Another of my XM16E1 rewelds…
About this rifle…
Built from a demilled Colt XM16E1 rifle where the magwell was still intact, magwell was found on Gunbroker. Rear half of the lower was from a Nodak 601 80% blemished lower. I sent them to the best in the retro world for welding, (if you know, you know) once back I milled it with a 5D tactical jig and a Dewalt DWP 611 router. Upper is a mid 60’s Colt no forge code and rebated front lug. The barrel is a 64-65 Colt M VP 12 barrel with early bend magnetic carbon steel gas tube, hand guards are early no drain hole and the right side has gorgeous mottling.
*EDIT*
Since this video has been made I have changed the buffer tube out to an earlier one that was used on the Colt 601, 602 and early XM16E1’s. I have also changed the ejection port door out to the earlier style as well
The lower was finished using Norrells Moly Resin in the “Colt Grayish Black Flat” color as you can see it’s a damn near perfect match to the original mid 60’s Colt XM Gray anodizing on the upper.
Everything on this rifle is mid 60’s (1964-1966) Colt with the exception of the rear half of the lower, buffer, and trigger. The trigger is a Rarebreed FRT-15, the buffer is from an A1 roughly 1967 (I couldn’t get the trigger to run with my edgewater buffer) and as stated above the rear half of the lower is from a blemished nodak 601 80% everything else dates to the mid 1960’s (hell even the sling is dated “May 1964”) the bolt catch, magazine catch, Spring, and button are original to the original GI lower.
The thing that makes this rifle unique is the fact that the original rifle that the magwell came from, the lower was forged very early probably sometime around 1963/1964, as it has the optical indexing mark on the partial fence (raised “+” sign) however the serial number dates it to around 1966 (hence the title of the video 1964-66) so I surmise the lower was forged in either 63 or 64, but not pressed into service until 1966 Colt probably just grabbed a random forging that was lying around and milled it out. It’s a pretty safe bet to say that 98% of this rifle saw action in Vietnam
Of all my builds this one is my favorite, and of all of my reweld builds this is the one that’s the most historically accurate. I have 1 more reweld that’s done it’s a full fence XM16E1 that dates to 1967 I’ll eventually put a video together of that one. I have 2 more rewelds in the works, one dates to 1965 and the other 1966 but that one has an “X” at the end of the serial number indicating a duplicate SN (these are not commonly found and pretty rare)
This build was another tribute to my late Father who was a Vietnam Veteran (1965-1967) lost to Agent Orange on March 6, 2013
