Smg Uzi vector/group industries

[hkg3k]

Make sure that you are buying from a legitimate seller. And make sure the gun is in good shape.

Having been in this game since before the making ban on 5-19-86 and >60 transferable transactions as an individual collector, I'm completely confident in my ability to parse out legitimate sellers (dealer or individual) -and- understand / know exactly the condition and functionality of the machine gun I'm purchasing. As I type this, I can't think of a single instance over the years, where I believe I got significantly less than I expected. Before the internet days, the sphere of dealers / collectors was much smaller and the $$$ amounts were smaller as well...so, it was much less risky in taking that plunge.

You seem confident in your ability to do same. That is a good thing and gives you the ability to possibly reap some monetary rewards in your purchases.

Understand in today's world, purchasing a machine gun is a much bigger risk...both in terms of the $$$ at stake and being able to discern between that legitimate seller and a scammer. Because an individual seller is typically where the best prices are found, this can become a minefield to navigate for the inexperienced or 1st time buyer looking for the best price on an M16 or HK sear, for example. If it's an out of state seller and something goes sideways, it becomes even more problematic to resolve.

There's a segment of buyers who do not / will not, want to deal with that kind of risk and are happy to pay for the good will an established dealer offers. Ruben, for example, only offers what he has in his physical inventory (no brokering) and has every machine gun he offers gone through and serviced by a handful of smiths that he uses. There may be comments / complaints about Ruben's pricing, but it's an extreme rarity of a buyer complaint that what they received had been misrepresented. Ruben has been a successful dealer / seller for literally decades, so the marketplace obviously places a value on his goods / services.

Is that overpaying? Only if you believe that the type of good will that a dealer like Ruben offers, has no value.

Disclaimer: I have never purchased a Title 2 item from Ruben

 

[regalgseguy]

Dealer NFA is a good place to buy. If I were you I would buy a Converted RR IMI with the blocking bar removed. IMI guns are better than Vectors because they are in spec. Read what Rover Dave has to say about Vector vs IMI.

 

[pmf]

I bought a NIB Vector in 2001. It has been flawless. Unlike a converted gun, it started life as a machine gun. Not in spec? I have no trouble putting in different lowers, barrels, bolts, everything fits fine. It goes bang every time I pull the trigger. I'd buy it again in an instant. Rover Dave just got a bad gun and will crawl across an interstate to bitch about Vectors. Mine has been awesome. With a converted gun, you have to worry about exactly what conversion was done. Some are better than others.

 

[ScottinTexas]

I bought a NIB Vector in 2001. It has been flawless. Unlike a converted gun, it started life as a machine gun. Not in spec? I have no trouble putting in different lowers, barrels, bolts, everything fits fine. It goes bang every time I pull the trigger. I'd buy it again in an instant. Rover Dave just got a bad gun and will crawl across an interstate to bitch about Vectors. Mine has been awesome. With a converted gun, you have to worry about exactly what conversion was done. Some are better than others.

Your experience with a GI Vector is not the same as my experience with my GI Vector.

Nether experience is invalid or meaningless, and extrapolation is hard to do with any certainty.

However, I think it is fair to say much has been written and is known about issues GI had with warped receivers and misaligned trunnions…..and IMI appears to not have had the same issues.

I agree 100% that the method of and quality of the conversion is important for an IMI gun and is not a factor on a GI Vector.

 

[mike400]

My 1st GI Vector UZI did not run out of the box. Sent it back and they put in a modified SA feed ramp. I guess might have been slightly out of spec. It ran 100% after that, even with the .45 kit. They can be corrected, but it can be a pain finding someone good to do it.

 

[RoverDave]

I bought a NIB Vector in 2001. It has been flawless. Unlike a converted gun, it started life as a machine gun. Not in spec? I have no trouble putting in different lowers, barrels, bolts, everything fits fine. It goes bang every time I pull the trigger. I'd buy it again in an instant. Rover Dave just got a bad gun and will crawl across an interstate to bitch about Vectors. Mine has been awesome. With a converted gun, you have to worry about exactly what conversion was done. Some are better than others.

For someone who has been on this site for 20 years, you've forgotten a lot of the past discussions. Let me refresh your memory. The receivers manufactured by Group Industries and mostly assembled by Vector are out of spec. That's not my opinion. That's the opinion of Mike Brown, who made the receivers, and Ralph and Rex from Vector. Anyone who claims the GL receivers aren't out of spec is misinformed or lying. It's true that those guns were designed from the start to be full autos, but they weren't exact copies of the original. Anyone building a gun from those receivers had to work around the spec problems and make corrections during assembly. GI and Vector both did a nice job of correcting the flaws in the receiver and were able to turn out good guns. The completed guns were close enough to spec to be compatible with most original IMI parts, but not always. People sometimes had problems with wood stocks not fitting properly, or the tri-rail forearms not fitting without a lot of modification. Those sorts of problems rarely happened on IMI guns.

The bigger problem came with heat treating the receivers. The spec problems with the receivers were well known and predictable, but the problems caused by heat treating were unpredictable. Some receivers warped and some didn't. Vector would straighten them during assembly but the problem didn't end there. Once delivered to the customer, straight receivers would start to bend again when the guns were shot enough to heat up the barrel trunions. Again, this is not my opinion. That's what Ralph and Rex from Vector told everyone who asked. Anyone who was a member here between 2002 and 2008 saw many posts of people complaining about alignment problems and Rex telling them to send their guns in for repair. Many of the delivered guns were fine, but problem guns weren't rare.

A buyer today has two choices. He can by an IMI conversion gun, knowing the receiver is in spec and not warped. Depending on the conversion steps, full auto parts may or may not drop into the gun, but the status of the gun is easy to assess, predictable, and easy for most gunsmiths to improve if desired (within the allowable legal limits). The other option is to buy a GI/Vector. The gun will almost always accept surplus SMG parts. Accessories usually fit but not always. The wildcard is alignment issues. You don't know if the gun has issues or not. You don't know if the problems have been fixed already or are yet to come, and it's hard to assess the condition without substantial use. If you have an alignment issue, it can be fixed, so it's not a terminal problem. It used to be easy during the heydays of Vector. After that period of time, Richard at BWE could ensure a quality job, but at an extremely long wait. It's a little harder these days to find someone that will do it right.

Regarding the heat treatment of the receivers, it theoretically delivers better longevity, but none of us use the guns enough for it to matter. Uzi Gal never liked the idea of heat treating receivers due to the problems it creates.

 

[navgunner]

For someone who has been on this site for 20 years, you've forgotten a lot of the past discussions. Let me refresh your memory. The receivers manufactured by Group Industries and mostly assembled by Vector are out of spec. That's not my opinion. That's the opinion of Mike Brown, who made the receivers, and Ralph and Rex from Vector. Anyone who claims the GL receivers aren't out of spec is misinformed or lying. It's true that those guns were designed from the start to be full autos, but they weren't exact copies of the original. Anyone building a gun from those receivers had to work around the spec problems and make corrections during assembly. GI and Vector both did a nice job of correcting the flaws in the receiver and were able to turn out good guns. The completed guns were close enough to spec to be compatible with most original IMI parts, but not always. People sometimes had problems with wood stocks not fitting properly, or the tri-rail forearms not fitting without a lot of modification. Those sorts of problems rarely happened on IMI guns.

The bigger problem came with heat treating the receivers. The spec problems with the receivers were well known and predictable, but the problems caused by heat treating were unpredictable. Some receivers warped and some didn't. Vector would straighten them during assembly but the problem didn't end there. Once delivered to the customer, straight receivers would start to bend again when the guns were shot enough to heat up the barrel trunions. Again, this is not my opinion. That's what Ralph and Rex from Vector told everyone who asked. Anyone who was a member here between 2002 and 2008 saw many posts of people complaining about alignment problems and Rex telling them to send their guns in for repair. Many of the delivered guns were fine, but problem guns weren't rare.

A buyer today has two choices. He can by an IMI conversion gun, knowing the receiver is in spec and not warped. Depending on the conversion steps, full auto parts may or may not drop into the gun, but the status of the gun is easy to assess, predictable, and easy for most gunsmiths to improve if desired (within the allowable legal limits). The other option is to buy a GI/Vector. The gun will almost always accept surplus SMG parts. Accessories usually fit but not always. The wildcard is alignment issues. You don't know if the gun has issues or not. You don't know if the problems have been fixed already or are yet to come, and it's hard to assess the condition without substantial use. If you have an alignment issue, it can be fixed, so it's not a terminal problem. It used to be easy during the heydays of Vector. After that period of time, Richard at BWE could ensure a quality job, but at an extremely long wait. It's a little harder these days to find someone that will do it right.

Regarding the heat treatment of the receivers, it theoretically delivers better longevity, but none of us use the guns enough for it to matter. Uzi Gal never liked the idea of heat treating receivers due to the problems it creates.

100%. If you don’t agree, just go find one of the semi auto G.I. receivers and try and build one yourself.

 

[pmf]

Dave -- you don't need to refresh mu memory. I've read your sermon 1000 times over the last two decades. Guess I just got lucky with my Vector.

Maybe we should do a poll -- How many folks have a Vector uzi, and how many of them are unhappy with it? Bet you'd be in a pretty small club.

 

[skiboatsp]

Happy with mine!

 

[mike400]

Dave, my comments were only my observation, a sample size of one. I was only trying to relate my experiences. Quite frankly, I don’t care if it is slightly out of spec, I only care that it runs And does what I ask of it. If someone is looking for perfection, look elsewhere, maybe an MP5 or the like. For work I have had the privilege of trying many other class 3 weapons. Any UZI including IMI guns would not be my first choice for a duty FA gun. Having said that, as a hobby/fun gun, I still enjoy the UZI platform and will continue for some time to come.

 

[ScottinTexas]

At the risk of having him reappear like Beatlejuice by evoking his name, our old friend BatteringRam NIB bought his mint unfired GI / Vector and had to ship it off to one or two gunsmiths before he got his out-of-spec gun to work. That was a fun story to take in.

My GI / Vector was purchased from Midwest Tactical and was in 99% condition; fired very little. It was fine until I swapped the GI barrel for a Green Mountain barrel and I eventually learned that due to misalignment of either the receiver or trunnion (or both), no unaltered aftermarket barrel would likely run well, if at all.

The GI / Vector barrel has a serious external chamfer that is compensating for the misalignment and I haven't seen other barrels with this chamfer.

My guess is a lot of GI / Vector owners have no clue and are happy, which is perfectly fine....until you need / want to replace the barrel and learn you might not be able to do so without addressing the underlying cause.

Anyway, add two under the column "OK with never changing barrels because of build issues".

BatteringRam NIB. BatteringRam NIB. BatteringRam NIB.

 

[Garrett]

Regarding the heat treatment of the receivers, it theoretically delivers better longevity, but none of us use the guns enough for it to matter.

Related question: was the heat treating done by Vector or by Group? Meaning, would a gun completed by Group Industries prior to the bankruptcy be heat treated?

 

[Samuel_Hoggson]

Richard mentioned that "out of spec" typically evidenced as upward POI shift on guns not sufficiently affected to have functional issues (requiring his jig). This seems to be the case, as both my Vectors hit high. I really don't care, they run like trains, and it's just a matter of sight picture anyway. As with pistols.

Both my guns easily accept parts from the four surplus kits I bought. Plus several surplus barrels I bought. In fact, I don't use the parts that came with the guns. Also, both run the Vector .22 kits perfectly. Well, assuming I don't try to use Winchester bulk HPs.....

At this point in time I'd only be leery of factually NIB examples. Rolling the dice there.

 

[RoverDave]

Related question: was the heat treating done by Vector or by Group? Meaning, would a gun completed by Group Industries prior to the bankruptcy be heat treated?

Both companies heat treated the receivers. Vector tired to duplicate the Group Industries manufacturing process as closely as they could. That helped them work around the deficiencies in the GI receivers.

 

[SecondAmend]

FWIW, the Group Ind -> Vector full size Uzi SMG that I have was one of the last ones made by Group Ind (when they were cranking them out 24/7 to meet the May, '86 registration cutoff), and it was also one of the last receivers that Vector built up into a functional SMG (in 2003). The only fitment issues I've encountered were with a front tri-rail not being able to slide on, and I did have to shim downward the Vector .22 conversion bolt firing pin/extractor subassembly. I have not had any operational issues.

MHO, YMMV, etc. Be well.

 

[ATCDoktor]

At the urging of a co worker the very first SMG I purchased was an UZI.

As he had won a couple of of state championships at SMG matches here in AZ (back in the day) with his Uzi, I figured I’d fall in on his recommendations and buy the same manufacturer of UZI he did, a GI/Vector.

I dug around on the internet and found one at the market price (at that time) from a reputable dealer (John Thetford) who stated it was practically new and truly a Vector (which is what I wanted).

I sent him the money, waited out the Form 3 and when my SOT called and said it was in I smoked the tires off my truck getting down to his shop.

The box that it was shipped in was several times larger than it needed to be and John had dumped the contents of a paper shredder in there as packing material which I thought was hilarious but my SOT didn’t see the humor in it as that shit went everywhere.

We pulled the gun out of all that shit, dumped all the shredded paper out of the action/barrel, took it apart, looked it over (at the time I truly had no idea what I was looking at or what to look for), put it all back together, loaded some rounds in the magazine and attempted to test fire it into my SOT’s bullet trap.

Sadly it wouldn’t run.

It would feed and fire but would not eject.

Crestfallen and somewhat furious, I pulled the top cover and bolt and lo and behold the ejector was broke smooth off at the rivet.

So much for the gun being practically new.

After finding the broken ejector, I slowed down, took one of my SOT’s flashlights and a magnifying glass and went over every inch of gun.

The finish was perfect, unmarred, no wear on the bolt, the buffer wasn’t beaten up it was exceptionally clean and the only other issue I could find is that it wasn’t marked Vector.

I was fairly furious now in that what I purchased was supposed to be a Vector that had been barely used was now a refinished Group Industries with a broke ejector with an untold number of rounds through it.

I called up John Thedford from the shop, told him that the gun he sold me was not as advertised (and broken) and I’d be sending it back and for him to un ass my money ASAP.

John shared with me that he didn’t knowingly mislead me and that although the gun wasn’t marked Vector he had been assured by a very senior member of this board that it’s serial number “fell into the range of guns built be Vector” and he had no explanation reference the broken ejector.

I explained that the gun had been clearly refinished as the “nub” of the broken ejector had been parkerized and that regardless of the guns serial number Vector (who was still in business at the time) shared specifically that they would no longer work on Uzi’s that weren’t marked “Vector”.

John told me to box it up and send it back and he’d get my money back to me asap but he offered an option that I could send it off for repair and he’d foot the bill and try and offset the premium I paid for a “marked” Vector as opposed to a standard Group Industries gun.

I was still in my SOT’s shop talking to John on speakerphone and he (my SOT) said “tell him you’ll call him back and hang up the phone”.

Once I finished the call my SOT convinced me that John was handling our transaction fairly reasonably in that he (John) offered to fix the gun and offset the premium paid for the vector and what else did I want?

I told him I wanted what I paid for and not some refinished, possibly ragged out gun with a broken ejector and as far as fixing the gun was concerned, I knew of one guy that specialized in Uzi’s (seeing is how Vector wouldn’t touch it) and he’s in Florida and I’ll die of old age before he got it sorted out.

My SOT (once again) chilled me out, shared that I should keep the gun, he’d have it fixed locally (again it was just a broken ejector) and the difference between a Group and a Vector (back then) was a few hundred dollars and John was gonna refund that so what’s the downside?

I was still asshurt because it wasn’t a “Vector” but I took my SOT’s advice and kept the gun.

I ordered a half dozen ejectors and extractor’s from D and D Sales (back when you could get them) and I believe my SOT had his yardman replace the ejector (believe it or not he did a perfect job) John paid for the parts and labor and I filed the Form 4.

That was 14 years ago and so far the only other part I’ve replace on that gun was an extractor.

I could not begin to estimate the number of 9mm rounds fired through that gun (many thousands) but I will share that I fired enough 22 LR ammo through using a Subgun Ordnance 22 kit to clog up my SWR trident resulting in it needing to be “jailbroken” and cleaned out.

My Group Industries (non Vector) Uzi has been a joy to own and shoot and is my favorite SMG.

I appreciate the effort that my SOT made on behalf of me keeping it.

I can only assume that the person that sold it to John shot the piss out of it, had it refinished (possibly not knowing the ejector was broken the last time it was fired) replaced the green furniture with new OEM green stuff and passed it on as barely used.

Me purchasing this Uzi taught me that (when it comes to buying machineguns) NIB or nearly new/unfired doesn’t mean you’re gonna have a trouble free gun and I truly believe it is hit or miss as to whether or not your experience will be postive.

As far as my GI Uzi is concerned, it’s the best $5800 dollars I ever spent on a gun.

 

[trilogymac]

I bought my IMI/Pearl gun in 2005. It was a partial conversion with the block removed. The Pearl was bought because of all the alignment issues with the vector guns. I later had the gun brought up to SMG specs. That said, if a seller can provide a video of the gun running multiple mags back to back I would consider a Vector at this point in time. I still feel a FULL SPEC IMI gun is the best route. YMMV.

I am old enough to remember when NIB Vector meant.... gun wont run.

 

[MarkV]

Some really good advice mixed in with a little of the typical hubris. Back when the Vectors were sub 3k, I ended up paying almost double that at the time for a converted IMI Model45 that still had the semi trunnion & barrel ring. I originally was hot and heavy on getting a Vector but the decision in the end was influenced partly from frustrations others were having with Vectors and mostly sage advice from K2.

Vector stood behind their product, but NIB doesn't necessarily mean it's without issue in NFA-land. That was then and there's less support available now. Besides a couple of 45acp barrels & mags with the conversion, it also came with clearanced 9mm bolts/barrels/mags and I snagged the Vector 22 kit with a handful of mags that worked right out of the bag. The only issues I've had are occasional stovepipes on one of my spare 9mm GI bolts I picked up later, some minor fitting for the FAB rail for the sling swivel & CSS can, complaints that the 22 mags empty faster than you can load them, and just how messy it is to clean a full auto in rimfire can be.

 

[Hassayamper]

Update since my last post on this thread: I have now had my full auto Vector for about three months and have shot at least 2500 rounds through it, including a couple of dozen 72-round mag dumps from drum magazines. Whether with the OEM lower or an old battle-worn Israeli lower with Hebrew markings, I have not had a single misfire with 9 mm ammunition.

The .45 kit works well also, although I did have one failure to feed after shooting a couple of dozen magazines through it. I cleaned everything well and it has not recurred.

The .22 conversion kit I bought later has been troublesome. Usually gets off four or five rounds, then a failure to extract. I've watched the video from BWE on tuning these, and have done most of the adjustments I'm comfortable doing myself, including replacing the extractor with a new one. Still giving me trouble. I think I am going to send it to a specialist. Recommendations for this service will be gladly entertained.

I will never depend on this weapon for anything but having fun on weekends with my kid. All in all, I am very happy with it as a reliable and durable 9mm shooter. It would be ideal for what I want out of a SMG if I could get the .22 kit running perfectly.

 

[SecondAmend]

Update since my last post on this thread"
....
The .22 conversion kit I bought later has been troublesome. Usually gets off four or five rounds, then a failure to extract. I've watched the video from BWE on tuning these, and have done most of the adjustments I'm comfortable doing myself, including replacing the extractor with a new one. Still giving me trouble. I think I am going to send it to a specialist. Recommendations for this service will be gladly entertained.
...

The (2007 vintage Vector) Uzi .22 conversion I have had feed and extraction problems until I "chased" the (tight) chamber with a .22LR finish reamer after previously smoothing the feed ramp and shimming the firing pin/extractor block for clearance between the extractor slots in the barrel and the top of the mag lips.
MHO, YMMV, etc. Best of luck. Be well.