Sniper Rifles

[clintonhater]

Edit: Clintonhater, you need to look closer. There is a broad arrow and crown marking right next to the markings on the scope rings. Broad arrow is left, other side is crown. Not very well stamped, but that is commonly found for the British.

Hell, I just took that to be handling damage! But looking again, you're absolutely right!

I checked an old article I have which mentions the same thing, "British Sniping Equipment in the Great War," by Roger Payne. (Incidentally, before I read this, one of those British A5s crudely engraved with its rifle's ser. no. showed up on ebay--I thought it had merely been disfigured by some dopey owner!")

Still like to know the meaning of that 1910 date.

[cplnorton]

Not many subjects to which that statement doesn't apply. Online is bad enough, but worse harm is done when misleading or incomplete
data is set down in black & white, because then it tends to be accepted uncritically.

That is probably the truest statement I have ever seen on the internet. I know I used to be guilty of that. I would read it in a book and take it as the Gospel. Just by a fluke, I started to dig in the archives on a subject, and then it became a obsession.

The great thing is, you are seeing more and more people who are closing books and digging in the archives. Which that is a really, really good thing, as we haven't even scratched the head of the amount of info in all the archive locations. Half the boxes you pull records from, the researchers say no one has ever been in them. So you can only imagine what is laying in a box some where that would rewrite all we thought we know.

Heck smokeeaterpilot on this post, I have no doubt he will be the next Frank Mallory. I mostly focus entirely on Marine Corps documents, but he lives so close to the Archives that he is pulling everything. lol

[cplnorton]

Hell, I just took that to be handling damage! But looking again, you're absolutely right!

I checked an old article I have which mentions the same thing, "British Sniping Equipment in the Great War," by Roger Payne. (Incidentally, before I read this, one of those British A5s crudely engraved with its rifle's ser. no. showed up on ebay--I thought it had merely been disfigured by some dopey owner!")

Still like to know the meaning of that 1910 date.

I pulled all the US WWI documents from the Cody Archives as I was trying to find everything on the Marine A5's. But there is a whole folder on A5 scopes going to foreign contracts. I never pulled it as I was focusing on the US stuff. But if anyone wants to research that, get a hold of me, and I will point you towards it. God only knows what is in there. But I know I was told it had never been pulled.

[Promo]

Clintonhater, do you have a link to the scope with the engraving? Also via PM if wanted.
Steve, would be interested in that file. But can't go there so easy. Any other chance I could get those files? I know that the French also used Winchester scopes on their WWI Lebel snipers.

[clintonhater]

Clintonhater, do you have a link to the scope with the engraving?

Not for the one I saw on ebay, unfortunately, which was several years ago; it was so ugly (red paint smeared in the electro-pencil engraving!), that it hurt my eyes to look at it!

There's a pretty poor B&W photo of it in Payne's article, which appeared in Vol 3, No. 2, of Arms & Militaria Collector; don't have the publication, only a high-contrast photocopy someone sent me. Could copy it, but you're going to find resolution disappointing.

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

Jon, The only way anyone can definitively state whether your rifle is one of the elusive WWI USMC sniper rifles is to somehow produce a reliable source of the serial numbers of the rifles themselves. At this point in time, all one can do is to state an opinion based on what each believes to be the characteristics of the original rifles based on whatever. To do that accurately, the evaluator would have to know what an original looked like when issued. Essentially the snipers themselves are typical 1903's that were selected by bore gauging and subsequent mounting of Winchester A5 scopes in highly modified #2 mounts in Mann-Niedner bases prior to being shipped to the Marines. When Michael Petrov originally asked me to find the 150 Niedner rifles, I started out doing the usual document search. All the documents being discussed recently are publicly available to anyone who pays for copies. There is nothing mysterious, exclusive, or secret about them. A lot of them appear in Senich's book, but no where near all of them. Countless people possess them. It's how one interprets the documents that leads to differing opinions. I found the document search to be a dead end, and took another tack entirely.

For example; I was surprised to see Smokeeaterpilot's last post. He stated exactly what I have been saying throughout this discussion, albeit one-sided. The document they possess DO NOT PRECLUDE any rifle in that block of serial numbers from being a sniper rifle (rifles NOT shown on that shipping manifest) except for the rifles on the manifest itself. It DOES NOT eliminate other rifles possibly sent in that group from having been converted to sniper rifles. What was Norton arguing about if they agree? Regardless, if you own a possible sniper rifle in that serial number range, you can relax.

Hell of a collection Jon.

[JWM]

My take on the WWI era activities between Winchester and Springfield armory mostly concerned improving the accuracy of existing Springfield rifles like the 1903 and 1917, for example, in order to get the most advanced sniper rifle that could be had for our European forces.

In my limited opinion, to do this would require the focus of such programs to include the testing of ammunition as has been so well noted, to include, the testing of different weight/length of barrels, and an awful lot of different fixed and telescopic sights of varying lengths, plus various mountings and bases for same. The era of telescopic sights was on a roll which is why Winchester got involved with them to begin with and obviously, they were in demand commercially and militarily during this era, right to this day and time.

In line with such rifle and sight tests would be to put the finished product in the hands of military men to get their opinions. In order to do this Winchester would have to know where to ship the finished products. At which time military units would have begun their tests. I and my fellow Marines back in 1961, I think it was, before the Corps adopted the M-14. Our test rifles were from a couple of different countries.

Back during the WWI era, it appears that some field testing was in order, with big contracts in the making, but apparently the end of the war stopped that, nonetheless, some of these rifles appear to have made it from the Winchester factory to the military from what I can gather from Brophy's book on The Springfield 1903 Rifles, and some other research material.

As for evidence of any kind, simply because one type of document does or does not mention that telescopic sights be included, one should not assume that such sights were not ordered to be affixed to the rifles in question. Especially where Springfield rifles are concerned, because their records appear to have left a lot to be desired, and from a historical standpoint, more often than not, existing Winchester records will not show special ordered sights either. That said, when involved in any sort of such research, evidence of any kind should be recorded and viewed and weighed on its own merit prior to making conclusions. To quote one of America's most gifted research scholars, Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Direct evidence may be clearer to grasp, but indirect evidence can carry equal or greater weight."

With this in mind, I don't expect anything at all will be solved until the evidence being discussed is published in it's totality, and referenced in such a manner that it can easily be verified by any interested party...just my two cents. I'm still very grateful to have the discussion being made by each of you fine folks on this forum.

James

[JWM]

Fabulous! (From this to the M.54, with it's BB gun trigger guard?)

Thank you very much! Isn't this stuff interesting?!

James

[JWM]

James, don't do this. Take a very close look at the markings around the patent dates! This is a British issued A5 scope - and I'm pretty sure it were the Brits too, who reblued the scope. Hence my interest in it.

You are absolutely right, Georg! Thank you for looking out for my best interests too! To tell you the truth, before I turned in last night, I checked on it again, and discovered the markings!!!!

Thanks again and good luck with obtaining it!

James

[cplnorton]

My take on the WWI era activities between Winchester and Springfield armory mostly concerned improving the accuracy of existing Springfield rifles like the 1903 and 1917, for example, in order to get the most advanced sniper rifle that could be had for our European forces.

In my limited opinion, to do this would require the focus of such programs to include the testing of ammunition as has been so well noted, to include, the testing of different weight/length of barrels, and an awful lot of different fixed and telescopic sights of varying lengths, plus various mountings and bases for same. The era of telescopic sights was on a roll which is why Winchester got involved with them to begin with and obviously, they were in demand commercially and militarily during this era, right to this day and time.

In line with such rifle and sight tests would be to put the finished product in the hands of military men to get their opinions. In order to do this Winchester would have to know where to ship the finished products. At which time military units would have begun their tests. I and my fellow Marines back in 1961, I think it was, before the Corps adopted the M-14. Our test rifles were from a couple of different countries.

Back during the WWI era, it appears that some field testing was in order, with big contracts in the making, but apparently the end of the war stopped that, nonetheless, some of these rifles appear to have made it from the Winchester factory to the military from what I can gather from Brophy's book on The Springfield 1903 Rifles, and some other research material.

As for evidence of any kind, simply because one type of document does or does not mention that telescopic sights be included, one should not assume that such sights were not ordered to be affixed to the rifles in question. Especially where Springfield rifles are concerned, because their records appear to have left a lot to be desired, and from a historical standpoint, more often than not, existing Winchester records will not show special ordered sights either. That said, when involved in any sort of such research, evidence of any kind should be recorded and viewed and weighed on its own merit prior to making conclusions. To quote one of America's most gifted research scholars, Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Direct evidence may be clearer to grasp, but indirect evidence can carry equal or greater weight."

With this in mind, I don't expect anything at all will be solved until the evidence being discussed is published in it's totality, and referenced in such a manner that it can easily be verified by any interested party...just my two cents. I'm still very grateful to have the discussion being made by each of you fine folks on this forum.

James

From reading them, I am really guessing they were probably used more for like a quality control. I have all the ammo orders the govt was making from WRA in WWI. And I've never really sat down and studied them, but it was just a massive amount of ammo the govt was ordering, and they were making these orders almost every month.

Like one month I rememember they ordered like 245 million rounds, and just a couple weeks before they had made an order for like a 110 million rounds. It was just a tremendous amount of ammo. I imagine they were using these rifles for testing samples from these massive orders. They kept round counts of the rifles on this list, and I know I remember seeing some in the 7000 to 8000 round range. So these rifles were shooting a lot of ammo.

But I guess the biggest thing I can say about this document, these rifles were the Property of the US Army. They were not property of WRA or the property of the US Marines. Winchester was ordered by the Govt during the war to always keep anything that was in anyway US Property seperate, and WRA was held accountable for it. So WRA always notated what everything was, such as Army or Marine, because the govt mandated it.

I guess the other thing I can say, these rifles were all still at WRA in March 1919. Almost a full year after the 500 Marine A5 mounted rifles had already shipped. It also says when a lot of the serials on this list first arrived at WRA, and many didn't even arrive until the Marine A5's rifles were long gone as well.

That is why I say I wouldn't read too much into these serial ranges of these rifles. They weren't Marine, and many didn't arrive until after the WRA Marine A5 mounted rifles had already shipped.

But no I totally understand what you are saying. And what you are saying is exactly right. I have a ton of sniper rifle test reports from SA and the Marines, and they are exactly as you describe. This one though, is just nothing like them.

If I really get motivated, I will get out the WRA correspondance from WWI and go through it. I probably honestly have the document that would detail the ammo tests these rifles were in. But it's just thousands of pages, and you go though it and it about makes your eyes bleed. Because it's so much to do about ammo, and it's soooo boring to read.

Semper Fi by the way!