Smith Corona

[kopterdoc]

Did Smith Corona ever use Remington bolts during arsenal rebuilds or during mfg? If so would they still be considered "correct"?

[kraigwy]

Yes and yes.

Per Army contracts the parts for these rifles had to be interchangeable. With the rifles the manufactures of these rifles produced replacement parts.

Armors didn't care who the manufacture was, they were concerned about getting these guns back in service.

In C.S. Ferris' Book, "United States Rifle Model of 1917" goes into detail of the supply problems and requirements of US Rifles.

Ferris' book is about the M1917 but the supply procedures were the same for the M1903/M1903A3s.

On just about all Smith Corona's you find "R" parts.

[T. O'Heir]

Don't think there was such a thing as an arsenal rebuild by SC. Don't think SC used Remington parts either. Be kind of surprised if there was any arsenal rebuilding of 1903A3's at all. The rifle was primarily a stop gap thing for use by CONUS troopies until enough M1 Rifles and/or Carbines could be made.
However, like kraigwy says, weapons techs, then or now, do not care who made what part. They didn't, and don't, care what collectors think or want either.

[tahunua001]

not even close to correct. by the time smith corona was making the A3(we're not even counting the remingtons right now) there were little over half a million garands and over 3 million people in the army. all the way up to normandy, the U.S. was desperate to get a weapon in the hand of every man out there, the marines and navy got stuck with the old 1903s, national guard and coast guard got stuck with the m1917s that weren't being shipped over for homefront security, and army issued anything that went bang including a ton of 1903A3s which saw plenty of action in north africa, and europe. true, they had short service lives but at the very minimum they would have needed a post war going over before being put into storage.

by end of war, there were still more people in the army alone than there were M1 rifles produced.

[Mike Irwin]

The 1903A3 was also used extensively in the Pacific throughout the war.

[James K]

Well, they sure made a lot of spare parts for rifles that were never going to be rebuilt or repaired!

Jim

[Mike Irwin]

"Don't think there was such a thing as an arsenal rebuild by SC."

Correct.

Smith Corona was a second-tier manufacturer (I think that was the term that I've seen used).

First tier manufacturers were companies like Remington and Winchester, whose primary purpose was the manufacture of firearms.

Second tier companies had heavy manufacturing capabilities outside of the firearms industry and could be relatively easily converted over to the manufacture of small arms. Inland and National Postal Meter were second-tier companies.

Third tier companies had light to medium manufacturing capabilities and could be converted to the manufacture of small arms with additional effort. Rock-Ola is a prime example. It took longer to convert these factories, and it was often a case of their not producing all of the parts required to make a complete firearm.

There also could be teething problems in getting companies like this up and running to expected capacity. Rock-Ola was actually taken over for a period of time in 1943 when production began to slip and still wasn't meeting expected targets.


As far as I know, the second and third tier manufacturers never did refurbishment of used weapons during the war, they only concentrated on new production.

Refurbishment was done at military facilities and, in some cases, at first tier manufacturers like S&W, Colt, or Winchester.

[James K]

I believe the term "tier" was applied to the production time frame, not to the type of company. It might seem that companies whose business was making firearms would be the first into production, but that was not the case with the M1 carbine (Inland started serial production several months before Winchester, the developer). With the M1903, the original maker was Springfield, followed by Rock Island; in WWII, neither made the M1903, only Remington did, followed by the M1903A3/A4. SC only made only the M1903A3.

Jim

[Mike Irwin]

Winchester took longer to get into production with the carbine because they were so fully committed to production of the Garand that it was difficult for the company to break away. Production of the carbine while maintaining production of the Garand required expanding the Winchester plant.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think Winchester engineers helped Inland set up the machinery to make the carbine.

Who made what particular firearm was, in part, based on what was needed at the time and on whose production facilities could be converted quickly enough.

Smith Corona began moving towards rifle production under the tutelage of Remington engineers, while Hi Standard produced many of the barrels used on SC guns.

[James K]

Mike is correct; the amount of cooperation among producers of guns (and everything else for the war effort) was a matter of great pride for the nation's industry during WWII. Naturally, there was some friction, but for the most part the nation's industry got fully behind the war effort. I said that Inland got into carbine production before Winchester without saying why, a detail Mike has filled in very well.

Jim

[RJay]

Bubble, bubble, toil and double.

[RJay]

The original question, could a in-service rifle have a bolt made by a manufacture other than the rifle manufacture?? You betcha. Before, during and after the war unit amorers switched parts around with out regard of what weapon they originally came out of.. Hey, these were street corner draftees, not trained factory tech's. was the rifle correct, yes, it went bang when the trigger was pulled, is it correct and proper by the standards of todays collector purest, probably not.Now if you can find a USMC bolt, that would be a proper replacement bolt with out question, { United States Shoe Company {

[James K]

Sorry, but in that context USMC stands for United Shoe Machinery Corporation, of Boston. They didn't make shoes, they made the machinery to make shoes. (There is reported to have been another meaning, but it seems to have been lost.)

Jim

[RJay]

You're right James K., I don't know where my head was but it wasn't between my ears. USMC did make bolts for the 03, or at least according to the American Rifleman. About 4 years ago at one of the Crossroad of the West gun shows a seller was trying to convince someone that the USMC meant that the rifle was a Marine Corp rifle " see right here, USMC on the bolt, what else could it mean? " I kept my mouth shut and just walked away.

[Mike Irwin]

"Sorry, but in that context USMC stands for United Shoe Machinery Corporation, of Boston. They didn't make shoes, they made the machinery to make shoes. (There is reported to have been another meaning, but it seems to have been lost.)"

And they were one of the second tier companies I described above. They had a lot of the heavy machinery needed and could be converted to supporting firearms production fairly quickly.

I've always been kind of surprised, though, that no one from the government told USMC to alter their roll mark a bit so that it didn't make it seem as if the parts were Marine Corps.

[James K]

Gee, Mike, it seems they overlooked that. Could they have had something else on their minds at the time?

I am still not sure what "second tier" means in your experience. I always understood it to mean a prime contractor who delivered complete guns, but was not the original maker or one of the original makers. Examples would be Remington-Rand or Ithaca for the 1911, Winchester for the M1 rifle, anyone but Winchester and Inland for the M1 carbine, etc. In your usage, you seem to mean a sub-contractor who made parts for use by a prime contractor.

Jim

[Mike Irwin]

Stuff the snark, Jim.

Considering the absolute mind-blowing minutiae that was tracked, processed, developed, generated, designed, expounded upon, etc., during the war years, no, I actually DO think it's a surprising oversight.


Go back and re-read my original post where I talk about tiers as I recall the concept being used.

It might have been a particular author's assessment of the capabilities of manufacturers -- the term tiers may well NOT have been used by the War Production Board.

But, the concept is, and this is regarding CIVILIAN manufacturing companies:

Tier 1 -- We make guns for a living, we can make whole guns for the military NOW!

Tier 2 -- We have a lot of very complex heavy industrial machinery that can be repurposed to make guns, or complex gun parts, pretty quickly!

Tier 3 -- We have light to medium machine shop capabilities. We can make simple parts now (how many screws/pin/simple stampings do you want), now, but for more complex stuff we'll need to expand.

To simply it even further...

Tier 1 -- GUNS NOW!

Tier 2 -- GUNS SOON!

Tier 3 -- Gun stuff eventually.

[James K]

I can accept that such a "tier" arrangement might have been set up, but I have not seen any thing definitive on it except in carbine documents where it is related to time, not product or whether prime- or sub-contractor. AFAIK, companies didn't "sign up" to make things, or be ordered to make certain items. They entered proposals in response to requests for proposals. The process was hurried up, but not that different from normal procedure.

Jim

[Mike Irwin]

As I've said at least twice in this thread already, I don't know if that was how the government classified the manufacturing capabilities or...

WHETHER IT WAS AN INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR, WRITING A BOOK LONG AFTER THE WAR, CHOOSING OR ORDER THE COMPANIES LIKE THAT FOR EASIER READER COMPREHENSION.

"AFAIK, companies didn't "sign up" to make things, or be ordered to make certain items. They entered proposals in response to requests for proposals."

Both yes and no. Due to the ongoing wartime emergency, many of the established rules of procurement were bent and often broken, often with very little complaint from manufacturers.

Major contracts would be let both through an RFP process and also, at times and depending on both the need for the item and the capabilities of the company, simply approach the company and award the work without an RFP.

A perfect example of that is the GI Pocket Stove, or the Coleman Model 520 Military Burner.

Coleman wasn't the only company making such items in the United States at the time, but it was by far the largest and had the best capabilities.

The military said "We need a stove with these capabilities and we need it in X days. Can you deliver?"

Coleman delivered the stove on time and significantly improved on the military's specifications, all on a no RPF, no bid contract.