trip in 1985. There is a book of documents and illustrations on IS's oiler and magazine manufacture at the Meriden Historical Society, 424 West Main Street, Meriden, CT. I hope a new collector pays them a visit to learn what I may have missed.

2. Craig Reisch's oiler identification table on page 148 of his 7th Edition Book, is a "disaster," to use someone else's favorite word.

For Winchester, Reisch identifies IW, BW, and SW. IW is correct from first production to early 1943, then IS is how Winchester's oilers were marked.

I've never heard of a BW oiler.

SW oilers - if they were made for Winchester, he needs to show some proof. The master list of carbine subcontractors lists only International Silver as Winchester's subcontractor for oilers. According to this subcontractor list, Stanley Works (SW) made only 3 items for the carbine: Mags and buttplates for IBM and 30-round mags for Winchester. Perhaps the master list is incomplete, but my guess is that SW oilers are postwar spare parts for the Ordnance Department, or were made for the M3 "Grease Gun," not the carbine.

ISP oiler is identified as for Standard Products. Nonsense!   International Silver petitioned the government to cease marking oilers specific for carbine manufacturers - II, IW, IN, IU, IR, IQ, ISP - in January 1943, 6 months before Std Pro delivered a carbine. If Std Pro used ISP oilers, than we'd need ISG oilers for Saginaw Steering Gear, which produced carbines BEFORE Std Pro. Although documentation has never been found to prove this one way or the other, experienced collectors will put their money on ISP oilers being for Irwin-Pedersen, but the argument for that is beyond the scope of this posting. See Newsletter 347, by Brian Quick.

There is ample evidence that the II, IW, IN, IU, IR, IQ, ISP oilers were dulite/blue in color. They were easily found at gunshows in the 1970s-1980s. The switch to common gray/green parkerizing was made about the same time that International Silver got permission to mark all oilers with the generic IS marking - the spring of 1943. Decades ago, dulite/blue IS oilers could also be found. (I wish I hadn't sold my collection! Argh!)

Reisch also lists BK oilers as postwar, but Blake Manufacturing began producing oilers in late 1943 or early 1944, either as Ordnance Department spare parts or for the M3 "Grease Gun." We don't know which.

Be careful, guys....All the available collector books - by Ruth, Reisch, Canfield, and Larson contain lotsa errors. Don't believe everything you read!....except maybe MY posts! LOL.

Regards, Marty Black

Ha! Not me! I would obsess over every word, every sentence. I'd go into "word-smithing overload," fearful of writing something that wasn't quite perfect, something that someone else would find fault with.

Authoring a book would kill me, and the damn thing would never get done. I'd continue to proofread it over and over again until I died.

I'm happy just to be the old guy "voice of experience" to the new collectors.

Thanks for all your input to the Forum, Marty Black

Uh, oh! Pandora's box has just been opened! LOL.....Quick answer is that IP was the assigned code for all parts manufactured in-house by Irwin-Pedersen...so IP could not be used on International Silver's oilers. ISP was chosen, perhaps - just a guess - as a compromise between the names International Silver and Irwin-Pedersen.

The Ordnance Department initially set out very specific rules for how parts were to be marked...in regards to the prime contractor (the carbine maker) and the sub-contractor who manufactured parts for it. But as the carbine program expanded to 10 manufacturers and more than 1000 sub-contractors(!), things got very complicated quickly, with various sub-contractors having the same letters in their company name, and thus we see all kinds of parts code markings that "break the rules." It was a confusing mess, to say the least.

I'd recommend you get a copy of NL 347, and read the article written by Brian Quick. It's the most concise and logical argument for ISP being the code for Irwin-Pedersen's oilers.

And if you want to tie your brain up in a knot, look at Newsletter 384, page 15, for an article by Fred Powers, concerning 5 Standard Products sub-contractors, whose company name contained the letter S, the same letter assigned for the few parts made in-house by Standard Products. Some Ordnance Department clerk must've been pulling his/her hair out in assigning parts codes.   They certainly had to get "creative." And adding more confusion, SP and SS magazines are NOT Standard Products mags.

Wade Electric Products was a subcontractor of magazines to Saginaw Steering Gear. One would assume they would've been assigned WSG or something similar, but Wade Electric Products just marked their mags with WEP, and didn't bother adding a code for Saginaw. How did this happen? Perhaps they had a direct contract with the Ordnance Department prior to their sub-contract to Saginaw, and never got their code marking reassigned. That certainly would've been easier for them, simplifying their operation, but it broke the rules of the Ordnance Department.

No one said that carbine collecting was going to be easy! ha!

One last thing: As collectors, we tend to forget that the ONLY reason for the parts code markings, was for quality control purposes, in case parts failed in the field (think of a "recall"). No one in the carbine factories was looking at those codes. I am aware of only one such recall, and that was for a specific heat lot of a Springfield Armory bolt for the Garand rifle. Since the bolts were marked on top, it was easy to find them and remove them from rifles, and from spare parts inventories.

MB

OK Oiler Guys,

Here's one for you to figure out....I've got a totally unmarked oiler with a known WWII provenance. Mr. William Doerfner, General Manager of Saginaw Steering Gear from 1941-1965, gave me an un-serial numbered carbine that he brought home from the factory during WWII and used to hunt with at his cabin.   John Helveston, SG's "Gun Plant" Manager, had a "presentation type" carbine made for himself, and a nearly identical one made for his boss, Mr. Doerfner.

The carbine has an unmarked WWII sling and an unmarked oiler. The oiler has been blued and highly polished, but there is no evidence of a marking being ground off. Both the top and bottom of the oiler are smooth. The oiler has the leather washer and it's never had any oil in it.

I assume it's an International Silver oiler, but who knows? I've never seen an unmarked USGI oiler before.

My apologies for my poor photo skills - it's hard to take closeup photos of such a shiny piece.

BTW, the Helveston carbine (when purchased by a collector) did not have a sling or oiler, so we cannot compare. That carbine was blued, but the blueing has turned to a plum color.

Regards, Marty Black

Good point, Sling....yes, many (but not all) presentation carbines were blue (often polished to high gloss), and International Silver could've supplied such things to the manufacturers, on an as-needed basis.   They probably needed some for themselves as gifts. At the time that SG stopped producing carbines - spring 1944 - oilers were all IS and parkerized (to the best of our knowledge). We will never know exactly when the Doerfner and Helveston carbines were assembled. Both have #1 bands and flip sights.

Mr. Helveston's carbine has been blued and polished, but Mr. Doerfner's has GI parkerizing. And even the bolt is parkerized - yes, I know that's "impossible" for a WWII bolt, but there you have it! (Speaking of parkerized bolts, Mr. Runchey, the #3 man at Saginaw, who ran the IP/S'G' plant, put together an S'G' presentation-type carbine for Mr. Doerfner. It is totally parkerized, including the bolt!...but I digress again.)

The brilliant blue oiler is the only blue part on this carbine. Curiously, both of these unmarked carbines have highly-figured, highly polished Q-RMC high-wood stocks (and handguards)!

"Never say never, and never say always!"

Thanks much, MB

Ha! Good for you, Sling!

But naw, I didn't steal nuttin'. I went there with only one big goal in mind - I wanted to prove once and for all that ISP oilers were for Irwin-Pedersen. My minor secondary goal was to determine when - in spring 1943, International Silver stopped marking oilers (as a subcontractor) for specific carbine manufacturers, and adopted the generic IS marking for all carbine manufacturers. But I was a dismal failure on both counts.

Although there were some documents in the Int'l Silver file, they did not contain any information of value to me. And I really wasn't interested in the blueprints of either the oilers or the mags, or the other items that Int' Silver made for the war industry....so I went back to Illinois empty-handed.   That was in the summer of 1985 - the woman whom I dealt with was Bernice Morehouse.

I've got some oiler and magazine manufacturing notes that she typed up for me. I'll scan them tonight and ask Ted S to post them in this thread, so everyone can have a look.

Congrats, Marty Black

Perusing oilers on an online auction site, I was reminded of the questionable authenticity of some oilers.  aka some are fakes.  So on behalf of new members and those of us who forget, keep in mind some oilers are not genuine USGI.  Fortunately, and to those sellers credit, some descriptions do not say they are USGI but emphasis the markings.  Beware of semantics. For others the seller may just not know.  Same thing with mag pouches.   In any case just a friendly reminder.