.30 Carbine Universal Florida Needs New Slide

V

Valornor

New member
I field stripped my .30 Carbine last night and turns out it needs a new slide. The piston looked like it punch the slide so hard the it knock out a chunk of metal where the slide and the piston meet.

I've been looking around and haven't been able to find one any where...the slide is not the GI type. It uses two springs instead of one and it also fits a square barrel instead of the rounded type. I should have taken a picture of it last night when I had it all apart but I didn't.

I have two questions. One does anyone know if a place where I can purchase a new slide? So far the few places I've looked have either been sold out or don't have them.

And if I can't find a place to purchase a new slide I think I might be able to weld in a piece of metal to replace the metal that had been smashed out of it by the piston. Is that something that would be safe or is it just idiotic?

I realize it probably more trouble then its worth but I picked up the gun for only a hundred dollars and truth be told its a lot of fun to shoot so I'd like to have it around for a but longer.
 
I like to keep things in good repair. The gun still seems to still function ok my concern is my reloads some times don't cycle well. The bolt doesn't completely lock. I have to reach up and either lock the bolt manually or sometime I have to set the round aside (I figured the rounds i have to set aside are my mistakes either trhe case was to long or the OAL is to long thoguh I check them as I reload so I'm not convinced that is the reason.)

I'm thinking is becuase the piston doesn't contact the slide until a bit later that the bolt goes back enough to eject the casing but not far enough to have enough energy to lock into place for the next shot.

I guess a good test is to buy some factory round and see if that still a problem or not and my other concern was if it was still safe to shoot.
 
Universals are the bastard of M1 carbines. They look like an M1, but few of the 2nd or 3rd generation parts interchange. Most of the 1st generation parts interchange and thwy were actually made with alot of leftover GI parts, but there are very few 1st Gen Universals.

If it has the bolt locking lever it is a 3rd gen and those are considered the worst of the lot. I had a 2nd gen Universal that was 100% reliable and I let people convince me it was a piece of crap despite hundred of trouble free rounds through it.

Looking on gun broker might be a good place to start, people part out guns there all the time. Another option is to pay a welder to build it up by welding and then filing it to size. If you do that though, you'll probably want to heat treat it to get the temper right afterwards
 
gun parts corp

try numrich gun parts corp if they don't have it your going to be looking for a while. A lot of their parts are used.
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Yeah I kinda found out later that I pretty much got what I paid for. Which doesn't bother me to much, its been a fun gun to shoot and I've had a "hundred bucks worth of fun out of it"

It looks almost like it was some sort of cast, either cast iron or cast steel, with the way it broke...almost like it crumbled. Numrich didn't have what I needed. I'll keep an eye out on gun broker but I might try and see if I can' just weld in some filler material. If I can't fix it, I've got some parts that I can play around with later....:D
 
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