WRA Part Nomenclature
I should have addressed this issue first and foremost. The first task in any discussion that concerns physical equipment should address nomenclature. Nomenclature is the language of the engineer, and every part of any manufactured device should be assigned a name, a part number, and a unit of measure. The military has tens of thousands of Technical Manuals (TM's), one for every piece of equipment they possess. Every part of every military device is assigned a name and a part number.
I will use the same nomenclature WRA utilized.
WRA Nomenclature for Mounts and Bases_Post.jpgWinchester Prices for Scopes and Mounts _ Book.jpg
In the old WRA sales listing to the left and brochure to the right, every part that WRA sold for the A5 is listed by the name WRA gave that part in 1909.
Win #2 Mount as Used with the Marine Springfield Base Annotated JT-Book.jpg
WRA differentiated between mounts and bases. The picture above depicts an OEM WRA #2 mount and its features. This is the mount that was modified per Maj. Holcomb's direction to become what is known as the "Marine Mount". Note the grasshopper spring. It is the one distinguishing feature one can spot from a reasonable distance. The Marine Mount does not have a grasshopper. No grasshopper, it is a Marine Mount. Grasshopper, it is a WRA OEM #2 mount. There is no base shown in the picture.
The OEM WRA #2 mount is attached to the rifle using a "Springfield Marine" base, if the rifle base spacing is 7.2?. One slides the scope mounts over the base and tightens the thumbscrew to secure the scope. Without that thumbscrew, the scope is useless, unless you want to use it to peak at birds. This is the problem the Army encountered in France. The Army had a lot of scoped rifles with thumbscrew mounts they accumulated through the years.
The thumbscrew had another problem. Temperature changes caused it to loosen. Overnight, the rifle's zero would change as much as 2 MOA (that’s 2" at 100 yards, 20" at 1000 yards). This is a serious issue for a sniper trying to hit a man’s head at 1000 yards. An AEF sniper shoots at a German sniper and misses, and the German sniper returns the shot and kills the AEF sniper. All the time and money spent training your sniper just went down the tubes.
The Marine rifle teams became cognizant of this issue around 1912, when Edward Crossman published an article describing the problem, soon to be followed by articles from Townsend Whelen. In 1916, then Captain Garland Fay, Captain of the Marine rifle team housed at Wakefield, decided to replace the Springfield Marine bases with a tapered base A. O. Niedner was installing, which was highly recommended by Townsend Whelen. Niedner?s shop was only 5.2 miles from the Wakefield rifle range as the crow flies.
Niedner modified WRA#2 mounts to accept his tapered bases. The result was a scope that never changed its zero. It was the perfect scope mounting system for a sniper rifle. Past, and then current, members of the rifle team would later use Niedner's mounting system when they developed specifications for the sniper rifle the Marines would use in France. They made other modifications to facilitate ease of use in combat situations. The result was the Marine Mount.
Marine Mount Nomenclature - Annotated.jpgComparison of the Two Mounts - Annotated.jpg {Next picture shown in next post due to 5 pic limitation}
Note the nomenclature of the individual components of the Marine Mount. Even with the modifications, it still closely resembles the OEM WRA #2 mount.
{ Picture shown in next post due to 5 pic limitation}
A simple way to think of mounts and bases is that the mount holds the scope and the base is permanently attached to the rifle. The mount clamps onto the base as the means to attach or detach the scope. If that clamp gives in any way, the zero of your rifle will change. Nothing would be worse than a sniper rifle that changes zero from day to day.
Anyone claiming WRA was confused by the names of their goods is confused themselves. WRA covered over 200 acres of shops that built the finest weapons of that day, or this. Their 22,000 employees were highly skilled professionals and engineers who were far from being "confused". They were the best in the business of firearms, and without peer.
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