Shared By Permission
From the 02/27/10 edition of the canon, aka M14 Rifle History and Development,
"There are several hundred National Firearms Act (NFA) registered USGI select fire M14 rifles (including legally welded USGI receivers) in the United States according to an ATF Agent who conducted an audit of the NFA Registry. The Agent conducted the audit with the specific purpose of determining the number of USGI M14 rifles in the Registry. Most of the NFA Registered select fire M14 receivers have been welded back together. Welded USGI M14 receivers were registered under the National Firearms Act by approved ATF Form.
There were likely a few uncut USGI M14 rifles among the tens of thousands of machine guns registered when the National Firearms Act was revised in 1968. One such amnesty example is Harrington & Richardson M14 serial number 449955. The NFA amnesty period ran from November 02, 1968 to December 01, 1968. At least two Springfield Armory T44E4 rifles made it into the NFA Registry under the amnesty and forty years later remain in the hands of private citizens.
In late 1985 or early 1986, Harrington & Richardson registered a group of twenty-five to thirty, possibly more, Harrington & Richardson M14 rifles and a handful of the Harrington & Richardson .22 LR caliber M14 Simulator rifles with the BATF. These M14 rifles had never left the factory and were registered in time to become legal for civilian possession before the 1986 McClure-Volkmer Firearms Owner Protection Act ended any further legal registration of automatic capable firearms for civilian purchase. They were auctioned off when Harrington & Richardson went out of business.
One of the soon-to-be auctioned M14 rifles, serial number 87156, was transferred by Harrington & Richardson Arms Co. to Qualified Manufacturing (Broken Arrow, OK) on November 02, 1985 by approved ATF Form 2. Qualified Manufacturing was a Class 2 FFL/SOT firearms manufacturing business reportedly owned by Richard Parker. Qualified Manufacturing submitted an ATF Form 2 to return M14 serial number 87156 to Harrington & Richardson on November 14, 1985. The BATF approved the Form 2 on December 05, 1985. Based on this sequence of events, the Harrington & Richardson Arms Co. auction likely occurred soon after December 05, 1985. Robert J. Perry purchased these H&R M14 and M14 Simulator rifles in April 1990 from the anonymous winning bidder of the Harrington & Richardson auction. Subsequent to the passing of Mr. Perry, the Harrington & Richardson rifles were sold to other individuals.
Most of the Harrington & Richardson M14 rifles were test models, experimental Guerilla Gun M14 models or machined receivers that had never been heat treated. Some had no scope mount boss and threaded bolt hole on the left hand side while others were barreled actions or only partially assembled. A few were standard issue M14 rifles with production serial numbers such as 55632, and 87156 and 1545579. Most of the rifles had hand stamped experimental or test model numbers, e.g., X-40. A number of these M14 rifles were assembled with T44E6 parts and some had the rear sight pocket knob holes milled off while others lacked the U S RIFLE M14 marking on the heel. The Harrington & Richardson M14 rifles that required it were heat treated at FPM Heat Treating (Chicago, IL). This collection of Harrington & Richardson M14 rifles was then phosphate coated and assembled into new M14 rifles with standard USGI M14 parts. Parts were cannibalized from the four .22 LR caliber select fire rifles to create three complete .22 LR caliber M14 Simulator models. The phosphate coating and rebuilding of the Harrington & Richardson rifles was done under the supervision of Robert J. Perry and an associate who wishes to remain anonymous.
U. S. Department of Energy - The U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) purchased twenty-five Springfield Armory, Inc. M21 models in the late 1990s for its Special Response Force. The commercial M21 rifles performed well. The DOE subsequently purchased USGI M14 rifles from Anniston Army Depot. At one point, the DOE inventory of M14 rifles was about 300. The M14 rifles were stored in three different locations. Scoped DOE M14 rifles were fitted with Smith Enterprise, Inc. Weaver style rail XM-21 scope mounts.
As of 2007, most of the M14 rifles at DOE have been transferred to other government agencies and the few remaining are not issue equipment. All remaining M14 rifles held by DOE were to be eventually transferred to other government agencies. DOE disposal procedures only allow transfer to another government agency or destruction. Those are the only allowable means of reducing weapons inventory for DOE. It remains a mystery as to how but a small number of the USGI M14 rifles formerly held by the DOE were released for sale in the late 1990s to the public. This small lot of USGI M14 rifles was obtained and subsequently sold into the commercial market by Class 3 SOT/FFL businessman F. Charles Logan (Warrendale, PA).
The number of former DOE M14 rifles released for sale has been reported as fifteen by a very credible source. Many of these DOE M14 rifles have the symbol # and a number etched on the left side of the receiver above the stock line. These are DOE weapons chit numbers. The numbers were engraved on the receivers at the direction of the DOE Senior Firearms Advisor at the time, Dave Shannon. A second very credible source has observed one DOE M14 rifle etched with # 29. Another seven of these DOE M14 rifles are etched with the following: # 8, # 10, # 12, # 19, # 21 (H & R serial number 1564367), # 22 (H & R serial number 1566863) and # 34 (Winchester serial number 1117145).
NFA Registered Welded Select Fire Models - The following FFL/SOT businesses legally welded pieces of scrap to create USGI M14 receivers and registered them in time to remain transferable: Bill Fleming (Collinsville, OK), H&R Gun Co. (Holland, OH), John Norrell Arms, Inc. (Little Rock, AR), Neal Smith (Smith Firearms in Mentor, OH), Specialty Arms Co. (Springfield, OH) and the late Bruce Swalwell (Metro Tech, Ltd. of McHenry, IL).
One M14 receiver legally welded together by Bruce Swalwell was engraved M Tech McHenry ILL. Mr. Swalwell also worked for Neal Smith before 1986. Reportedly, Bill Fleming registered about fifty welded USGI select fire M14 receivers. H&R Gun Co. M14 type rifle serial number 0556 is a select fire USGI M14 receiver rifle. It was originally registered with the BATF by an approved NFA Form before the May 1986 ban. On March 31, 2003 this rifle sported a USGI birch stock, USGI M2 bipod, 18 " barrel and lugless flash suppressor. It was quickly sold by Elite Firearms (Boaz, KY).
Post-’86 dealer samples - A small number of Chinese Norinco select fire M14 rifles were imported about 1991 into the United States by Century Arms International as post-'86 dealer samples for sale to law enforcement agencies. Serial numbers for some of these NFA registered post-'86 ban dealer sample Norinco select fire M14 rifles are 62021815, 62044810, 63015693, 63022377, and 63035184.
In the late 1980s, Global Sales (then Minden, NV) imported USGI M14 rifles from Israel into the United States legally for sale to law enforcement agencies. Dennys Guns (North Kansas City, MO) imported Harrington & Richardson Arms Co. M14 serial number 9970X as a post-’86 dealer sample."
