Thursday, March 17, 2016

Gah!

More finicky that a 1911.  But it IS a 140 year old model, instead of a 105 year old model.

Summary:  the hammer hooks on one part are nowhere near the same position as a random replacement part.  Very careful and skilled fitting would have been needed when originally built and there are precious few 150 year French gunsmiths to check with.  Gun parts were serialized because they were made as a set. 

When you see duplicate serial numbers on something, God help you if something breaks.  There was a reason the parts had the same serial number. 

If you buy an antique gun with mismatched serial numbers, beware. 

1 comment:

Sigman said...

I've read that some Army NCOs during the M-1 Garand trials would have the troops disassemble their rifles and them mix the parts in a big pile on the floor and have the troops reassemble the rifle with whatever parts they picked up and were sold on the rifle when they still worked. Apparently that couldn't be done with the 03 Springfield and 17 Enfield so much.