No, I didn't buy one, but I wish I could.

I got a call from a friend yesterday. He sold his mother's house and the new owners were doing some renovations. Look what the contractor found hidden inside the wall!





It's missing the barrel and the mag.

The contractor gave it to the homeowner who, in turn, called my friend to inform him. It's now in the custody of the ATF.

My friends stepfather, long since passed, was an FFL holder. Since the gun was in the wall, however, I don't think he had the appropriate paperwork on this one!

You just never know...all I ever find are bugs, terds, and snake skins.

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they are a blast... (apologies)
also not mine...

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A gun that I have always wanted. I wish now that I had bought one back in the 60s when they were fairly common at gun shows for a few hundred $.

I was wondering what it would take to make one of these. Maybe in 9mm? Just curious.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Early gun.

Had a kid come up to me once when I had the shop with a G43 that had the original instruction book and a spare firing pin in the but trap. Said he found that and another gun in an attic. HAd a picture of the second gun; STG-44.

Never followed up on it. Could have been a stupidly lucky kid, could have been a BATFE set-up. I'll never know.

I did have a guy come by with a DEWAT'ed STG-44. Said his grandfather brought it back and then had ATF DEWAT it and supposedlyu there was an envelope with the DEWAT paperwork somewhere in the house. I spoke with ATF and they said that a gun registered as a DEWAT (they only did that for a limited time) could be 'RE-WAT'ed" because the paperwork counted as pre-68 registration. Just had to do the forms, drop the tax and you could re-activate the gun. IF YOU HAD TEH DEWAT PAPERWORK.

Miss those days.

I always tell people: I didn't have the gun shop to sell guns, I had it to BUY guns!

Best,
RM Vivas

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RM Vivas
SWCA#1482L, SWHF#837

Poor old war veteran probably got crushed.

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Who are those guys?

$18,000ish today on class3 stamp .

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I thought it was some kind of old time grease gun missing the hose and grease cartridges.

I wonder how often a contractor makes a discovery like this and the homeowner is never the wiser. Kudos to this one for his honesty.

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SWCA #590
"Colligo ergo sum"

You would be surprised how much stuff from WW2 is still in the woodwork, literally. Used to be when a full auto surfaced the sheriff would take possession of it and end of story. He could file for dept. ownership or it went up the line to ATF. Some went home with deputies to start their second unofficial unlicensed life.
In todays political atmosphere I would not want to find one or have anything to do with one.

Again - a neighbor of ours had this big Wood Box under his bed.
He mailed home parcels of ‘parts’ from Italy.
Grease Gun, MP40 and a Italian Beretta I think, small wood stock, Mag sticks out the side.
I would say, Marvin’s got Chine Guns under his bed.
Skeptical Buddy - no he ain’t!
Your making that up!
Marvin, can I show him your Guns? Go ahead.
First auto loaders I ever saw.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

I once attended a farm sale of a deceased firearms collector. He had a wide variety of guns including pepperbox derringers, Marbles game getters, palm pistols and many military collectibles including a fully operational grease gun.
The auctioneer stated he was just selling equipment and the buyer was responsible for it. The grease gun sold for nearly nothing and the buyer got cold feet and turned it back to be auctioned again. The second buyer just carried it away kind of nonchalantly on his shoulder. I heard later that BATF contacted him about three days later about his errant ways.

Somewhere in the house is the barrel and magazines.

[QUOTE=Drm50;141718929]You would be surprised how much stuff from WW2 is still in the woodwork, literally. Used to be when a full auto surfaced the sheriff would take possession of it and end of story. He could file for dept. ownership or it went up the line to ATF. Some went home with deputies to start their second unofficial unlicensed life.
In todays political atmosphere I would not want to find one or have anything to do with one.[/QUOTE

If I remember correctly machine guns discovered under similar circumstances can be registered under ATF form 10 for use by the law enforcement agency in the jurisdiction where the gun is discovered. Our town police department received an MP 40 that was discovered in a trunk at our city museum. The MP 40 became police department property but they can’t transfer it anywhere not even to another police agency. When they no longer want the gun it must be surrendered to ATF or destroyed. I believe that destruction of the reciever by flame cutting into 3 sections fulfills the requirements.

That one is missing the barrel. Can't tell if the bolt is in it either. I'm afraid that is just some junk spare parts.

1972-73. I was the driver of an M578 Recovery Vehicle in 2nd Armored at Ft. Hood. I was supposed to carry a 1911, but we didn't have enough to go around. There was no rack for a rifle in the driver's compartment. After breaking my 3rd M-16 stock , our Armorer found me an old M3A1 to carry as a personal weapon.
I liked it. I'd just hook the wire stock in my web gear and wear it like a pistol. It sure beat lugging a rifle around all the time.
BTW: it doesn't fire nearly as fast as you see in the movies. Its actually pretty slow for a sub-machine gun.

Just how much of such a SMG can remain to not be considered illegal? Say someone hacksawed a piece out of the receiver to the extent that it is incapable of being fired. I have seen such remnants at gun shows, but I don’t know what the rules are.

It's too bad the owner didn't pull it out of the wall during The Amnesty.

The first unit I was in in Germany issued M3s to all the track drivers.

There was a Machinist/Welder in Service Battery who frequently had to fabricate parts for them. He said that he could make one from scratch for about 13 bucks.

Based on my working in the sheet metal fabrication industry I'm guessing the body of the grease gun was stamped everything else was machined. You probably couldn't make one for 13 bucks but it wouldn't be too hard

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Retired Career Security Guard

GM made them during WWII, and I believe the cost was $17.

My active duty Army unit had them (M3A1) until the summer of 1998, replaced with open sighted M4s. Arriving in early 1999, I unfortunately never got to take one to the range.

Neat find, too bad it met a sad end. Never shot a greasegun but have shot a Thompson. I do have a few gg mags for my pcc’s. Given the 30 trillion national debt and agencies always needing money you would think that it could have been reentered into the system and sold for a ton of money to help the taxpayer out. But that would imply that someone in DC cares and we know they don’t, after all its not their money.

My brother got ahold of one during his time in Viet Nam. Said he was going to disassemble it and bring it home in his baggage when he returned back to the US. He wisely chickened out when it came time to get ready to leave!

When I was in our Ballistics Unit, we would get calls all the time about crazy stuff people would turn into police stations. Our unit was staffed with guys that knew the historical significance of these guns and we would keep them in our Reference Collection. They can never be returned to the wild but at least they didn’t get chopped up and melted. As the greatest generation, and even baby boomers are passing on, there are thousands and thousands of these types of items stashed in basements and attics. Once I received a call from one of our barracks up north. The trooper said an old lady came in to drop off her recently deceased husband’s “deer rifle”. I asked them why they would call us for a regular firearm. The trooper explained that the gun looked like an AK-47, but was covered with stamped eagles and swastikas. It was, in fact, an MP-44. We grabbed it for our collection. It was operable, and though ammo was expensive, we all bucked up and bought some boxes of 7.92 Kurz. We each put a mag through it. It shot like a dream.

Before GCA 68 went into affect there was a brief amnesty period to allow registration of unregistered machine guns.

Thanks to this amnesty a number of guns were added to the NFA registry before the door closed for ever. Unfortunately the amnesty period was arguably not well publicized and there were some people who would have been willing to come forward and register guns but were unaware of the amnesty until it was too late. There were also people who incorrectly believed that the amnesty period was a ploy to locate and confiscate these guns after they were declared. This may be why this M3 never came out of the woodwork. There may also have been a reluctance to come forward with stolen government property. The M3 was still a standard issue weapon at the time . While some US military stuff such as at least one M-14 did show up I would imagine that some one with a war souvaneir like an MP 40 or PPSh 41 might be a little less concerned about coming forward.

I was 13 at this time and was just getting started as a target shooter but I already had a strong interest in history. To me the worst thing about GCA 68 was the import ban an military surplus guns. This part of the law prevented any further importation of transferable full autos. It also stopped further release of transferable full autos from US Govt stock to law enforcement agencies. Most of the transferable M3s , GI Thompsons, Madsen model 50s etc. found their way into private collections through this route.

In the years following GCA 68 interest in owning a full auto grew and it was still possible to legally convert semi auto to full or make new transferable full autos. This changed in 1986 and the number of transferable full autos is permanently fixed where it is.



.

My uncle brought a 1911 home from Korea. Actually, he brought the shoulder holster and the mag; the officer carrying the gun for him absconded with it.

I suspect this grease gun could have come back a similar way, with the mag and barrel traveling separately to reduce the size. Barrels were easily removable, IIRC.

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Uvidíme se později, aligátore.

LOL. No not some “junk spare parts .” Most likely the barrel was removed to make it easier to hide in the wall . Probably the barrel and mag or mags are stashed in another wall . And even if they’re not a little search time on the internet will get you what you want .

My best friend found two WWII hand grenades in the wall of a house he was working on. He was in the National Guard at the time, and turned them in to the Amnesty box when he was next at the main depot.

NOT FULL AUTO BUT PROBABLY VERY HOT!: A plumber found an old Bushmaster Bull Pu (South African made) in an open crawl space in Florida. I owned it for a few months then sold it. I figured it was used to rob someone and the robber didn't want such a distinct gun on him when questioned.

Ivan

The BATF 'NFA Handbook' gives a pretty good rundown of the can and cannot do under the current NFA rules.
Also some of the past history of it.
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/nationa...s-act-handbook

The 1968 Amnesty was a very poorly rolled out program.
It was done of necessity because of the change in NFA rules over the commonly called 'DeWAT' full auto guns.

Up until the GCA68, a deactivated full auto required no registration, no license to buy, no Fed license to possess.

A change in NFA rules in the GCA68 placed these deactivated machineguns in a new & different catagory.
They would now require being Registered with NFA, though no NFA Tax would be due on them.

The Amnesty was required as these guns were already 'out there' and had been allowed to be by IRS/NFA rules.
The 30day length of the Amnesty was chosen though they had additional choices of 60 and 90 day lengths.

By all accounts it went OK for those that did show up and 'registered' their DeWAT... and any other unregistered NFA weapons at that time.
But many more remained in hiding not trusting the Gov'ment,,or simply never hearing of the Amnesty itself.

I think most anyone interested in firearms likely has a story or two of bring back NFA weapons in a barn, basement, garage or 'a guy at work' that never had 'papers'.

My brother in law is a heating and air conditioning contractor near Bristow Oklahoma and was called to an empty rent house by the landlord to service the air conditioning. One floor vent wasn't flowing air very well so he took off the air vent grille and reached inside. He pulled out several small packages wrapped in aluminum foil and thought it was drugs. He unwrapped them and it was nearly $18,000 in cash. He gave it to the landlord and I asked him if he got a reward and he said "Hell No".

A friend of mine told me he was helping a guy clean out his deceased fathers shop. He said over in a corner was a barrel of oil with the top cut open and a couple of hooks or chains hanging over the side. When they pulled the chains out there 2-3 M2 carbine barreled actions.

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Who are those guys?

Back when I was a kid, one of my friends father had brought back a M1919 MG from WWII. We used to play War with it, but no tripod. No idea whatever happened to it. As I remember it was completely operable, not a DEWAT. I was probably about 10-12 years old at the time, and I remember it very clearly, especially the perforated barrel jacket.

About 10 years ago I held an absolutely mint unfired condition M2 carbine that a lady turned in at a very small family owned gun shop that I visited 2-3 times a week . By the time I saw it they had already called ATF to come get it .

An older friend of parents called my mom one day and asked her if I could look at some of dads guns from the war. I kindly agreed thinking it’s some long guns or pistols. As he lead me to the basement he told me about his dads roll in WW1. Then pulls back a tarp exposing a Vickers and a Lewis gun complete with the bipod, canvas shroud and 2 mags. The Vicker was rusted solid the Lewis was in fine working order. After a quick confirmation of the operation on the Lewis. I called the aft a few days later to check on registration knowing they weren’t. In the meantime he panicked and threw them down a well. Ruining my opportunity to part them out for him.

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There are no bad pig parts!

Man I'm sure I'd make the same call eventually, but I'd have a tough time making the call to turn it in.

I have always told people with avery straight face and the utmost belief in my convivtion that if I had a blanket search warrant that covered every building within a 2 mile radius of where I am, I could find enough unregistered class 3/DD to raise some Fall of Saigon-level chaos.

The amount of Lugers, Nambus and assorted other wartime detritus thats washed up on the shores of my gunshop convinvced me that if --this-- is what people feel comfortable publicl;y bringing in, you ---KNEW--- there had too be boo coo naughty stuff they were holding back!

Best,
RM Vivas

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RM Vivas
SWCA#1482L, SWHF#837

GM Guide Lamp division. Same stamping equipment they made headlight buckets with.

My uncles police dept had a Thompson they took off a guy pre-68 for sure. Might still be in the armory. He had it at the police range with us one Saturday.

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NRA RSO

When I was in high-school, one of my history teachers, who had been a Marine in WWII, would bring in some of his "stuff" for a show and tell for the class. Japaneese battle flags, rifles, pistols, swords, etc..

One thing stood out though. A Sten Gun. No idea how that came to be in with his pile of Pacific Theater stuff. I never asked if it was operable, or if he had the papers for it. Knowing him, and he was a family friend, as well as a teacher, heck, he went to my church, and drove my school bus for years, it could have gone either way. What happened to that stuff after he passed, I have no idea.

He was also the best teacher I ever had, and I still consider him to be a mentor. Semper Fi "Mr. Mac."

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John 3:16 .

The latest that I have read is that the receiver of machine gun must be flame cut into 3 sections. There were a number of M3-A1 and M1-A1 Thompson parts kits around in the late 90’s. Everything was there including a demilitarized receiver. The receivers were torch cut.

From what I understand you could not keep the middle section. The Greaseguns that I saw had the back end with the pistol grip and stock and were cut just in front of the trigger. The front sections were cut in back of the ejection port on a forward angle toward the magazine well and still had the dust cover and barrel ring. No middle sections were included.

Our version of the Sten Gun, cheap and easy to manufacture, more reliable than the Sten. Fired one once in the National Guard years ago.

If you peruse that NFA handbook I posted the link to earlier. it gives details and pics of the necessary deactivation/cutting processes necessary to make a MG/SMG just that.
Torch cut is the latest method and cuts must be 1/4" in width IIRC, placed across specific areas of the weapon, etc.

Sometimes just a few internal parts of certain weapons are considered to be 'a machine gun' under the NFA law. So it can be a confusing bit of landscape to travel through

The Handbook downloads slowly at times, but other times seems to play nice.

National Firearms Act Handbook | Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

One our door gunners got busted sending an AK, piece by piece, to his uncle. He got an Article 15 with loss of a stripe. No one wanted to drum out a good 60 man. Besides, he had enough on his mind sitting in back of a Huey, shooting FROM a moving target.

What they didn't know was he got busted on his third one, according to what he told me.

The T-39 arrived at Takhli AB , Thailand regular stop, classified, high priority cargo, some personnel.
The Wing Sergeant Major is making the pickup.
Not a fuel stop, so they shutdown the left side engine and the CoPilot opens the door.
Hands out some packages, says one more!
Hands out a long heavy package. An AK-47 breaks through the butcher paper wrapper.
Go to go! Door closes, away they go.
The Sergeant Major takes the classified to usual suspects, then puts AKs on Wing Commander’s desk.
Early next morning Commander yells , What the Hell is This!
Sergeant Major in next office tells him they arrived on the T-39.
Addressed to Fred Z (last name starts with Z)
Get him down here now! Yes Sir!
Fred of course knows nothing!
Apparently a Buddy of Fred’s was a Raven FAC up in Laos.
He flew over into Thailand and put the guns on the T-39 addressed to Fred.
What happened to the AKs?
Don’t know. But I don’t have them!

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

had a grease gun in korea. it didn't have a cocking handle. only a 4" barrel. the mags. could be used for a hammer. easy to clean, wire handle loosened the barrel, then screwed off. it was a cold weapon to carry when it got below zero. our LT. liked it, ended up he carryed / switched, i got a 45 w/ a tanker holester.

Correct,

Torch cuts minimum of 1/4" metal displacement/burn. Barrel trunnion and barrel is one cut that is mandatory.

Sadly historic pieces such as the M3 above are nothing but contraband and junk

While on foot patrol in 1969, an oldish gentleman walked up to my partner and me, saying "can I ask you a question"? He asked, "do you know what a M3 Greaser is? I told him I had seen them while in the military. He said "good, its yours". Opened his coat and handed me a fully operational, M3 with ammo, and hurried off. We walked to the nearest callbox and asked for a supervisor to meet us. A Sargeant and a Lieutenant shortly arrived and we handed the M3 to the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant told us the Sargeant would take care of the paperwork. We never saw the M3 again or any report about gun. It also was never part of the Special Operations Division inventory nor on the range. I could never find any paperwork about the gun. Do you think... . ?

It became part of someone’s collection…even if “unofficial”. I’ve been told that most undocumented machine guns in the country are in the hands of individual law enforcement officers.

It’s also not unheard of that the most collectible firearms confiscated by police and members of the local prosecutor’s offices are cherry picked by senior officers who make sure any destruct orders are signed off on as completed.

I don’t know how commonplace that is today compared to back in the day…but I wonder about that.

Way back in 1953 & 1954 I worked in a USAFSS compound. We had the
M3A1 "Grease Guns" hanging on the wall ready to use if necessary. We,
of course, were required to know how to use them. What I remember
most is to point the gun at the targets "feet" because when you cut loose
the gun climbs.

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In Omnia Paratus

I don't know what I'd do if I found one of those in a wall of my house. I'd admire it for a bit, but I couldn't take it to any of the local ranges without prying eyes asking questions. Plus, it would be quite a burden to own it legally, let alone illegally. But I wouldn't want it destroyed either.

One of my friends had an M3 dewat that he bought pre-68 for $25. Unfortunately it was stolen before he could register it in the amnesty. He can't believe what they cost now. He would like to buy one now, but his wife would beat him to death with it.

At a gun buy-back, someone turned in a WW2 Japanese Type 92 aircraft machinegun. It was based on the Lewis gun.

10 or 20 years ago, workers at Guide Lamp in Anderson In. found 2 M3 grease guns wrapped in oily cloth in the roof supports.

Guide Lamp was the only manufacture of the M3's. Rumor was that some Guide employees "liberated" a couple of M3's and hid them in the rafters expecting to retrieve after the war when security would be much more lax.

Evidently the employees were laid off before they could retrieve the M3's.

I kinda remember that when GM closed all the Anderson IN plants, the stash was found before the plant was leveled.