M14 Forum

IRON WORKER · August 5th, 2007, 06:58 AM

Looking for some close up photos of the magazine in battery as seen through the ejection port with bolt open.
And photo of underneath the receiver showing the magazine opening .
Anything that can be provided would be appreciated.

Thanks
IRON WORKER

leid · August 5th, 2007, 07:27 AM

Are you looking for pics of a military BAR or the OOW semi-auto?

Carey

IRON WORKER · August 5th, 2007, 05:06 PM

Carey,
The info is to get an understanding of how the BAR held and feed rounds from its magazine and will be used to determine what needs to be done to convert an M1 to the T20 rifle.

Thanks

leid · August 5th, 2007, 05:24 PM

Sounds like an interesting project!

Carey

Edit: These are pics of a WW1 U.S. military M1918 Browning Machine Rifle (early select fire BAR) which was made in 1918 by Colt. The OOW semi-auto BAR had a lot of design changes in order to be ATF approved as a semi-auto. Most importantly, the OOW semi fires from a closed bolt and all military BARs fire from an open bolt.

IRON WORKER · August 5th, 2007, 05:48 PM

Carey, Great pictures,I see now how the rounds are stripped from the mag without hanging up.It has a large feedramp extension to the barrel.
How much play is there front to back in the mag well ,and is the rear mag catch all that holds the mag in?
I have two new BAR mags and the M1 bolt will hardly pass through the slots in the mag to pick up rounds .
What does the front of the BAR bolt look like where it grabs the cartridges?

Thanks again

leid · August 5th, 2007, 06:18 PM

I added pics that should help. The mag fits in the mag well pretty tight, but play measured at front/bottom of the mag is 1/8 side play & 1/16 front to back. Only the mag catch holds the mag in place. I would love to see the inner workings of the T20 series to see just how they approached the mag feed design. Someone must have pics of it, maybe Different.

Carey

1KPerDay · August 6th, 2007, 08:37 AM

Iron worker, be sure to keep us informed on this project. I am VERY interested in a T120 replica that uses BAR mags. I have a .30-06 "tanker" already and have asked around several places to see if anyone still did this mag conversion, including Warbirds... nobody does, apparently.

You may ask him; he had info about the smith who previously offered BAR mag conversions.

IRON WORKER · August 6th, 2007, 02:24 PM

Carey, Thank you for the pictures and info as this will deffianatly help.Based on the appearance of your bolt face its a lot narrower than the M1 which is what I thought it would look like the mags will probably have to be modified too slightly.
Different does have a picture of the T20 but its only the outside.
I have the BAR blueprint and it calls for the mag opening to be 1.018 wide the M1 receiver is already 1.010 exept for the guide ribs which will have to be milled and a shoulder left inside for the mag to rest against.
The biggest hurdle will be feeding the rounds as the narrow slots in the BAR magazine may have to be widened .
Somewhere on the net there is a full scale drawing that shows all parts but I can not locate it lately.
I have a brand new ADI Lithgow receiver that I will use.

1Kperday, I'll post it when its done but its going to be a while may even be this winter before I get started,I would like it to be exactly like the original but I may have to settle for what I come up with.

Thanks again

dprice3844444 · May 20th, 2011, 03:59 PM

http://www.wix.com/crawfordcountyarm...ry#!collection

here's a guy that does the conversion

Hamstrosity · May 20th, 2011, 04:17 PM

The T20 is one of my unicorns! I thought that they had to do a couple of things to get it working: 1: Lenghtening the receiver slightly so that the bolt would slow down enough to strip the round off of the magazine, and 2: Increasing the magazine spring tension so that it would hold the round in position for the bolt to strip the round out of the mag..

They had it working at the end of WW2, but the idea of having 2 identical BAR mags, with one that works in the BAR, and the other not (the extra spring tension stopped the BAR from working properly), wasn't a good idea.

That's just what I've read. Though I'm still fuzzy on wither or not they still had to modify the receiver for the bolt speed, or if just changing the magazine spring was good enough.

That link doesn't look like it uses BAR mags, instead it looks like it uses a single stack mag..

Just my .02 on that.

But it would be FRICKIN' SWEET, if someone can make a practical, decently working T20.. rifle.

Jason0839 · May 27th, 2011, 07:25 AM

"These are pics of a WW1 U.S. military M1918 Browning Machine Rifle (early select fire BAR) which was made in 1918 by Colt. The OOW semi-auto BAR had a lot of design changes in order to be ATF approved as a semi-auto. Most importantly, the OOW semi fires from a closed bolt and all military BARs fire from an open bolt"

Nice pics, envious if the fine weapon is yours, BUT the OOW doesnt havr ALOT of changes, its one small mod to the trigger control and slide that renders the weapon closed bolt and semi. If you place the slide, bolt, and triger group next to each other, which ive done its about impossible to tell the difference.