Aguila Blanca
Staff
I'm an NRA certified instructor in Basic Pistol, but not rifle. To avoid having real guns in my classes, I have obtained a motley assortment of airsoft replicas and blank-firing replicas in order to have classroom props to show the difference between single action and double action, and how different types of guns load and eject. The only real gun in my mix is an old .32 S&W Short top-break revolver that's broken. It's included just to have an example of a top-break, and I'm going to drive a lead slug into the barrel and cut off the firing pin just to make it fully inert.
Why do I do this? Because I have a nagging concern that some idiot is going to show up for a class with a cartridge in his pocket, and at some point not be able to resist seeing if it will fit in the gun being used (and passed around) in the classroom.
A have a friend who is an NRA training counselor, and he's pushing me to get certified for rifle as well as handgun. So I started looking around for dummy guns that could be used for a rifle class, and there isn't much out there. I found replicas of the Winchester 1866 and 1873 lever action, and the Thompson sub-machine gun. That's all.
Sarco, the big guns and parts vendor that has multi-page ads in every issue if Firearms News, has some de-activated Springfield 1903 parade rifles. Their description says they were deactivated by "a small weld spot on the cutoff." I contacted Sarco to ask if these de-activated guns would hand cycle dummy ammunition, and the answer was no. Could the weld be ground down enough to allow chambering dummy rounds without making the gun functional again?
Double question: First part, can someone explain how these are de-activated, and how this "small weld spot on the cutoff" prevents chambering and extracting dummy rounds? The purpose of a training replica, obviously, is to demonstrate how the gun works. If it can't chamber a round, it's of less value for good training.
Second part: does anyone know of any sources for reasonably priced but reasonably good replicas of bolt action and/or semi-auto rifles? If anyone is familiar with the Daisy/Winchester M14, for example, how would that work as a classroom prop?
Thanks.
Why do I do this? Because I have a nagging concern that some idiot is going to show up for a class with a cartridge in his pocket, and at some point not be able to resist seeing if it will fit in the gun being used (and passed around) in the classroom.
A have a friend who is an NRA training counselor, and he's pushing me to get certified for rifle as well as handgun. So I started looking around for dummy guns that could be used for a rifle class, and there isn't much out there. I found replicas of the Winchester 1866 and 1873 lever action, and the Thompson sub-machine gun. That's all.
Sarco, the big guns and parts vendor that has multi-page ads in every issue if Firearms News, has some de-activated Springfield 1903 parade rifles. Their description says they were deactivated by "a small weld spot on the cutoff." I contacted Sarco to ask if these de-activated guns would hand cycle dummy ammunition, and the answer was no. Could the weld be ground down enough to allow chambering dummy rounds without making the gun functional again?
Double question: First part, can someone explain how these are de-activated, and how this "small weld spot on the cutoff" prevents chambering and extracting dummy rounds? The purpose of a training replica, obviously, is to demonstrate how the gun works. If it can't chamber a round, it's of less value for good training.
Second part: does anyone know of any sources for reasonably priced but reasonably good replicas of bolt action and/or semi-auto rifles? If anyone is familiar with the Daisy/Winchester M14, for example, how would that work as a classroom prop?
Thanks.