M40 - by the guy that built #1 -- and -- whose son built the USMC M40 Reproductions (
@Smiley mountain )
12-20-2017, 09:02 PM
First I have to give a little history to connect to the M40.
I was employed at Remington in 1963, first in production and then in 1964-65(?) moved to the research department as a custom gunsmith. Contrary to what the book says, the M40 was not originally produced in the "Custom Shop", which was an offshoot of our department at a later date. It was first built in what was known at the time as the "Research and Development Department" , which was a nearly new, self contained engineering/machine/production shop under Mike Walker, We had all the personnel and machines to design, build firearms and later bullets. We could do all phases from start to finish, including design, metal, woodworking, assembly and testing operations. Our job was to build experimental and prototype arms, and put the engineers ideas into steel and wood. We also built the "Custom C Grade 700's" (my primary job), and on the other side of the room, the 40x target rifles. I believe the 700 C's and 40x's were to help support the department.
At first there was about 4-5 machinists one of which was my father (barrelmaker/machine setter) who was the first employee in the department, two gunsmiths including myself, building 700 C's, and two building 40x's in addition to the bosses/engineers in other areas.
In late 65 or early 66 a couple engineers came to my bench with some rough shaped 700 stocks and asked me to build a stock for a prototype rifle. It was to use a 40x barreled action with a shortened barrel on a 700 stock. We set up a vertical milling machine to widen the barrel channels while one of the machinists shortened the barrel. I took one to my bench, installed an aluminum buttplate and finished shaping and bedding it. Over the next couple days I finished it with linseed oil, assembled it, mounted a scope and Voiola the first M40 was born and ready for testing. It was really no big deal. Just off the shelf (R&D) components put together in a different configuration. I'm almost positive that it had the standard factory bluing on the first couple we built. The other gunsmith Leon and myself, then built several more with Parkerized finish to military specs, for testing by the military When they ordered several hundred, we started building them but couldn't keep up with the 700C grade orders and the M40's, so they were shifted over to the 40x guys with extra help, then finally to what became the "Custom Shop."
I hope this has been informative and will try to answer any questions you may have, but don't forget it's right around 50 years since I have even seen an M40.
Smiley --
My son also built M40's in 2005-6
Here are his comments;
Here is the info on the ones I built. (About 80 myself) ---- The main difference was receivers with stripper clip modification cut (useless if you had the scope mounted) and special production run stocks. The rest of the parts were pretty much hand selected production parts. Same aluminum checkered buttplate, floorplate, etc..
Here's the link to the USMC M40 commemorative I built for the USMC Scout/Sniper Association, to be as close to originals as we could get. We built these late 2005/ early 2006.
The receivers and bolts and were all selected off the production line, fire controls for the 700C's were generally production line, for M40's and 40x's generally Timney and 2 oz on some target rifles, The barrels for all 40x, Custom 700's and M40's were all produced to close tolerances from bar stock bored, rifled, contoured, chambered and hand lapped right there in our department. M40 stocks were 700's specially selected, shaped and nearly finished on the factory production machinery. The 40x's received basically a production line finish. The 700C's were selected high grade wood and the barreled actions had a high polish (real early ones hand struck also), engine turned bolts (done by my wife at home and I still have the fixture), and hand checkered, sprayed or oil finished stocks as per customer instructions.
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Now to the M40's. We built a few prototypes (1965??) for testing by the military which resulted in an order for (a few hundred ???) All the stocks were hand selected for strength and stability from the regular production run semi finished 700 stocks, with barrel channels opened up. The barreled actions were 40x made as stated above and Parkerized, hand bedded, assembled and scopes fitted. Other than the military connection and proudly helping the war effort, we just considered the M40 to be a 40x barrel on a 700 stock with a really ugly linseed oil finish.
As for the type 1 and 2, All that I had anything to do with would have been type 1 and I will use Majikani's image below to describe what I remember.
The shape of the stock looked like the slimmer one on the left but the shape of the cheekpiece and grooves in the front of the comb looked more like the one on the right. They were all touched up by the gunsmith that assembled them so all varied. Mine would not have been as rounded on the top of the for-end, but sloped back more and slightly flattened on the bottom.
The other Custom 700 gunsmith and myself built the first dozen or so rifles but got behind on our 700 C work, so they brought in another assembler from production and turned the M40 over to the 40x crew.
All 40x and M40's were targeted at 100 yards, with 3 five shot groups that were shipped with the gun and I don't remember the max allowable spread but was basically one larger hole. The 700C's were targeted the same but because of the light barrel, only the best group was sent (still all touching) if I remember correctly.
The best groups I ever saw while there was a 6mm 40x that had groups of .14, .16 and .18 That one went into the cabinet and became what was known as an employee grade. When they saw an order come in from someone we knew, we'd strongly suggest they take what was stashed in the back of the cabinet.
I hope this has answered some questions and if anyone has other questions I'll try to answer them.
Roy Marcot from the Remington Society interviewed me and some of the later employees about 4-5 years ago and was going to publish a book on the M40 but I haven't seen it come out yet.
