Jump to content

Martin Pearl Thompson Question


Recommended Posts

I have a Pearl M1 Thompson in here for some work. its the first one I have handled

in person. The gun that I have has a receiver that is quite rough compared to an original

G.I. receiver - it almost looks like a buffed re-weld. But then who know what has happened

to the gun over the years.

My question is: it looks like there may be a pin holding the barrel in place as very faint

circles are visible on the left and right side of the front of the receiver. Did these guns have

pinned barrels?

 

Thanks in advance

 

Bob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mine was not pinned. I replaced the Barrel because the one that came with it was tapped for a BFA and damaged by blanks. Also, the gun is not 100% mil spec dimensions. I had PK get mine running perfect. It took a fair amount of work fitting the barrel and correcting the fit of the lower to the upper.

Ps-would love to see pics to compare to mine

Edited by wwiifirearms
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to add a bit more detail to the early DEWATing process with Thompsons. The Treasury deactivation requirement was very simple: the breech was to be electric arc filled with weld and the barrel to be welded at the joint of the receiver by electric arc. Treasury got out of the supervision of this process quite early. Once the import of MGs got underway by importer/retailers, the protocol establish by Treasury was followed by the shops doing the deactivations. Since the effort was to provide true, original examples of MGs that did not require registration, the shops were very careful not to damage the guns with clumsy techniques and excessive welding. Brazing was not used for quite a few reasons: way too much process time involved compared to arc welding; far more heat saturation needed for brazing leaving metal discoloration; guns were not carefully cleaned of oil, grease, or any other surface contaminants which is absolutely necessary for brazing; arc welding is fast, relatively low heat saturation and minor discoloration; after arc welding little cleanup necessary. In my experience with having done a couple hundred reactivations of all types of MGs, with the Thompsons, uniquely with M1 types, I have encountered only a very few where a pin was used. It was a lot more labor intensive and also unnecessary in the early days of DEWATs. Some shops welde the bolt face and ground it back flat, Cadmus Industries was one of those shops, and others removed firing pins or used other minor techniques to make it more difficult to recreate a live MG. By the late fifties, when DEWATs came to the attention of the anti-gun people, LIFE magazine did an article describing how an owner of a DEWAT M1 Thompson ordered a new barrel for his gun under the name of his daughter, to make it even m ore sinister, removed the welded barrel, replaced it with the $2 barrel and repaired the gun to live firing condition. This was hit piece and clearly intended to curtail the retail sales of deactivated MGs. My speculation is that any shops doing Thompson M1 deactivations, and probably of other types of SMGs, then added pinning to the usual welding of barrels to make it a lot more difficult to remove them. Pins could be made of drill rod or mild steel. Usually a 1/4" hole was drilled through the tang of the foregrip bar, through the chamber and into the underside of the receiver. The hole never went through the top as that would seriously scar the gun. The pin was arc welded on the bottom.

After the major DEWAT retailers ran out of guns to sell or sales dwindled or for other reasons, deactivation of live MGs was continued by individuals and gunsmiths, resulting in a wide variety of techniques to render the gun inoperable, many very easy to defeat! As the information that live MGs could be legally registered without any cost circulated and became better known, many DEWATed MGs were registered. The '68 Amnesty spiked the registration of DEWATs dramatically.

Still lots of registered DEWATs showing up for reactivation due to the higher and higher values….. MG collectors are incredibly lucky that the DEWAT program, which was really only intended for returning GIs, was of such interest to the gun importers and retailers in the early fifties who saw a great opportunity to make some money and promote "gun collecting". I got my first MG for Christmas, a Numrich Arms DEWAT 1909 Hotchkiss Portative, in 1956 from my grandmother who asked me what I wanted from Santa Claus! Damn that was exciting!

FWIW

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...