Slimpikins

I have a question on the M1 bolt. It doesn't appear to be the bright "nickle" finish, but it does show the sand cut design. Can you shed any light on it ?

My dad was a two tour B-29 commander on Tinian too. He was one of the original 80 hand picked pilots in the Army Air Force to establish the unit flying early B-29's from Walker Field over to India, then China and ultimately Tinian (12 survived of the original group). He was a "Hellbird", I still have his A-2 flight jacket (which I ruined wearing in the rain for years on an old Harley back in college). But I also have another original, saved in a book between pages and in perfect condition "Hellbirds" flight jacket patch hand made in India when they were stationed there. I know nothing of Thompson's as supplied equipment on B-29's, but Atomic crews were issued a "mag light" type flashlight with double barrel .38 cal rounds mounted for fire in the flashlight head. I know as I have seen it myself and no one seems to know about this flashlight gun. I met Paul Tibbets and Robert Morgan (Memphis Belle pilot) once at an air show where my unit was doing recruiting the week after 911. I spoke to Tibbets about things which occurred on Tinian, but unfortunately, he was not very clear on past details. Morgan on the other hand was super clear on details from the war. We had fun chatting for a couple of hours. in fact his wife, who I thought was his daughter, reprimanded him on some things which I asked about as I had seen on the series "Wings" and he denied. That had to do with him firing a Thompson out of the window of his B-17 from his pilots position. In the series they said he fired a .45 Auto pistol out the window at an approaching fighter, he told me, ......"BS, I brought a Thompson into the cockpit and fired right back at that ME 109 shooting at us" It's all good stuff.... but our dads are gone or going. I was with my dad when he died from brain cancer. He thought I was his co-pilot over a drop on Japan and I lived that mission with him as he lambasted me for not giving him enough details on the bomb drop. But after the bombs were away, he just laughed and yelled what tough guy he was and "take that you bastards, take that" Of course referring to the Japs below. Then he turned to me and said "its your plane take us home, I am tired". It was strange, very strange; living a WW2 bomb drop on Japan in what seemed like real time.

nope

I cannot say that I ever liked the barrel band, however in your photos, it looks really nice and adds a rather classy look to it.......

Glad to have that input, I have learned something..... I have seen far more of the "m" horizontal grips, but that might have been due to availability. The 'S' grip was relatively new to me.

I don't know if anyone has ever seen a 'S' stamped horizontal grip, but I got a hold of one a while ago and it's from the early production 28's. Also have an 'S' stamped lower receiver grip. The front horizontal grip made by Savage was a little different than the 'M' marked grips in that its tapered from back to front slightly vs. being a uniform rectangular size.

That prop tank is pretty wild.... someone put a lot of time and effort into the steel fabrication and I would love to know how much they spent making it. It looks like some pretty heavy duty steel plate was used.

My father came back from the war as a very highly decorated two tour bomber pilot... he was also on Tinian with the atomic bomb crews. He told me all kinds of details about the atomic bomb crews, planes, loading pits, etc. I just took it all in and never made too much of it until I spoke with the guy who was the pilot of the weather plane, one of three B-29's which were flying the first mission over Hiroshima. He was telling me how Hiroshima was not the primary target for the bomb, it was an alternate target in case of cloud cover and he made the decision to vector off as the primary city was obscured. I told him all of the things my dad told me as I was growing up and this guy was shocked. He said my father had to have been involved in the Atomic missions as everything I told him about the details I knew of was all classified information up until 1995 and my dad had already died before this time, so there is no way possible he'd been able to find out these things. Ray said my father was probably one of the alternate pilots for the atomic missions. Ray and I spoke several times for hours and I learned a lot from him which my father didn't pass on to me. My dad never flew a plane again after the war, he just got out of the army air force and went back to work. However he did enjoy hot cars and he bought a 68 442 Olds which we would take skiing. He'd tell me "want to see a perfect three point landing like I did in a B-29?" He'd open up the engine and accelerate up to some god awful speed and hit a ridge in the highway putting us off the ground, then we'd come back down onto the pavement perfectly.... can't believe I am alive to repeat this story.

Yeah, it was a little weird to see my dad screaming at people who were tens of thousands of feet below. And to watch the look in his face as he was giving the command to release 20,000 pounds of bombs on some city. I could see absolutely no remorse for what he was doing and in fact he was excited and proud to be hammering them. He did tell me about one mission he was on over a Japanese city where the plane was attacked by a zero and blew the front glass off of the B-29, the bombardier was killed and they immediately were dealing with 300 mph wind tunneling into the cabin and of course depressurization. The plane was gravely damaged and the crew was scrambling to bail out. He gave the order for no one to leave the plane as that was certain death if they were captured. Instead he dropped altitude and throttled back the engines to reduce air speed and try to make it out over the ocean. They picked up two P-51's who escorted them for cover and they ended up making it to Iwo Jima where they landed and were then transferred back to Tinian and issued a new bomber.... he just picked up where he left off. My dad was one of the original hand picked pilots to form the 58 bomb wing which were the first B-29 pilots. I think there were 80 original pilots and only 12 survived the war. They started in India and then arrived in China where they were launching very long range bombing missions on the Japanese peripheral home land. Once on Tinian, they were able to strike deep into Japan. It's a fascinating history and I only wish that I was able to get more out of him over the years.

It's a rainy snowy weekend up here, so I thought why not hit a mid afternoon film after not going to a cinema theater in years..... Fury. Great film and yes reminds me of Das B. It's very violent and depicts how perhaps these guys really thought about the Germans vs. WW2 in Color where its all relatively scrubbed clean video. I got a glimpse of the mindset from my father (who was a two tour B-29 commander out of Tinian) when he was dying of cancer with a tumor in his brain which caused him to suddenly go into memories from the past in the middle of an otherwise conversational chat. I was wearing his A2 flight jacket which he gave me when I was in HS and it caused him to relapse into a bombing mission over Japan where he thought I was his co-pilot. He was reliving a mission out of the blue and asked me to look out the window (I had no idea that he was back in 1945 suddenly). I asked him why, he said just tell him if the bombs are away. I realized what was going on and said yep the bombs are away. He just sat back with a huge smile on his face and started yelling "take that you bastards, take that!....I am such a tough guy; take that!" He then looked at me and said "it's your plane, take us back, I am worn out". It was a rather weird experience as he rarely spoke of the war. I had no idea of how he might have been after flying 50 or so missions.

Gold bullion held in hand will bring far more than any MG with time. The masses will not even think about MG's when they seek true value. They will want currency.

Rude, abusive, knowledgeable to a degree in my opinion and not in my opinion a professional businessman. I have had all of the above experiences expressed herein in my communications with this guy and no way would I do business with him.

Bob, I was very intrigued by your analysis of the wood stamping marks as I have a 1928 butt stock which had two stamps on it which I had always assumed were probably added in later years (faked). One is the G.H.D. in the rectangular box and the other is the crossed cannons. The metal parts all have serial numbers engraved with the the number 18 or 81 depending on how you hold it (slide and butt plate); these engravings are of course on the underside so one has to remove the parts to see it. I put a magnifying glass over the wood stamping and the cross cannon stamp is the one with very detailed engravings and based on your statement that old wood would 'crush' so to speak, it would be much more difficult to get a clean detailed impression. This particular mark is extremely detailed with no indication of tearing or crushing of the wood fibers in or outside of the cannon mark. In fact I can clearly see the small round detail of the pivot rods on the side of the cannon. I am now thinking that this was not faked and probably an original arsenal processed gun part. Interesting stuff.

My view on all of this is that we are close to another major bubble burst in the financial markets. If this occurs, it will bring down the entire system and cause the western governments to go to "bail in" strategies which will vaporize this excessive wealth the upper .5% hold. MG's will become low liquidity items which will hit the boards for sale. They will be like second homes on the lake, yeah they are not making any more of the land, but man are they trying to recycle a lot of it. I am also wondering how much of the price increases we have been seeing lately are due market manipulation by well placed MG dealers. I think there is a lot of fake buying going on dealer to dealer to inflate the market. Parabolic moves in any market are usually due to the market makers playing and getting the masses all worked up to get in as soon and fast as they can. I smell a rat here.

I have a West Hurley 1927A5 semi auto which was produced in the early stages of their production. It has some original GI parts such as the pin safety selector and an original GI 1/2 inch riveted type grip mount. The gun came with a vertical front grip which I don't know if it was old WW2 surplus or made by AO West Hurley, but it too is channeled for 1/2 inch grip mounts. I have not changed any of the original parts, this is exactly the way these were sold in the late 70's, however they may have made changes in the later years of production as their inventory depleted. I wish to keep this gun completely original as I feel it reflects on the valuation.