Reader Forum

From the pictures of the barrels, I’m guessing this shotgun was made for the old brass hulls. Should you hang the barrels up by a string, you can perform a bell- Beware the gun nut who starts collecting and brings you gun after gun over a period of time. He pays cash (or uses a credit/debit card that confirms the funds in real time) as all gunsmith customers do—or should. At some time or other he will have two or three (or more) guns in your shop.

As they are ready to be picked up, he comes in smiling, looks at the guns, and asks how much. He fumbles in his wallet and says, "Damn, I thought I had more money. Can I type test on them. Lightly tap the suspended barrels with a hammer along the full length. If the tone changes anywhere along the length of either barrel, consider the gun unsafe to shoot. This would indicate an internal crack at the point in the barrel where the tone was noticeably different.

However, if both barrels ring the same tone throughout their entire length, I’d recommend shooting only with black powder loads in 2 3/4-inch brass hulls. This makes for more cleaning immediately after shooting, however, 2 3/4-inch shotshells in plastic hulls loaded with smokeless powder wouldn’t be safe. I have seen old guns like this using correctly-loaded ammunition outperform modern guns. PS, Thank you for "Fitting Tombstone Grips" by RK Campbell in the October issue. Daniel P.

Horn Wolsey, SD 57384 Army M4 Fix We at Military.com have learned U. S. Army weapons officials have figured out the cause and fix for a dangerous glitch in the selector switch of M4 and M4A1 carbines that could cause the weapon to fire unintentionally. We previously reported that about 3,000 Army M4 and M4A1s had failed new safety inspections begun after the service’s Tank-automotive and Arwrite you a check?" Right then, even if you have the brains of an empty 12 gauge hull, you respond you don’t take checks.

A frequent trader may make for a great customer, perhaps even warranting a discount for volume work. A known, reliable customer can be trusted to pay by check. Not everyone entering your shop fits these descriptions. Don’t let your effort to build your mystique cost you. Oh, and don’t ask me how I know. AG maments Command (TACOM) sent out a Safety-Of-Use Message to all branches of the U.

S. military, advising units to perform an updated functions check on all variants of M16s and M4s after a soldier experienced an unexplained, unintended discharge. After more than 50,000 weapons were checked, TACOM officials discovered the cause of the glitch and halted the inspections, TACOM spokesman R.

Slade Walters told Military.com. "After receiving a significant number of reports from the field and an average failure rate of about 6 percent of the weapons inspected, we ended the inspections and have determined that the cause of the problem is a tolerance stack of the internal firing components. Each individual part conforms to the tolerance requirements, but when the multiple parts get stuck together in 6 to 9 percent of the weapons, those tolerances create that condition.

Modifying internal components fixes the problem. "Most failures occurred in M4A1s. The M4A1s that had been converted from M4s suffered 2,070 failures out of 23,000 inspected, a 9 percent failure rate. Out of about 16,000 original M4A1s inspected, 960 suffered failures, a 6 percent failure rate. Less than one percent of the 4,000 M4s checked failed the updated functions check. And

less than one percent of the 8,500 M16A2s checked failed the test as well. The Marine Corps also uses the M4 carbine, but the service said in June that its weapons were passing the new functions check." The glitch-testing started when a Fort Knox soldier’s M4A1 selector switch became stuck in-between the semi and auto settings. When the soldier pulled the trigger, the weapon failed to fire. The soldier then moved the selector switch and the weapon fired, the TACOM message states.

The M4A1 is now the Army’s primary individual weapon. The service is converting M4 carbines to M4A1s through the M4 Product Improvement program. The M4A1 has been used by special operations forces for about two decades. It features a heavier barrel and a full-automatic setting instead of the three-round burst setting on standard M4s. The Army said that all new M4A1s being issued are being checked for the selector glitch and corrected as needed.

TACOM officials also could not explain why the glitch had not shown up in the past. "It was just a weird fluke," Walters said. "In the number of rounds that have gone through those models in the number of years those models have been available, it’s like a winning-the-lottery kind of fluke. And the fact that we discovered it is just one of those things." We’ve added to this report from Military.com in The Editor’s File on page two of this issue.

While this was has been identified with a small number of Department of Defense firearms, there is a possibility it could be found in other AR- 15 firearms, especially because the cause of the problem is believed to be due to new parts added with the Product Improvement Program and a "stack up" of differing tolerances of different parts. The TACOM suggested additions to the standard Function Check area worthwhile addition to check all AR-15 firearms.

While this has only been found with a small percentage of weapons, the additional Function Check steps can be done within a minute and will provide reassurance that there are no mechanical issues with the safety/selector on your customer’s AR-15 firearms. Anti-Tank Ri le I noted your interesting Editor’s File reviewing The Anti-Tank Rifle in the November 2018 issue. I was a U. S. Marine Gunner on the 75mm recoilless anti-tank rifle from 1952-1954.

That rifle shot rounds that would penetrate 11 inches of armor plate, weighed 167 pounds, and was shot from a tripod. Norman E. Johnson AG Top: Shooting the 75mm recoilless anti-tank rifle. On firing, an equal amount of smoke and fire came out rearward as forward, making the rifle recoilless. Center: Rifle mounted on a jeep for transport. Bottom: A few of us Marines cleaning and inspecting a 75mm recoilless rifle. Matthew Cox Military.com