M1 Garand barrel welded to receiver

[RandoMilsurp]

I pick up a M1 receiver and barrel combo yesterday at a local gun shop for a pretty good deal and I'm looking to do a full ground up build with it, the only issue is that the barrel had a fat weld to the receiver. The barrel and the receiver themselves are fine and in very good condition minus some minor wear. I had taken a Dremel tool to the weld to try and get rid of most of it safely as I could. I Believe I got 95% of it off, though now I'm left with some minor cosmetic issues due to the amount I needed to remove. looking to see what the best option would be to fix the marks where the Dremel tool was used so that when I go to re parkerize all the metal parts parts that blemish doesn't stand out. If it has to get TIG weld filler and turned down to match the od than so be it.

 

[Kp321]

The welding was a quick fix when the barrel didn’t have enough draw to tighten correctly. Looks like a bubba repair although some foreign governments might have bubba type armorers. Why are you wanting to remove the barrel? Install a new one? If not, should have left well enough alone although it’s too late for that now. The way the barrel has been ground on, I’d say it’s a tomato stake now but the receiver might be salvageable after a thorough inspection. Look at the threads carefully, there might be a hidden reason for the weld that will be obvious when the barrel is removed. I’d hate to weld on it any more, that area has already had plenty of heat damage. A little smoothing and re-park will look ok but not perfect. The weld should have been on the bottom and just a tack.

 

[Jim Watson]

Agree and also conclude

A little smoothing and re-park will look ok but not perfect.

 

[beag_nut]

Welding, especially arc welding, is not a surface "treatment". It goes quite a bit below the surface, by design. Whatever the dremel accomplished is not enough. To go deeper will make it even worse. Brazing would have been much less catastrophic, but it's too late for that. Time to live with it or junk it.

 

[Mauser fan]

I agree whole heartily with what these guys have all said. If removing the barrel still floats your boat soak it in Kroil or Eds Red for at least 24 hours. It might make a good re-enactment or drill rifle now.

 

[RandoMilsurp]

Thank you for the information that you all have provided. The reason why the weld was on the rifle in the first place, as per the story I got from the dealer it was purchased from. Was that it was 1 of 50 they had bough out of a lot of 250 about a decade ago. They where non demilled m1 receiver and barrel combos that where planning to be used as dp rifles. The one I happened to purchase was the last one they had that didn't get sold through out the years. for the price of it it seemed like a ****in steal. My original plan was to clean the weld as best as I could and assemble it out of mix matched parts. As mentioned before the bore is very good, though obvioulsy there is not an issue if the weld has messed with a good portion of the heat treatment. My current plan now is to contact some gunsmiths in my area and get second opinions to my current situation and see it it is salvageable. It is not Than I know where to find another receiver and barrel. I'm trying to delve into gunsmithing and i thought there would be no better way than to just build a rifle from the ground up, but if this a lesson learned than I would say so be it.

 

[RandoMilsurp]

Correction to my earlier statement, there is an issue if the weld has messed with the heat treatment. Didn't notice that that sentence had been auto corrected.

 

[Bwana John]

Drill rifles are worth very little, even to current ROTC programs.

Doing a "cut away" trainer to expose how all the parts work and their relationship with each other can take worn out parts that are only good for scrap and turn them into something quite interesting with some real value.

I have seen cut aways done with only hand tools (mainly Dremils) that really looked nice.

 

[Douglas Lee]

Is that solder or arc weld?