Old Colt 40 years later

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txgunsuscg

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Found this in my travels. It was sitting in a rack full of AKs on a Cambodian Naval base. RetroBlackRifle identifies it as a Colt Model 651. There are no maker's marks on the lower, just the serial. There is a C and an H stamped on the upper. I was told those stood for Colt and Harvey Aluminum. Love what they did with the handguard.
 

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Very cool, if only it could talk. Any chance on tracing the service history through the serial number? Definitely looks abused. What are your plans for it? Restoration maybe?
 
Oh, I didn't get to keep it, but I wish I did. Honestly I don't even know if it was functional, although the internals were in significantly better shape than the exterior. If I ever get back there, I might see about working on it through the local unit. I suppose I could send off to Colt and see if they would research it for me, just to satisfy my curiosity.
 
Unfortunately, US law absolutely prevents that rifle from being repatriated for non-SOT civilian ownership, at least in a functioning state.

That said, I'd be really interested to find out how those old M16s are holding up. Literally tons have been exported by Vietnam and Cambodia to places like Latin America and Africa, many of them to irregular units. After the US pulled out of Vietnam and South Vietnam ceased to be, leftover gear was often provided to groups with communist sympathies in order to disguise or confuse the source of funding. This was the case for Cuban-financed operations in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 70s and 80s.
 
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By "working on it" I meant working on the gun to get it repaired at the unit for their use. I'm well aware I can't bring it back to the US...sadly...
 
By "working on it" I meant working on the gun to get it repaired at the unit for their use. I'm well aware I can't bring it back to the US...sadly...
Click to expand...

Gotcha. I think I read a little too much into your post.

If your unit found themselves back in Cambodia it would be awesome to have an update on such a project, if possible. The gun looks pretty trashed, but may function perfectly fine.
 
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With a coat of paint and some rust removal that rifle might be just fine. I'd have to look over the insides before I'd fire it.
 
Very cool piece of history, if only it could speak.

Got me wondering. Since the lower receiver is considered the actual "firearm" according to the BATF could someone bring back a rifle like that from overseas sans just the lower receiver and full auto parts and once the parts are all back in the US buy a Colt lower and reassembly the gun? Seems to me that since the rifle is US made to begin with you would not be in violation of 922r and since the lower is considered the gun if you are not technically importing anything accept parts.
 
I don't think I could get any parts of that gun out of Cambodia. I had red training guns from the courses we were teaching, and they were almost seized at the airport as we left, so a real gun (or parts of one) would probably be out of the question.
 
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