Is My Friend a Moron? (HK91)

[B. Lahey]

Last night I stopped by the bar and ran into an old friend. We got to talking about rifles and he mentioned that he had bought an HK91. I said "a real HK91?", and he replied:

"Yeah, it's all HK except the receiver was made by Federal. I wanted a milled receiver instead of stamped and Federal makes the best milled HK91 receiver ever made. I saw a photo where a guy was disfigured by the base of a round blowing through a stamped receiver out the left side and hitting him, so I didn't want one of those. The Federal receivers are better and stronger."

I know there was a company called Federal Ordinance that made horrendous crap. Is that what he was talking about or was there another Federal company that made awesome HK clones?

The story of a casehead separation blowing out the port side of a receiver sounded pretty spurious to me. Can it happen? Has it happened?

Is my friend a moron?

Note: He kept calling magazines "clips", even though he should know better, so I'm already leaning toward "yes".

 

[HorseSoldier]

I've never heard of a milled receiver on an HK91 or its various clones, though if it's parked on an aftermarket receiver I wouldn't call it a "real HK . . ."

On the malfunction story -- just about anything is possible in a one in a million kind of way, so I wouldn't say it never happened, but I don't think it's grounds to avoid the design, which does not have a reputation for catastrophic blow outs.

 

[Shane Tuttle]

Isn't the receiver for a rifle the heart of it? Similar to the frame of a semi-auto? My point is the serial number of the gun is usually placed there. Wouldn't this be classed as a different gun altogether?

 

[wogpotter]

I've never heard of a milled REAL H&K reciever either.
As for the KABOOM, it sounds like an out-of-battery discharge. If the rifle was kit-built its possible that there was a mechanical problem that allowed the round to fire before the rollers engaged. Either that or the headspacing was way off. I've also heard of somehow installing the locking rollers upside down being a cause of case ruptures, but never experienced it, I've not built one myself so I can't vouch for the accuracy of the information.
Moron, maybe. BS artist, probably.

 

[Apache6]

Last night I stopped by the bar

Musta been the alcohol talkin'.

 

[B. Lahey]

Yeah, when I said "real" I was thinking of a big ol' stamped steel .308 roller-lock rifle made in Germany with "H&K GmbH" (or whatever the rollmark is) on it. That's the only kind of HK91 I was aware of. Never heard of anything milled that could even be called an "HK91 clone".

And I've sure heard plenty of bad rumblings about Federal Ordinance (if that's who made this thing).

Mysterious.

Did I mention that the last time I saw him, he was at the gunshop picking up a pistol grip only shotgun with a breaching standoff on the muzzle?

Musta been the alcohol talkin'.

Nah, he was just sipping a beer waiting for his wife to get off work. If he was stinko, I would have mentioned it in my first post.

 

[ndking1126]

Seems to me the most logical next step would be to ask him to see it.

Unless your friend thought you were asking about real gun verses an airsoft, I can't see anyway a "real HK91 with a non HK receiver" could be anything other than an oxymoron. Oh wait, there's that word again. lol

Very interesting, I'd like to know what you find out!

 

[akr]

Maybe he didn't think you knew very much about guns and he was just making up stuff and blowing hot air.

 

[sailskidrive]

weird...

A few months ago at the Philly National Guard Armory gun show I saw a REALLY, REALLY bad copy of a HK-91 that had a thick CAST receiver. It had some milling work done to it to clean it up but it was a really nasty looking piece of hardware. Maybe this is what your buddy bought.

I have a PTR-91 and really like it, everytime I take it to the range it gets a lot of attention which was okay at first but now I've grown tired of talking about the gun to every Tom, Dick and Harry. It never fails that someone asks me about it.

~Sail

 

[B. Lahey]

just making up stuff and blowing hot air

Could be, but during the rest of the conversation he showed no signs of it. We talked about AKs, ARs, Mosin Nagants, various handguns, optics, and all sorts of other stuff, and only the "superduper milled HK91" comment raised my eyebrows. No claims of ridiculous accuracy or performance, no other references to possibly fictional arms. In fact he seemed quite well-informed with the exception of his misuse of the word "clips" (and we all know how common that is).

Now I'm really curious. I'll have to take a look at this thing and see what the heck it is. The guy has money and at least a minimal amount of taste to go along with his knowlege.

Could be something dang cool...

REALLY, REALLY bad copy of a HK-91 that had a thick CAST receiver

That was my first thought as well, but now I'm not so sure.

Wacky.

 

[MTMilitiaman]

Maybe not a moron, but it certainly sounds like he's confused.

 

[sailskidrive]

possibly?

A thought just came to mind, maybe he is referring to a machined steel lower versus having a plastic navy lower. Remember on the Hk91s the upper receiver is the serial numbered part, not the lower receiver w/ the pistol grip. We may be thinking apples, while he is talking oranges.

This dude's site has both for sale, about midway down the page.

http://www.robertrtg.com/g3.html


~Sail

 

[Jimro]

Federal Arms makes an aluminum receiver for their FA91. I don't know about any steel receivers.

Jimro

 

[skeeter]

No HK91 ever had a milled receiver, ever! Even the PSG-1 is stamped but re-enforced.

They are all stamped steel. He is thinking of milled AK's. He may not be a moron and only made a mistake or he may be a moron and made a mistake. Only you will know as morons never know they are morons, part of being a moron.

 

[akr]

LOL. I hope I'm not one of those. He he

 

[B. Lahey]

Federal Arms makes an aluminum receiver for their FA91

Just looked it up and I guess that must be the rifle in question. He didn't specify the metal used and I didn't think to ask if it was something other than steel. "Milled from an aluminum casting" would be a better description I suppose, but I can see how that could be cut down to just "milled" in casual conversation.

That seems to be the only company with "Federal" in its name that built 91ish rifles. It's all I found searching around, anyway.

I don't know how aluminum would be any tougher than stamped steel, although it would probably be thicker.

Guess he's not a total moron.

Anyone know anything about these rifles? Nice? Junk-o-matic? I've never heard of them before.

 

[Destructo6]

Federal Ord's HK receiver was a hunk of aluminium junk.

One of the biggest problems with them was the method used to attach the cocking tube to the rifle. Since the receiver is aluminium and the cocking tube steel, they chose to weld the cocking tube to the front sight triple frame. This caused a "hard cocking" problem after the barrel warmed up.

See, the unfolding of the HK cocking handle unlocks the bolt carrier from the bolt head, through a camming action between the cocking handle support and the front of the bolt carrier's extension. On the FA-91 this camming action is lost as the barrel heats up and that gap between the cocking handle support and bolt carrier increases ever so slightly.

Federal also chose take a similar shortcut in fixing the trunion into the receiver by pinning, rather than welding.

On a side note, the FA-91 receiver is as ugly as sin.

 

[Slamfire]

Making a HK91 receiver or a FAL receiver out of aluminum is stupid. I can really reading that both types of receivers were made from aluminum by garage type mechanics, and in time, both types failed.

On both rifles the receiver is part of the locking load path. Steel, if sized big enough for the load, can take an infinite number of stress cycles. Aluminum, no matter how thick, has a finite number of load cycles. In time, aluminum used as a load carrying member will fail. Just depends on the size of the load, the thickness of the piece, and the number of load cycles. It’s called fatigue life.

Which is why aircraft are so carefully inspected, and get totally rebuilt after a set number of hours. They fall out of the sky when the aluminum used in their constriction develops fatigue fractures.

 

[zinj]

On both rifles the receiver is part of the locking load path. Steel, if sized big enough for the load, can take an infinite number of stress cycles.

IIRC, the receiver on a G3 type rifle has no role in locking the bolt or otherwise holding pressure. The bolt-head's rollers extend into recesses in the steel barrel trunion, not the receiver. The problems I have heard about from the FA receivers were that the method of affixing the barrel and trunion into the aluminum receiver (I heard some of the rifles just used an epoxy adhesive!) would eventually allow the trunion to set back into the receiver upon recoil.

You're dead on about the FAL receivers, though.

 

[Slamfire]

IIRC, the receiver on a G3 type rifle has no role in locking the bolt or otherwise holding pressure. The bolt-head's rollers extend into recesses in the steel barrel trunion, not the receiver.

My error then.

And I love my PTR91.