Picked up one of these down in Washington State yesterday to help while away the time while "Mrs Purple" exercised the credit card.
These "MILSURP specials" have been issued periodically over the past 25 yrs and I'm not sure why I keep buying them-maybe because of the pictures and the fact that they make an easy read in the truck. They contain the typical shooting magazine shallow coverage of various pieces with lots of pictures, conjecture, and some facts.
This one has an article on the M1903A3 Springfield with a number of glaring errors and omissions incl:
- a discussion of 4 different rds of service ammo for it incl 172 gr ball, blanks, guard rounds, and dummy rds, but no mention of the most widely used WW2 .30-06 rds, the 152gr M2 ball and the 165gr AP
- an assertion that rifles with 2 groove barrels "...were shipped with notices that stated that accuracy would not be affected. One can almost see the raised eyebrows under those steel pots as these words were read". Mine too
-a statement " that in spite of the growing reputation of the semiautomatic M1 Garand, many special units such as US Army rangers and Military Police as well as the US Navy Shore Patrol and the Marines actually preferred the bolt-action 1903A3, as it was less prone to jam"
. In fact, the M1903s were issued to MP units and other non-line units such as the US Navy, in order to conserve the Garands for combat units. And the Marine Corps couldn't wait to replace the M1903 with the greater firepower of the Garand.
-a claim that "...the relative silence of it's bolt action was also the reason it remained a favorite for commando and sniper operations well after WW2".
Ummm, once you take off the safety and start shooting the M1903 and Garand make the same amount of noise, and snipers don't normally worry about the noise of their rifle actions when engaging distant targets.
At least the writer didn't claim a big advantage of the M1903 over the Garand to be that it didn't invite those cunning Nazis and Japs to charge when empty Garands were indicated by the "ping" of ejected clips.
