xtriggerman

Circa 1982 Best lookin guy is kneeling in the front! Stan on the right, Chris in the middle and Calvin on the left in front of the test tank

When I worked at AO WH, the drums were indeed toy made drums. They had a habit of coming back for replacement once the cartridge follower tabs started to bend past the cartridges they are intended to push around. Pure junk compared to Real ones. I remember something about a warning sent with new ones to NOT over wind the drum. In reality, they were never ment to be used in real guns. Kings ransom in cost to boot.

The A3 had a glued-on comp. We used the same epoxy that had a 2 set process. 1) spray a epoxy activator on the parts to be joined and then squeeze a thicker glue onto the activator sprayed part. It had a fast grab time so you had about 2 minutes to get the sight alignment tool over the gun and sight for centering. Same glue was used on the barrel liners. The A3 select fire units would come back time to time because the owners would run a few mags threw too quickly and heat the aluminum barrel so much that the liners would slide forward and render the headspace un-fire able. The Customer return full auto 22's would be sent back only if I could achieve a 30 round mag of fire in the 2.6 seconds to empty test time. Most problematic was this bolt hammering would all ways loosen the bolt handle on its pin. That was a Fun job 81-83 Good Luck with your project.

If they are 39 rounders with metal tabs for rotor fingers, they are Japanese toy gun drums WH was stamping up for real drums.

My memory of the 1928 latch housing was the original pre WH were excellent with hardly any slop. WH had new cast latch housings made and they simply were not machined/ cast to the tolerances of the originals. Originals were coveted and not put in new production 28's when I was there.

The M1 was on the drawing board when I resigned late in 83. Im not surprised your M1 had issues. In the 32 months I worked there, I trained 9 people on how to assemble the 1911A1 pistols. NO ONE there had any gunsmith (school) training at all before I started there or when I left. I had trouble teaching some new hires how to do assembly simply because they had no idea whatever on how a gun works. Ira Trast president & Doug Nichols gen Manager were not shooting enthusiasts.... AT ALL! They thought building guns was like assembling old washing machines. No mechanical talent required! When I started the 1911A1 production line, It was a great job and gun. But once our large inventory of GI and Colt parts started running out, the aftermarket parts they wanted me to incorporate into the line was an atrocity. I warned them, but they thought I was too picky like when I told them the guns would & did jam on the new cast barrels, the answer to me was test fire with 5 rounds rather than 7. I quite not long after. I'm glad you had some one to get your Tommy running right. Their heavy, but quite reliable when built right.

Jim and xtriggerman, Unfortunately, the approach used at OOW can and does damage the barrel. If you grip the barrel too tightly with this approach, it crushes the barrel into the bore. I have the utmost respect for Bob Landies and his staff and their excellent work, and Bob is a good friend, but their technique described above is flawed. They have replaced two barrels for me in the past, and both of them had the barrel crushed where the wrench was applied. The barrels shot fine with 45ACP ammo, but I could feel the restriction when cleaning the barrel, and I could not install the 22LR insert because of the restriction. I later acquired Doug's tools, and have removed and replaced several barrels with them with no problem or damage. Gripping the barrel at the breach end is definitely the right technique to avoid damage to the barrel. Roger At West Hurley, we used a pair of well used 2x4's as the barrel collars. It was certainly a cheesy way of doing it and it exemplifies the cheap nature of George Numrich who owned everything that went on at AO threw equaly cheap Ira Trast, his presiding minion over AO. I applaud the workmanship that goes into a proper set of barrel vise bushing collars with grip extension cut away. Even with this best arrangement you must be very careful not to over tighten the collar so the 2 short contact points don't dimple in the bore. My standard barrel vice uses collar bushings 2" deep and even with a matched taper bushing, its easy to crush the bore by over tightening.

The A3 select fire 22 was one of the most fun firearms I'v had the pleasure to build & work on. I started working at AO West Hurley in the spring of 1981, The a3's were having trouble blowing out cartridge rims because at the time of the first run, they were using all aluminum bolts. The cycle rate was way too fast and resulted in cartridge discharging before the last bullet was out of the barrel, blowing the subsequent cartridge casing apart. We had to experiment with steel inserts put into the bolts to slow the cyclic rate down. We settled with just enough steel to equal 640 rounds per minute. I did customer returns on the A3's and my all is AOK on the gun when it reliable ran threw 30 rnd stick in 2.8 seconds. That told me it was ready to be shipped back to the owner. All specs were optimal. I tried to get them to improve the loose bolt handles but they wouldn't go for it. George Numrich wanted Marlin extractors on them because he had a sh*t load of them in the ware house. Those had to be tensioned just right to make the rims flow... I loved fixing those. Had a blast doing it! We had a lot of them come back with barrel sleeves sliding forward in the aluminum barrels. I wanted to shoulder shank the liners to stop that but they wouldn't go for the extra cost so we just kept re- gluing the liners back in with a different glue. Going from a 13 pound steel Tommy to one of these all aluminum little 22's that can sing that full auto tune is an experience I'll never forget! Be Well Folks & have a GREAT CHRISTMAS Season!

When I started working at West Hurley in the spring of 81, I was fresh out of PA gunsmith school and learned to use extreme care in handling and building custom built firearms. One day a customer return came in with a "Not able to sight in" problem. The floor forman wanted to teach me how to sight in these Fixed Sight Thompsons using this guy's return as the example. So, Tom says grab a big screw driver for the butt stock and forend. Off to the shooting range we went that was located behind the facility. At the range, there was a old large wooden table and to the left of the table there was a big log standing about 20" high. We set up a target, benched the gun to see where it was printing. Then I was told to remove the wood. At that point, Tom grabbed the woodless gun by the square receiver with both hands, stood over that log, raised the gun way up high over his head and came down as hard as he could onto the edge of that log's outer edge with about the barrel / receiver junction. I put the butt stock back on and we shot it again. Normally 2 or 3 more blows on the stump was required to get the barrel bent toward to point of aim. I was shocked at first but be dambed if we didn't get that tommy to tearing out the bulls eye of the target by whacking that barrel with just the right amount of swing for just the right amount of bend to zero that puppy. If yopu leave the butt stock on for this tuning, it would split the stock right off the bat. That's how hard the swing has to be. Yes folks.... THATS how it was done at the factory!

That's how we did it at West Hurley. No barrel insert.

I would have to respectfully disagree. Barrel bushings "should be" as absolutely close to barrel OD diameter taper as can be made. Barrels are very soft and it takes very little pressure in a press or vise to inward bulge a bore if the bushing is not mated perfectly. Don't ask me how I know.....

I retired here in east TN and really don't care to travel any more. I can throw out a funny jewel once in a while tho..... Like back in the 80's AO used to sell a 39 round XL drum mag. Little did any one know they were buying those drums directly from a Japanese company that made non firing replicas. You can tell the Jap drum by the simple bent out tabs (cartridge pushers) sticking out of the spring rotor. Those drums were never meant to take the jarring of a firing Tommy. Those mags all ways came back for replacement if they got any kind of use at all. The little tabs would just bend back into the rotor from where they were stamped out! What a bargan for the $70 bucks they were getting back then. Crapola The only drum gun I have today is this one I re manufactured from a stock MPA 971. The 71 round drums are pretty heavy duty. Sorry, I'll stop diverting the OP's subject after this. Love my hobby! Then the last hi cap project gun I did last year. Its the only running RPD with a HK91 FCG with a common 75 rd SAW bag.

Thanks nmshooter, I don't know if the stories I have about AO are very encouraging...... I guess its a mixed bag. I was glad when Kahr bought them tho. I couldn't imagine worse penny pinching management than what was there in the 80's. My first year, I did mostly customer returns with a guy named Calvin. The last 2 years, I set up the 1911A1 production line and trained assemblers. All the 1911's out to SN A04600 were my test fired assembly run. As we began to run out of GI surplus parts from Numrich's stock pile, I was not allowed to keep QC up to Colt spec so after a number of head buttings with management (Fred Nicoles)..... sadly I wouldn't be a party of putting out a crappy gun with faulty parts. It was down right embarrassing at times to see how they did business. For example, the very limited run of WWII commemorative Tommys we built for the American histerical society as we called them was where we installed the parts "seconds" from the dead room. When I asked about why that was the order of the run... Fred said, Hell they don't shoot those gold lased guns any way! "they'll never know" and he was right.... no commemorative guns ever came back in for service. Sucks dosent it. I don't want to rain on the parade here but theres more...... stupid s**t that went on while I was there.

Hello folks. As you all can see, I'm new here and thought I could provide some insight into the West Hurley guns since I worked there from spring of 1981 to the fall of 1983. As some of you may know, George Numrich owned AO and the AO shop was located directly across from Numrich Arms (Gun Parts Corp). Interesting story why the name was changed to The Gun Parts Corp back in the 80's.... but I digress. I would like to ask the members here about finding a Auto Ordnance St Valentines Day "Thanks from the Gang at Auto Ordnance" card that was issued in 1982/1983. This particular card had an oval picture on it that has a group picture of the AO employees with our wares in hand. There were other cards issued but this one has an oval group picture in it. I'm in that picture and would like to pass it down to my grandson since he loves shooting. So if any one has one for sale or knows were I can locate one, I would be very great full for a chance to purchase it. THANKS

Interesting topic. I used to work at AO West Hurly 81-83 and all we used for barrel on & off was a bottle neck jack press with 2x4 sections for the crushers. In tuff cases we put sand paper around the barrel for slippage stop and just reblued for final finish. What you see here in the above post is obviously a better/cleaner way to go about it. George wasn't going to foot the bill for a "machinist" quality set up LOL.