M14 Forum banner

Factory inlay in stock on factory M1A

2K views 19 replies 12 participants last post by  SHOOT-2-THRILL 
#1 · (Edited)
I did a little trading yesterday and came up with an M1A with a 023,0XX serial number. It came from a guy that bought it off of a guy who got it from his father and bought it brand new. I know, a long way around but at least its some lineage.

Anyway, SAI says "This was sold as a Standard M1A on September 20, 2982". That was an email that I got. When I was on the phone, the guy said that it was too old for his computer so they would have to check the books. And that one line was all I got in his email the next day.

Last night when I got it home, it was like Christmas. It has a TRW bolt, a SA op rod, a Win hammer, and what I would assume is an SA trigger housing since it only has the number and no lettering after it. The rear sight is a lockbar.

Here is one interesting part, the barrel has no numbers on it whatsoever. It is a GI profile and done in a dark finish. The front sight is the "small ear" with no markings and the blade is .082" across. The flash suppressor does appear to be significantly larger than the diameter of a 147-gr but I have no way to verify that it has been reamed. The gas cylinder is not unified. The handguard was brown plastic but did not have a silver liner in it but it did have two numbers but I spaced what they were in it.

The stock is really what has me stumped. On the left side about where you would keep a check weld, there is a small circle that is actually embedded in the stock. It has the eagle with three stars above it. You can actually see where it is in and below the finish so I would say that it was there originally. You can see the bolt catch groove is different and on the right side of the stock, there is no selector cutout. And the rifle was not bedded.

Does anyone has any idea of the significance of the inlay? Would anyone have any other information that they could share on this?
 
See less See more
#4 ·
Yep its a DAS stamp usually found on Winchester stocks,seen this before on early M1A rifles from SAI. They were probably surplus GI stocks that were not finished thus the no selector cut out and no LARGE DAS on the left side and no PROOF P on the grip. The barrel was made by Wilson and are excellent shooters. Most early SAI used this barrel.Some were marked NM between the flash hider & gas cyl.
Trigger group is commercial SAI. The WW11 lockbar is also common on this era rifle.
Hanguard is also USGI, HTH.
 
#5 ·
Not to be argumentative, but that doesn't look like a USGI stock to me, much less a partially completed one - but even still, assuming it was, what sense would it make inletting some sort of placard or escutcheon into a stock that wasn't even completed? (Or is that simply a Winchester-type proof cartouche that someone filled in with white paint?)

Looks like a Bishop or Fajen stock to me ... but the inletted "button" is curious, indeed.

DeWayne
 
#6 ·
When I first saw it, I thought that maybe it was a marker so that the shooter would feel it against his cheek to make sure that he was always in the same position.

There are no markings in the barrel channel like you would find in a Garand stock. I have not pulled off the buttplate to see if there are any markings in it.

Could this be one of those rifles that someone drew from SAI and then set it up for some type of match shooting? I read somewhere that some of the very first rifles were not glass bedded
 
#7 ·
Is the inlay actually a white circle inlay or did you just photos hop it to highlight where the stamp is.I have seen this small eagle & Stars stamping before.Ive had a couple of those stocks on previous SAI rifles.I was told it was a inspection stamp probably by a worker inspecting the stock as it was going through its production steps.This is why I think they were surplus stocks that were not routed for the selector and don't have the DAS & P proof stamps cause they were not needed and probably layed around after production of the 14 rifles were done.Remember old man Reese from SAI bought tons of USGI surplus parts back in the day and I'm sure it was cheaper to use these stocks than buy new ones from FAJEN or bishop.
 
#8 ·
No, it is not "photoshopped". It is actually as it is in the picture.

It is a silver dot with that marking in it. If you look at the second picture, you can clearly see its placement on the stock. It is NOT an impression in the stock but an impression in the small circular object that is embedded in the stock.

If you enlarge that pic, you should actually be able to see that the finish is up to the edge of the object. That or else the finish was over the top of the embedded object and the finish (i.e, tung oil) did not stick to it.
 
#15 ·
I haven't pulled the buttplate off yet. I'll do that this afternoon when I get home.

The black behind is actually part of the grain of the wood. The second picture shows it best like that "seam" actually tapers off into some nice figuring. I really think that this stock would be gorgeous if it was polished back into a nice finish. It has just sat around and had numerous handlings.

The original purchaser was, as the story goes, not a gun guy who would have been tinkering with something like that. Since he has passed, there is no way for me to get any more info. The son got it and the first thing that he did when he ran short of cash was ditch the rifle. The third person to own it, the guy that I got it from, is more of a handgun shooter and bought it right. He had it slobbered up in FrogLube in a lot of wrong places which suggests to me that he wasn't one to mixing up parts. He actually did tell me that the rifle was purchased with the stock and that the little embedded object came from the factory like that. Where he got that info, I do not know.


And as far as I can tell, it looks like a correct DAS to me.
 
#16 ·
Very interesting find. Thanks for posting.

" It came from a guy that bought it off of a guy who got it from his father and bought it brand new. I know, a long way around but at least its some lineage."

I am no help to you figuring it out. Not being bedded, or marked, it is very difficult to be absolutely sure that is the stock it was wearing when it left SA. Did you ask anyone in the previous owner trail if they knew anything?
 
#17 ·
I just thought of something else that may ad to the mystery.

When I bought the rifle, it had a 5-round mag, a 10-rd mag, 2 20-rd and 1 30-rd mags. It also had a mag pouch for the M14, a couple of bandoleers, and a few stripper clips. There also was an original bayonet with the rifle.

One 20-rd was a BRW mag and the other 20-rd was some kind of import. What normally would be a welded piece on a real mag was simply "ears" that were punched out from inside the mag to basically form the same piece.

Now the reason that I mention this is that if the lineage of purchasers is correct, then that would suggest that the first owner was not a shooter or an M1A afficianado. (The op rod shows little to no wear).

With such an eclectic group of mags and extra stuff, it looks like to me that he just gathered items related to the rifle as he saw them.

If he weren't a shooter then that would suggest that he wouldn't have been monkeying with the rifle by changing the stock. If he were a rifleman, I would have thought that he would have had better mags of similar quality.

It was built in '82 so that was before everyone was freaking out and wanting para-military rifles so I would think that good USGI mags would have been plentiful.

I would guess that his son is a moot point and that got his dad's gun when the guy passed because they had some monetary value. When things got tight, he ditched them.

The third guy is believable to me. He is a pistol guy who's neighbor had a great looking rifle for sale and he took the opportunity to buy it. His story was that the object was there from the factory so that tells me that he didn't do any swapping around.

I was thinking that maybe the first purchaser was a kind of "Walter Mitty" guy that dreamed of becoming a grand-shooter and bought this rifle to further that dream. Perhaps he bought from an aftermarket builder that promised great things from the rifle. When the bullets-met-the-paper and it wasn't as easy to do as it appeared in his dreams, the rifle was put away until his passing.

Sorry for this dissertation but I have been mulling it over and trying to decipher its past. Lots of "guess" and "I think" on my part
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top