m1 Helmet painting

[NickD]

all Vietnam era M-1 helmets are of a lighter green & all are rear seamed there were some WW2 era re-issued M-1's during this period i have a couple

[crazy horse]

all Vietnam era M-1 helmets are of a lighter green & all are rear seamed there were some WW2 era re-issued M-1's during this period i have a couple

Nick I finally snagged a front seam the other day, been trying to read the #'s on the front, but they are pretty worn down, otherwise it's in great shape, it is supposed to be a mcord, but I gotta figure a way to see these #'s looks like there are just 3. oh well I will find out someway. oh yeah I bought a no seam ????? or it was welded somehow, weird.

[NickD]

its more then likely a McCord made shell if it was a Schlueter made shell it should have a capital "S" above the heat stamp number.

theres no such thing as a no seamed shell because how would they have attached the brim its probably just very well hidden ive seen ones like this before & they normally turn out to be rear seamed.

[crazy horse]

its more then likely a McCord made shell if it was a Schlueter made shell it should have a capital "S" above the heat stamp number.

theres no such thing as a no seamed shell because how would they have attached the brim its probably just very well hidden ive seen ones like this before & they normally turn out to be rear seamed.

I know it freaked me out, I kept looking at the front, then the back, weird but there is what looks like a split started on the front & on the back , about a 1/16 on both, thats why I think it probably is a rear seam, but was somehow welded & ground down. I know it would be impossible to put a rim on it with no split at all.

[NickD]

i know what you mean this one i have has the rear seam almost totally invisible & took me a while to actually find

[crazy horse]

i know what you mean this one i have has the rear seam almost totally invisible & took me a while to actually find

it is strange, mine has the small split on front & back & both are about the same size, but I am going to take thats it's a rear seam, never seen anything like it, but I'm one liner short, so I am going to leave it in a box till I get time to look at it some more, I did put my nam liner in it & it stayed, put it in another older one & it fell out, or if I do get it to stay in the edges of the liner stick out from under the helmet, it looks like crap, just glad the liner I got with the front seam had corporal stripes painted on the front, like you see just stripes on marine uniforms in the pacific, fits perfect, I can make out I think an 8 & 2 on the mcord, but the first # is really worn down, may try the chalk trick. oh yeah the gator looking things under your bales, I know a guy who sells the neck nape that goes to those & the one in the very back, they are more comfortable than the ww2 type, think they are about 6.95 each

[Yaniv111]

btw
for the one who asked all pictures tooked from wwii in hd on my youtube channel



enjoy and thanks again for helping

[denfly]

It's possible the no seam helmet is from another country. Many M1 lookalikes vary.

[1stCTHeavyArtillery]

A no seam M1 can be a foreign make- a lot of western countries started to make these- could be French or Belgium.

US WWII M1 helmets look "similar" between the 2 makers but the shape between the 2 MFGs are actually subtly different. Rear seam WWII helmets are supposed to have shown up near the end of the war but many people assume that these are Korean War helmets.
Then During Vietnam they made another millions plus (4 I think) production run, these pea green - a warm green helmets are all rear-seam and the dome is lower than the WWII version. Many people stateside think that all M1s are WWII but they are not, size, shape, heat stamps, bail construction, corking, paint and seam placement & metal used in construction of the seam tell you the era of your helmet.

The grain of the corking on the WWII & Korean helmets is usually larger than the smaller grain Nam lids, if you have a version of each side by side you begin to notice the differences.

Sadly there are some really good repro MFG Co's out there and the helmets are getting harder to tell apart form the originals- as with German lids if you smell paint and leather you may have a repro on your hands.


It's been stated that a few WWII helmets have been in circulation all the way up to the early 80's in the US Army, the hardware and liners updated along the way.

[Gunakibomb]

I have a navy helmet in my collection that has the similar color paint you are asking about. The navy themselves had to paint over the standard world war 2 green however. I have a few posts on it if you'd like to see.