Reader Forum

Winchester M10 And Parts A customer recently brought me a Winchester Model 10 that is locked up. I have cleaned it thoroughly but it remains nonfunctional. Can you recommend a resource for a schematic so I can detail strip it? Also, I need parts for the following guns: 7.65 caliber Spanish pistol, Colt Model 1888 .41, and a French pinfire pistol made sometime during the American Civil War.

Otis Fansler Bruceton Mills, WV The Model 10 fails to show up as such in the Standard Catalog of Firearms, The Winchester Book or The Blue Book of Gun Values. It does show up in Volume II of Jack First’s Catalog of Parts There is no schematic there-in. That appears in the NRA Guide to Firearms Assembly, hard cover edition. Disassembly instructions accompany the drawing. What our research did turn up besides the preceding was: The Model 10 was the last in a series of Police rifles that started with the Model 1907.

The rifle was cursed with a "special" cartridge, the Winchester Self Loading (WSL). It can be hand made today by carefully cutting an extractor groove forward of the case rim in a .357 case. In view of all we have read about the round, it was a miserable flop. As for parts, try Jack First again for the Colt, takes photos of the Spanish and French pistols. Send them with your request for additional information to the NRA Museum, Waples Mill Road Fairfax, VA, 22030. Include a stamped, self-addressed return envelope.

Don’t expect to get a parts source for the offshore guns. You’d be better off getting a complimentary copy of the Brownells parts source list for out of production guns. AMT Backup In read your article on the AMT Backup in the April 2013 Issue of American Gunsmith and have since found out that the model worked on was an AMT .380 BACKUP II and was available only through a factory special order. This information was taken from Catalog. Hope this sheds a little more light on the subject.

I was fortunate to find an AMTII four gun shows ago and really like the pistol. From author Wendell Deaner. I have two of these pistols in my possession at the moment. One was manufactured in Covina, CA and the other in Irwindale, CA. Neither is marked BACKUP II. Unless the distributors had ordered them as a special lot, neither were special order. They both have the double safety and extended finger grip on the magazine. Both are single action. Go figure.

After working on guns for more years than I want to count I have come to the conclusion that anything is possible as far as variations are concerned. Barrel Extension Reviewing the response given from author Joe Carlos to reader George Bruno in the June 2013 issue Reader’s Forum ("Barrel Extension," page 23), it appears that Mr. Carlos is not familiar with the Buffer Tech recoil buffer to which Mr. Bruno refers.

I’m not entirely sure what effect it might have on function but it certainly won’t influence felt recoil, at least in my opinion. Your friend’s concern about "timing" likely has to do with possibly changing the point at which the bolt unlocks and opens. I’m not seeing that either, though I’m willing to learn. "Timing" is one of those terms that has very different meanings for shooters and gunsmiths depending on the firearms context. In Mr.

Carlos’s article, he is referring to the relationship between the barrel extension pin and the gas port in the top of the AR barrel. The two must be in line for the gas tube to come straight back through the upper receiver. If the barrel extension pin, which establishes the rotational position of the barrel, and the gas port are not in line, the gas tube has to bend around to make into the upper receiver.

If you center the gas block or front sight so that the gas tube has a straight shot, the gas port won’t be centered in the gas block/front sight base gas admittance hole and the rifle may not work at all. If, under these conditions, you center a front sight block on the gas port, then not only is the gas tube no longer straight but also the front sight is canted. You may then wonder why the rear sight doesn’t have enough windage adjustment to get on target.

Al Borsari Cocoa, Florida The canted front sight situation is a great segue into another use of "timing." If the barrel of an M1 or M14/M1A isn’t "straight up" when tightened into the receiver, the front sight will be canted. This happened so often with the product of a major manufacturer that a prominent custom builder of M14s offered a service to correct the "timing" of these "overclocked" (screwed in too far) or "underclocked" (screwed in not far enough) barrels.

Why were the barrels consistently screwed in too far when overclocking was the problem? The barrel shoulder was set a bit too far back. Keep in mind that the M14/M1A and AR-type rifles are completely different kettles of worms. Mr. Carlos’s work with the AR’s barrel extension is valuable and useful but not at all applicable to the Garand-designed M1 and M14. Walt Kuleck From author Joe Carlos. Regarding "timing" of the extensions, I am hoping that Dr. Kuleck’s and my explanations have made this clear.

If not, my e-mail address is Regarding M1A recoil buffers, in the first inquiry I had recommended the mercury recoil reducers that fit in the stock. It appears from the response by Dr. Kuleck that what was originally asked is about the buffer offered by Buffer Technologies.

All shooters are familiar with recoil. Recoil is governed by physics and it can be calculated. Julian Hatcher first wrote a book back in 1947 that many of us still refer to on such topics, Hatcher’s Notebook, and he devotes all of Chapter 12 to "The Theory of Recoil." What we shooters and hunters feel regarding recoil, however, is often a bit more subjective than a formula from a book.

The shape of the stock, the position that the shooter is in, use of a sling for support, etc. all enter into "felt recoil." "Secondary Recoil Pulse" also enters into this subjective category. With a manually operated firearm the recoil experienced is that addressed in Hatcher’s Notebook. With semi and full automatic firearms there is also Secondary Recoil Pulse.

Semi autos have slides, bolts, carriers, operating rods, pistons and other action parts that move on their own when the bullet leaves the end of the barrel. These action parts mostly move to the rear in order to extract the fired casing from the chamber, eject it, and pick up and chamber a fresh round from some sort of magazine, recock the hammer mechanism, etc.

In order to accomplish this the rearward movement must be stopped somehow and reversed to end up with the firearm in battery and ready to fire the next round. Often, the rearward movement of these action parts is stopped by hard metal to metal contact. Examples you may be familiar with are in the 1911 semi auto pistols where the back of the recoil spring tunnel hits against the frame. In the AR-15 that I work on the back of the buffer hits against the rear of the buffer tube in the stock.

According to information on the Buffer Technologies web site, in the case of the M1A the bolt actually hits the "horseshoe" part of the receiver and bottoms out. They also indicate metal to metal contact between the op rod to the front of the receiver. As you may imagine all of these parts crashing to a halt by slamming into another part of the firearm results in a considerable jarring effect that the shooter feels and, as I understand it, some refer to this as Secondary Recoil Pulse.

Regardless of what name one gives it, different firearms will exhibit different amounts of this pulse and shooters will feel it in varying degrees. Obviously, it causes further movement of the firearm on top of the pure recoil and this makes recovery longer for the shooter, which isn’t good.

Since Secondary Recoil Pulse and the regular recoil caused by accelerating the bullet are happening within milliseconds of each other, the shooter can’t much differentiate between them and he just feels "kick." Various smart guys have invented devices to lessen this Secondary Recoil Pulse. In the AR-15 there have been a number of devices invented that look a lot like automotive shock absorbers. They replace the standard buffer. I have tried a number of them and found some to really reduce what I feel as recoil.

Buffer Technologies markets such a unit that they call an Enidine AR-Restor Hydraulic Recoil Buffer. You can find other units of similar construction in Brownells catalog that work with AR-15s and even AR-10s. Lower cost spongy materials have been used for decades. They are usually thin and are often placed between the two parts of the firearm that crash together to soften the blow.

I remember these first being offered in 1911 pistols with early advertising by firms making the 1911 unit being directed mostly to the longevity of the firearm versus recoil abatement. There is a current version offered on the Buffer Technologies web site. I believe the M1A unit falls into this general category. The web site says it eliminates the hard contact between the operating rod and the receiver.

In order for these recoil devices to work, they often retard complete movement to the rear of some part that the firearm that the designer meant to have the full range of movement per his original design. Every firearm is a little different because of the stack up of manufacturing tolerances involved. So introduction of a foreign part that may cause one person’s gun to jam may not do so in a different gun of the same make and model. As a writer I try not to make decisions for the reader.

I see my position and that of the American Gunsmith as providing you with the pros and cons of various topics so you can make an informed decision. AG