lemaymiami
Member
Great work, and you still have the other stock... Interesting to read of the restrictions over your way.
So are all M1 Carbine parts on some sort of evil to export list?
The M1 carbine "gas system" is a simple cylinder that is part of the barrel, with a tappet piston that slams back against the front of the operating slide. So, are you saying that your carbine was manufactured with no gas cylinder, or gas port, as part of the barrel? It seems to me that one could take a standard M1 carbine and rebarrel it with such a barrel, but then you'd run afoul of the rule that the receiver was once part of a semiautomatic. Or does the manufacturer have to certify that he used a virgin receiver? (Maybe that would explain why your gun is not a surplus military carbine.)What it means, is that a semi-automatic rifle can be made legal if the rifle was manufactured without a gas system, and there is a manual action to extract the case and load the next one. My M1 carbine was made such that there is no gas system, after firing a round the shooter must pull the charging handle backwards and release to load the next round There are many AR-15's made this same way in the UK, but a lot of these conversions are expensive (a standard AR-15 here is around $1,500... I got my M1 carbine for around $500).
However, a semi-automatic rifle (Section 5) cannot be converted and sold as a legal Section 1 firearm, as there is also a rule along the lines of "once a Section 5, always a Section 5".
The M1 carbine "gas system" is a simple cylinder that is part of the barrel, with a tappet piston that slams back against the front of the operating slide. So, are you saying that your carbine was manufactured with no gas cylinder, or gas port, as part of the barrel? It seems to me that one could take a standard M1 carbine and rebarrel it with such a barrel, but then you'd run afoul of the rule that the receiver was once part of a semiautomatic. Or does the manufacturer have to certify that he used a virgin receiver? (Maybe that would explain why your gun is not a surplus military carbine.)
I am also interested in UK-legal AR-15's. The "gas system" there is a tube that conveys the gas from the port in the barrel to the bolt carrier, which acts as the cylinder / piston. It would be simple just to omit the gas tube, but I don't think that would pass muster because the tube could be easily replaced. So, you'd have to have a barrel with no gas port, and an upper receiver with no hole in the front for a gas tube. Am I correct? (Still, drilling two holes would not be that difficult.) (The gas key on the top of the bolt carrier is needed in order to engage the charging handle. Maybe that would have to be made solid.)
Also, what about the lower receiver in a UK-legal AR-15? Since it has nothing to do with the gas system, it seems that it could be configured in ways that would be illegal here in the U.S., such as by including the full-automatic sear (which would be a complete redundancy in a manually-operated rifle, but still....).
Are there any rules having to do with magazine capacity? For example, can you use standard 15- and 30-round magazines with your carbine?
Finally, what about "safe storage"? Can you keep your carbine at home (with or without an approved safe, and with or without periodic police inspections), or must you keep it at a range or shooting club? Is liability insurance required?
These are all issues that we eventually may have to confront here in the U.S. It's useful to know others' experiences.
Very interesting. It appears, then, that it doesn't matter if the receiver was previously part of a semiautomatic rifle outside the UK, as long as it was never registered as a Section 5 firearm within the UK. That explains how Beretta or Breda receivers can used to make UK-compliant M1 Garands.As you've rightly put, a Section 5 M1 carbine could not then be converted to be a Section 1 straight pull as the serial number of the receiver has been registered as a Section 5 firearm. Usually, these straight pull conversions are made from a parts bin of components outside of the UK.
This seems to contradict the situation with the Italian M1 receivers. If an AR-15 lower receiver arrives in the UK in an unassembled condition, having never been assembled into a rifle, it seems that the Section 5 restriction wouldn't apply. This is very confusing, to say the least. By the way, the U.S. BATF doesn't list bare AR-15 receivers as rifles. They are transferred in a category called "other," because they can be assembled as either pistols or rifles. (If they are first assembled as pistols, they can later be made into rifles, but if they are first assembled as rifles, they cannot legally be made into pistols.) It appears that the Southern Gun Company is somewhat misinformed.Since we started producing these rifles, we have been aware of the laws concerning the conversion of semi automatic weapons to Section 1 UK legal firearms, we have therefor either made our own major component (the lower receiver) or in the early days contracted an American company to do that for us and register the serial nos with the US BATF as single shot only at manufacture. The serial nos of lower receivers purchased from the US without that specific registration are listed by the BATF as semi automatic or fully automatic rifles ( in the USA the lower is the rifle ) the implication is clear.
We absolutely do! Handloading is very popular in the UK due to the cost of ammunition. I handload all of my centrefire calibres. We have access to pretty much all your normal components, however, there are a lot of Hodgdon, Alliant and IMR(?) powders which are due to be banned as they will not be REACH complaint (an EU directive). These powders contain a harmful substance which REACH will ban. This means no more H110 for 30carbine or 357mag, so I am stockpiling and finding an alternative
Cheers Gunny! In fairness, some of the other members directed me to some repair instructions but it's always nice to learn more. Having read through the two sets of instructions, it sounds pretty straight forward and your M1 carbine splice came out really well.I wish I would have seen this post back when it was originally posted. If you do decide to repair your stock here are two of my repair post over at Surplus Rifle Forum.
How to make a blind wrist repair
https://www.surplusrifleforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=96
How to make a Splice Repairs
https://www.surplusrifleforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=245
Thanks for your kind words! I am very fortunate with my location in Wales. We have coasts, beaches, mountains, castles, cities, country and a good amount of shooting ranges (funnily enough) all within an hours drive. Did I mention the rain?Nice work on the stock and sorry that you are having to switch powders. From what I understand, the newer ATK and other U.S. powders are designed to be produced in a more ecologically friendly way that might be compliant with EU REACH laws in the future.
Had the pleasure to visit Wales a few years ago and it is a lovely area filled with lovely people with some spectacular scenery. Thanks for answering some questions about the firearms laws in UK btw.
The recoil plate needs to be firmly against the stock. Improperly fitted or the wood shrinking over time can cause the damage you had. When firing the action will hammer the recoil plate into the stock.Cheers Gunny! In fairness, some of the other members directed me to some repair instructions but it's always nice to learn more. Having read through the two sets of instructions, it sounds pretty straight forward and your M1 carbine splice came out really well.
I will bear these in mind for my replacement stock, should anything go wrong. Curiously, how does the recoil plate cause these breakages in the first place? My rifle was bought used so the damage may have been done before I bought it. I install the plate using standard instructions of screwing the plate in, then angling the receiver in and bumping the butt pad so the receiver bites into the plate.
Also, I knew that Carbine stocks are non existent in the UK, so figured with my "apprentice" level carpentry aptitude I was better off not ruining stock and get a replacement so that I can keep shooting my rifle.
I have fixed cracks like that by injecting epoxy if I can make it gap. If not I cut a little and epoxy it. Then I crossdrill it and use dowels to hold it.Here's the pictures as promised. Sorry for the bad lighting, but you can see that a small piece has chipped off along with a more pronounced crack proceeding from the tang screw.
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That's awesome, thank you for your hard work and for sharing this information.The recoil plate needs to be firmly against the stock. Improperly fitted or the wood shrinking over time can cause the damage you had. When firing the action will hammer the recoil plate into the stock.
To check, remove the rifle from the stock. With just the recoil plate make sure that it fits snug in the stock but not tight. If there is play a little bedding will fix it.
I’ve been doing stock work for over 30 years. There is more then one way to skin a cat, and even more ways to do repairs.
I like to break my repairs down into steps to make them easy to follow. Most of the stock repair post at SRF are by me. If you have time read through them and they will answer just about any stock repair question.