Star acceptance mark

[Matt K. 0]

In Bruce Canfield's book he states the Chilean rifles were not from the NPC purchase. Should they still have the little star acceptance stamp above the Cranston Arms logo?

Thanks.

[Brian Alpert 0]

Interesting question. I have a Navy Arms marked 7mm JSAR bbl which I will check for the Dutch acceptance star. What we really need is a comment from someone with an original Chilean JSAR as to whether there is an acceptance star above the Cranston Arms Logo. All this, of course assumes that the stars were applied after transfer to the NPC rather than by inspectors in the factory.

[Matt K. 0]

I picked one up last summer. As I read Bruce's book, I understood it to mean the Chilean rifles were NOT taken from NPC rifles. Mine has the star over the Cranston Arms logo.

[Brian Alpert 0]

My 7mm bbl has no star stamped on the rear collar or bbl.

[webmaster 0]

This is one of those 64 million dollar questions, for which at this moment in time there is or can be no definitive answer.

As we know the Chilean Government via their connections with the Miranda brothers purchased 1000 rifles for various units in their military system. Unlike the Netherlands Purchasing Commission whose contracts ran concurrently, they had no in-house inspection team. The inspection method employed by the NPC was on a sub-contractual basis.

I don't think it is too far a stretch to say that all receivers that came off the line were batch inspected and marked prior to final assembly. The Chilean guns having exactly the same Cranston Arms in the triangle logo, that was of typical Dutch martial usage. If you check the production log there is no definite batch that were exclusively NPC, Chilean, Boston 500 or trials/U.S. Govt. They are all mixed hither and thither.

The guns being assembled with the 7mm components, test fired and packaged. No other distinctive markings are known on Chilean guns other than the Mexican arsenal crests upon the top of the barrel. There are not so many parts that differentiate between the true 7mm and .30-06 rifles.

Unfortunately no-one is around to tell us how the manufacturing and assembly process happened these days. The USMC in-house inspector is long gone too, dying in 1962.

So all we have is the production log, which as Bob and myself found has errors and discrepancies in it, plus what few original documents survive.

Hope that may shed some light.

[Matt K. 0]

"There are not so many parts that differentiate between the true 7mm and .30-06 rifles."

Other than the barrel, are there more parts differences? I was under the impression, I could remove the 7mm barrel and insert a .30-06 and it would function as normal.

[Brian Alpert 0]

As usual, Jim puts it in proper historical perspective. Obviously the bbl is different and Joseph Scott has noted a difference in the locking collar, there apparently being a specific one for 7mm. Otherwise they appear identical. I know I have interchanged 7mm and 30-06 bbl assemblys on the same rifle and they both functioned flawlessly.

[Joseph Scott 0]

To my knowledge, the only difference is the barrel tube. I was sold a rear collar, which was short, as being for a 7mm barrel. Not so, it had been machined short by someone trying to correct headspace. When you shorten the collar, the bolt/extractor hits back of barrel chamber and will not rotate. You must set the barrel back and the center collar forward same amount for proper functioning. Does anyone have one of the Spanish language manuals? Does it give a different part number for the 7mm barrel?

[webmaster 0]

I believe the front sight posts are higher on the 7mm to allow for the differences in ballistic performance when using the same rear sight, which is calibrated fot the .30-06 M@ ball cartridge.

[Matt K. 0]

The sight post on my 7mm is higher than my A prefix rifle, but my B prefix rifle sight post is actually a little higher than the A prefix sight post too.

The 7mm locking collar has a Johnson sn, but there is no sn on the 7mm barrel. I was just curious about the star proof. The book shows one rifle's Cranston Arms logo with no star above it.