My late father had a original M76 that he purchased back in the 1970's from a Police Equipment & S&W Distributor in Baltimore for $90 + the $200 tax. It had some problems running with 9mm ball, and after talking with someone at S&W, we had our summer vacation in Southern New Hampshire that summer of 1974 and My dad stopped off at the S&W factory to see someone, who was probably Dwayne Charron. To get to the point, S&W replaced the bolt and trigger bar and fired 36 rounds through the piece and after my dad bought a spare barrel, barrel shroud, bolt and recoil spring - we went on our way.
That Model 76 fired thousands of rounds without a bobble after that, although the plastic grip did get cracked. S&W still had parts as late as 1990 and I ordered a complete parts set, less the receiver for $195 with Federal Officer discount! When S&W found a bunch of finished but unsold M76s at the factory in the late 1990's along with all the X and T prefix serial number test guns, they had all the saleable guns refitted for sale and sold the whole lot to F.J. Vollmer in Illinois, who resold all of them to Class 3 and Curio licensees within a couple weeks. Most of the prototype Model 76 guns and some rare models for the experimental caseless firing gun went to the Connecticut River Valley Historical Association collection or the Springfield Armory collection, where they are soon (hopefully) to be photographed and inventoried online.
Serial Numbers: u3981; X185; X186; X187; T1186; T1112; T1208; X210; X214; X215;
http://ww3.rediscov.com/spring/VFPC.../DETAILS.IDC,SPECIFIC=11767,DATABASE=67877531,
I was fortunate enough to fire some of the Navy owned S&W M76s when the old UDT Teams were obsorbed into the SEAL Teams (then only Team 1 and 2) to become Teams 3 and 4 and Swimmer Delivery Teams. Those were all Vietnam and 1960's vintage guns and were rode hard and put up wet. The suppressors were pretty cool and were used for a time on other weapons before the MP5 replaced them all.
Navy SEAL Museum has one of the few remaining M76/Mark 24 SMG stainless steel silencers
MK Arms was started to build spare parts for the M76's, but they had financial and legal issues with their open bolt version M76/Mark pistol. I bought a registered MK Arms SMG and it was a fine shooter, but the barrel was not concentric to the bore and would rotate on firing, so you could see your groups form an "egg" shape down range as the burst progressed. Scott Andrey in NC makes replacement barrels for both guns that are straight as a arrow and accurate.
I went the other direction and am building a clone of the CIA Swedish K with authentic silencer from real blueprints in legal, close bolt format, while Swedish K parts are still available. Just waiting on the damn tax stamp!
I'll try and see if I can track down some more pictures.
Lee Marvin in Prime Cut. Semper Fi Lee!
SF in Vietnam with the K
Sneaky Petes in Vietnam with the K
The real reason the S&W Model 76 went out of production, The Navy had better weapons that had longer range and upgrades for the maritime and jungle environment )Stoner belt feds, Remington 1100 full auto shotguns, M16s, CAR15's etc).
SEAL Armory in Vietnam - no M76s
The Smith & Wesson M76 was a successful weapons system, since most were sold to Saudi Arabia along with large quantities of 38 Special and 357 Magnum pistols and an assortment of 9mm autos. Get a copy of Dwayne Charron's book On his life at S&W for some interesting insights.
