Globco 555 Mohawk?

I think the 555 has a welded gas tube, not adjustable....

No they are adjustable. If someone thinks their's is "welded" the gun is probably the victim of haven't been shot by someone using corrosive ammo and no common sense. If you don't clean a gun properly - with water, Windex, ballistol, etc. after shooting corrosive you may well later come to think that your gas tube is welded. "Duh..." Hoppes 9 doesn't dissolve corrosive salts - at all.
 
No they are adjustable. If someone thinks their's is "welded" the gun is probably the victim of haven't been shot by someone using corrosive ammo and no common sense. If you don't clean a gun properly - with water, Windex, ballistol, etc. after shooting corrosive you may well later come to think that your gas tube is welded. "Duh..." Hoppes 9 doesn't dissolve corrosive salts - at all.

I don't think there has beem corrosive .303 since the cordite days...
I just recall there being something with the gas tubes/pistons not being accessible due to welding or something...
 
I don't think there has beem corrosive .303 since the cordite days...
I just recall there being something with the gas tubes/pistons not being accessible due to welding or something...

I think you are a bit confused there. Normally it is the primer which is the corrosive component in corrosive ammo - not the "powder". That is, the propellant isn't normally corrosive. The exception is cordite which is a corrosive propellant. So WW1 303 British ammo was generally doubly corrosive since it had both common (by the standards of the time) corrosive primers and an uncommon corrosive propellant.

The use of corrosive cordite in rifle ammo was largely discontinued in the years between WW1 and WW2 but the use of corrosive primers in this cartridge didn't end until the late 50's or even early 60's. I have some corrosive .303 British stuff from the late 50's in my basement right now and this stuff is still being sold at retail (LINK).

People who don't know corrosive ammo from the non-corrosive stuff and who have no idea that using conventional gun cleaners (only) after shooting corrosive ammo doesn't clean out the corrosive salts are probably the reason why many Globco guns have been destroyed by poor upkeep
 
Globe Firearms was in the business of selling guns to pay the employees and keep the bank happy. At the time there were so many military guns available and relatively few commercial ones. It made sense to them to make ugly low priced guns into sellable ones. You can't fault them for trying.

I see the same mentality in the historic military vehicle community. If you go on-line and search for "bobbed deuce" there are dozens of examples of perfectly serviceable USGI surplus 6x6 trucks shortened by one axle with a military specification trailer box on the back. Killing two birds to get one stone. Some previous owner tried to make my M151A2 1974 Pattern Jeep into a bush buggy with fender flares, an AM FM radio and speakers, a bumper winch and other "improvements". Thanks very much man, you've just making my restoration project harder but keep it up because there are fewer and fewer original vehicles out there in a few years.
 
Globe Firearms was in the business of selling guns to pay the employees and keep the bank happy. At the time there were so many military guns available and relatively few commercial ones. It made sense to them to make ugly low priced guns into sell-able ones. You can't fault them for trying.

I see the same mentality in the historic military vehicle community. If you go on-line and search for "bobbed deuce" there are dozens of examples of perfectly serviceable USGI surplus 6x6 trucks shortened by one axle with a military specification trailer box on the back. Killing two birds to get one stone. Some previous owner tried to make my M151A2 1974 Pattern Jeep into a bush buggy with fender flares, an AM FM radio and speakers, a bumper winch and other "improvements". Thanks very much man, you've just making my restoration project harder but keep it up because there are fewer and fewer original vehicles out there in a few years.

I get your torment with regards to the bobbing and hacking that some have undoubtedly inflicted on now-collectible military vehicles. The good news is that I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to do such a thing now to a surviving original deuce of military jeep. As a matter of fact I'm sure there are good folks out there working to undo such harms and restore ex-military vehicles - to the extent possible. I saw a feature on TV about a guy trying make one good Sherman tank from two wrecks recovered from an artillery practice range. He was literally trying to weld the front of one to the back of another.

I'm sure that there are lots of threads discussing the ethics of sporterizing military firearms. I suppose that there may be more sporterized K98s, Lee-Enfields, SKSs, etc. than their unaltered counterparts. After the wars, people had to deal with the realities that storing military relics take space and costs money. In Canada, you could buy a Lancaster bomber for the value of it as scrap. There were ads offering ex military jeeps for sale, as well as tents, etc. in the back of comic books, when I was a kid.

The fact that dealers bought up some ex military firearms with the hopes of selling these to the civilian market kept a certain number of guns - like the Finnish-captured SVTs - from immediate destruction, after the war.

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Sad but true, original SVT 40s would have been just about impossible to sell in North America in the 60s - since the oddball corrosive ammo shot by these guns was unheard of and unavailable. At the same time, the commercial semi autos of the 60s were total crap (notably the really unreliable Remington 740 or 742 or whatever it was). I'm sure that in the 60's you would have had a hard time giving SVT guns away - unless they were converted to a more useful configuration for hunting - an set-up for an available cartridge. More recently stored, all-original SVT 40's are being surplussed by the Russians and these guns are now on the market - with sales that are hardly brisk.

Somebody back in the 60's had the moxy to commit to buy a bunch of captured SVT40s from Interarms, bring these to Canada and had to devise a pretty innovative solution to changing these to 303 British (sourcing and adapting new old stock Mk III* barrels). The folks behind Global Firearms hand to source new sporter stocks and had to engineer the new sporterized gas system, develop jigs and manufacturing processes, train staff, develop marketing channels, etc. Any banker would turn you down flat if you showed them a business plan for this initiative. I'm betting that the Global Firearms Mohawk 555 was a private venture where the principals put up their own money and their own sweat capital.

Whether you like the gun or not is your business. Many do not, but there is some collector interest in these quirky guns with a murky history.

I am intrigued by the fact that this saga happened at all - and my part of Canada of all places - and that just about the whole story has been lost to history. People aren't even sure if the company was in Ottawa, Gatineau, Montreal or Toronto (I have heard or read all these variations). Where was the manufacturing site? (that is what building?), who was behind this business? Now did things end-up for them?
 
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Any Mohawk owners still active on CGN?

I posted about acquiring a Globe Mohawk 555 a few weeks ago on CGN facebook. Got it checked by the gunsmith to see of it was safe to fire.

Too it to the range yesterday. Gas system setting was at 5. Really rough on brass. Occasionally does not go into battery. Once re-cocked shoots just fine, but then may have a battery issue a few shots later.

Any Mohawk owners here that can help?
 
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