Last week I had the pleasure of visiting friends at the Cody Firearms Museum for the annual Arsenals of History Symposium and I took the opportunity to go and visit a special exhibition I’ve been really excited to see. In April the museum launched their Arms of the Revolution special exhibition which has brought together an excellent array of firearms from the period.
Working with Fort Ticonderoga and the Minuteman National Historic Site and private collections they’ve brought together a comprehensive display including pistols, muskets, rifles and blunderbusses all expertly contextualised and pulled together with art from legendary painter Don Troiani. At the centre of the exhibition there’s also several projectiles which were excavated from the battlefields of Concord & Lexington.
Here’s a gallery of some photos of the exhibition:
The team at the CFM: Danny Michael, Tyler Berger and Jathan Clarke did an incredible job putting the exhibition together and bringing the ‘arms of the revolution’ to life.
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Earlier this year I had the pleasure of visiting my friends at the Cody Firearms Museum and while having a look through their collection we came across a really interesting rifle. The rifle isn’t currently on display and was safely tucked away in one of the museum’s vaults. When we began looking through the vault’s racks we came across what we initially thought were a number of John Browning prototypes from his work with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. One of the prototypes immediately caught our eye as it had a T-shaped charging handle, something today which is synonymous with the AR-15/M16 platform.
Right side profile of the prototype (Matthew Moss)
In the past I’ve had the pleasure of examining over a dozen of John Browning’s prototypes (some videos are already published on the channel others will be published in the future – stay tuned), this rifle, however, isn’t a Browning. It’s a Mason.
William Mason is probably best known as the man behind the Colt Single Action Army, the Model 1877 and what would become the Model 1889. In 1882, Mason left Colt and joined Winchester. While originally he has been recruited to work on revolvers for Winchester, a topic for another day, he became Winchester’s Master Mechanic and was responsible for bringing many of John Browning’s designs to production. Following the Brownings’ schism with Winchester in 1903, the company continued to develop their own designs and a number of these came from Mason.
Rear right quarter view of the prototype’s receiver and charging handle (Matthew Moss)
This rifle’s patent was filed in March 1905, and granted on 12 March, 1907 as No.846,591. It is a .22 calibre, semi-automatic rifle which feeds from a conventional tube magazine but has a number of interesting features.
Mason, in his patent for the rifle, describes the weapon’s action as a ‘automatic balanced breech-block gun’, by which he means what we now know as a blowback. He describes this as: “a breech-block which is not positively locked in its closed and recoil-taking position but weighted with reference to the energy developed by the explosion of the cartridge to be used in the gun, so that its inertia takes the initial shock of recoil.”
The only marking visible on the firearm is on the top of the receiver, a number marking: ‘7295’.
View of the underside of the prototype’s receiver and loading port (Matthew Moss)
Safety
The rifle also has a trigger locking safety located at the front of the trigger guard. The patent describes this:
“provide the gun with a ‘safety’ in the form of a lever, suspended by its upper end from a pivot in the lower tang and having its lower end entered into a slot in the forward reach of the trigger-guard, which is a part of the said lower tang. The said lever is formed with a stop-shoulder, co-acting with a stop-finger at the forward end of the trigger. When the safety is pushed rearwardly, its shoulder is moved under the finger, whereby the trigger is locked against operation under any circumstances.”
The rifle has a swinging carrier which when the breech block cycles it acts on what Mason calls the ‘carrier arm’ via a cam which moves the arm up and down allowing a round to move into the action from the tube magazine when the bolt had moved sufficiently to the rear. The rifle’s tube magazine is loaded by pushing the carrier up and thumbing cartridges into the magazine.
Anti-friction Rollers
Another intriguing feature of the rifle’s action is the set of rollers located in the top of the breech block which prevent friction from the block against the receiver. The rollers also act on a lever which is under spring tension which returns the breech block forward – Mason used this in the place of a more conventional return spring assembly. Instead the lever is acted on by a flat spring which Mason felt allowed him to “secure a marked economy of space” in the receiver, not requiring a coil spring and the space needed to compress it. Additionally, at the rear of the receiver there is also a buffer made from ‘vulcanised fiber’, vulcanisation is a process which strengthens and improves the durability of a material. As we didn’t fully disassemble the rifle we can’t confirm the buffers presence in the prototype.
On examining the rifle I was a bit perplexed by what the purpose for a smaller hole opposite the ejection port was. It is too small to be an ejection port and on the same side as the ejector{?} On reading Mason’s patent it became clear that this was an emergency gas port to allow gas to escape the receiver in the event of a major failure. Mason explains this:
“gas-escape opening is so constructed and arranged with reference to the construction and arrangement of the breech-block that it permits the escape of gas through it when the breech-block is in its closed position, so that in case there should be a leakage of gas due, for instance, to the splitting of the head of a cartridge the gas will work back and escape through the said opening without damage to the gun, whereas in the absence of such a gas-escape opening, the breech-block might be broken or deformed by the force of the gas bending it from left to right toward the ejection-opening.”
Perhaps the most intriguing external feature is the charging handle. Is it the first rifle with a T-shaped charging handle? Here’s how Mason’s patent describes it:
“breech-block handle arranged transversely with respect to the top of the gun-frame and in length exceeding the width thereof. The ends of this handle are formed with finger-cuts, flanked at their forward ends by ears and at their rear ends by knurled, or roughened fingers, extending outwardly beyond the planes of the side walls of the frame, so as to be readily engaged by the finger and thumb, respectively. The said handle is also formed with a centrally-arranged screw-hole, receiving a screw, entering a screw-hole in the forward end of a longitudinally-reciprocating non-rotatable balanced breech-block.”
View of the prototype’s receiver (Matthew Moss)
All-in-all it’s a really interesting patent and well worth a read to understand some of the nuances I don’t have time to cover here.
Despite the prototype’s interesting design it never made it into production. In 1903, Winchester had introduced the Model 1903, a tube magazine-fed, blowback rifle, chambered in .22 Winchester Automatic. The Model 1903 was designed by another of Winchester’s engineers, T.C. Johnson, and instead of a T-shaped charger used a plunger, which I think is a little less elegant but the Model 1903 was a success, remaining in production for decades, so it seems that Mason’s design wasn’t needed. As a result it would be another 60 years before a rifle using a T-shaped charging handle became popular in the US. Mason continued to work for Winchester until his death in July 1913, aged 76.
Massive thanks to my good friends at the Cody Firearms Museum for allowing me to examine this rifle and thank you to my friend Tyler Berger for his help filming this video. Please do check out the museum online atcenterofthewest.org/our-museums/firearms/ and if you can head out there this summer to visit one of the best publicly displayed collections of firearms in the world.
In a change of pace to our usual videos Matt is joined by Danny Michael, curator of the Cody Firearms Museum, to discuss a mysterious rifle which has fascinated us for years. The Burton Machine Rifle, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting rifles in the Cody Firearms Museum’s incredible collection. Developed in 1916-17 at Winchester, likely by engineer Frank Burton, the rifle incorporates a plethora of advanced features which have led it to often be christened the first American assault rifle.
Burton Machine Rifle (Cody Firearms Museum)
In 2018, Danny and I examined the rifle and attempted to disassemble it. While we learnt a great deal from our examination we were unable to disassemble the rifle fully. The prototype is exquisitely made with fine machining and deep blueing – far from an in-the-white prototype we often see. Sadly, we were unable to remove what we believe to be the spring assembly housing, to remove the rifle’s bolt.
The Burton Machine Rifle disassembled, c.2018 (Danny Michael)
It is not just the weapon’s design which is mysterious. With little to no primary source paper trail it is difficult to trace the rifle’s history beyond the date of its manufacture, its technical features and some tantalising potential references to the rifle.
We discus the rifle, our own history with it and the importance of historiography and how we can trace what we know about the rifle back through secondary sources written about it. The Cody Firearms Museum is currently raising funds to reprint early editions of the ARMAX journal – which contains the very first article published about the Burton Machine Rifle. In our conversation Danny eloquently explains the importance of this project and how you can support it.
Comparison: left – original edition of ARMAX rifle – planned layout of the reprint (Helios Publishing/ARMAX)
Here’s some information on the planned reprint from ARMAX:
“Armax was launched by former CFM Curator Herbert G. Houze in 1987, and comprised nine issues spread across six volumes, published from 1987 to 1996. These first six volumes contained a lot of important original research, but, unfortunately, these original issues are hard to find today, and often expensive. We only know of a few complete sets that are available to researchers. To remedy this state of affairs, the Cody Firearms Museum and Helios House Press plan to ‘remaster’ and reprint the original six volumes of Armax. The layout, illustrations, and design have been updated to make the legacy material more accessible to modern researchers and enthusiasts. These will be beautiful, functional publications printed on high-quality paper in full color.”
Last year I had the pleasure of giving a talk at the Cody Firearms Museum’s Arsenals of History Symposium. I’ve been working with my friend Jonathan Ferguson of the Royal Armouries on a research paper looking at British use of the AR-15 platform. My focus for the project has been the user experience, I’ve spoken to over 25 veterans from across the British military who have experience using the AR-15/M16 platform on operations. Chronologically their experiences span nearly 60 years and this somewhat informal presentation gives a brief overview of some of the operations where the rifles have been used from the Indonesian Confrontation right through to the present day.
Some of the photos featured in the presentation
If you’re a member or former member of the British armed forces with experience with the AR-15/M16 platform I would love to hear from you, please reach out via armourersbench@gmail.com. Your help and insights would be invaluable.
Once the project is completed I’ll put together a more in-depth video discussing the history of the UK’s use of AR-15/M16-pattern rifles.
Very much looking forward to attending the 2022 Arsenal of History Symposium and co-presenting with Jonathan Ferguson (of the Royal Armouries). Our paper is on the British Army’s use of the AR-15 from the early 1960s to the present day!
SAS patrol in Borneo (Sean Flynn)
As part of the project I am also looking to speak to UK armed forces veterans who have experience using the AR-15/M16 platform from 1964 to the present. If you or someone you know would like to share their experiences and impressions of the rifle please drop me an email at armourersbench@gmail.com!
Royal Marine in the Falklands with AR-15
There are lots of other great speakers during the Symposium, check out full details here.
This month sees the relaunch of the ARMAX: The Journal of Contemporary Arms, the academic journal of the Cody Firearms Museum. The first edition of the new ARMAX covers everything from Dutch Uzis to the EM2 in Malaya, from East German AK-74s to a CIA assassination pistol.
I’m especially excited about the new journal as it contains one of my first published journal articles, it’s titled ‘The Winchester Repeating Arms Company’s Exports to Foreign Powers During the First World War’. The article leverages the research I undertook while a research fellow at the Cody Firearms Museum a couple of years ago. It examines the work of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company during the First World War. Specifically this article explore the breadth and variety of the work done for the Entente powers. I cover everything from the Russian contract Model 1895 lever-action rifles to the air-service self-loading rifles and of course the British Pattern 1914 rifle.
My advanced copy arrived just a day or two ago and I’m so pleased to see my research in print alongside some fantastically interesting work from friends and colleagues. Below are some photos of the journal and above is a first look video.
If you’re interested in up-to-the-minute small arms research then I highly recommend checking out the relaunched ARMAX journal, I’m very excited to see the next edition. Find out more about the journal and read the abstract for my article here.
By 1895 Winchester had been considering a slide-action rifle for some time, in 1882 William Mason had begun work on one (US Patent #278987) to counter Colt’s slide-action Lightning only to drop it. Finally in 1890, Winchester introduced a slide-action .22 calibre rifle developed by John Browning. The Model 1890 became extremely popular.
Between 1887 and 1895 Browning patented four slide-action rifle designs. The first of these, US patent #367336, was granted in July 1887, this was followed in 1888 by US patent #385238. In September 1890, the Browning brothers were granted US patent #436965, which along with the previous 1888 patent protected what became the Model 1890. Three years later Winchester introduced the Model 1893 pump action shotgun, that would eventually evolve into the famous Winchester Model 1897.
Right-side close up of the rifle with its action open (Matthew Moss)
Finally, April 1895, Browning filed a patent for a design for a .30 calibre rifle which was granted in September 1895 (US patent #545672) This patent covers the rifle we’re examining here. The rifle itself is a slide or pump action in long barrelled configuration which Winchester described as a ‘Musket’.
The September 1895 slide-action design was purchased by Winchester but like so many other Browning designs, it never entered production and Winchester purchased the design purely to secure it and prevent other rival manufacturers picking it up. Winchester instead went with a lever-action design, patented in November 1895 (US #549345), which became the famous Winchester Model 1895.
A left-side view of the rifle’s receiver with Browning’s patent overlaid (Matthew Moss)
The September 1895 slide or pump-action rifle design had a laterally camming locking breechblock. As we can see, externally Browning’s toolroom prototype looks somewhat similar to the contemporary Winchester Model 1895, with a single-stack integrated box magazine but with a pump sleeve rather than a lever.
An action-bar connects the slide/pump to the front of the breechblock/bolt carrieron the right-hand side of the rifle. The slide handle itself is made of a U-shaped piece of metal which wraps around the rifle’s forend. The slide has been roughly cross hatched to improve grip. There is a channel cut into the furniture for the action arm’s attachment point to travel. The slide is attached to the arm by a pair of screws.
A close up of the rifle’s slide/pump handle (Matthew Moss)
However, Browning developed this prototype to allow loading of the magazine from below rather than through the top of the receiver. He added a hinged floor plate, with a spring loaded follower, that allowed loose rounds to be dropped into the magazine and then closed.
As we open the magazine, hinging the cover plate down, we see the carrier flip down against the plate to allow loading. The rifle was designed to be loaded from below with the bolt forward.
Browning’s September 1895 patent (US Patent Office)
In the patent description Browning explained that his aim was to improve breech-loading box-magazine firearms by designing:
“…a simple, compact, strong, highly effective, and safe gun, containing comparatively few parts and constructed with particular reference to provision for charging the box-magazine with cartridges from the bottom of the frame of the arm while the breech-bolt is in its closed position, so that the arm may be charged without operating its action mechanism or disturbing the cartridge in the gun-barrel, if one is there.”
Browning’s September 1895 patent (US Patent Office)
From the original patent drawings we can see the flat spring which acted on the carrier running below the barrel, ahead of the magazine. Inside the magazine are a pair of what Browning refers to as ‘spring fingers’ these act on the cartridges inside the magazine and keep them properly aligned, seen here in Fig.7 of the patent. In Fig.8 we can see what Browning calls a ‘box-like guideway’ which guide the rims of the cartridges, “preventing the cartridges from being displaced while being fed upwards.”
The rifle’s breechblock locked into a recess in the left side of the receiver, tilting at an angle with the rear of the breechblock canting to the left. When the pump handle was pulled rearwards the breechblock cammed laterally to unlock the action, extracted and ejected any spent casing and when the slide/pump was returned forward a new cartridge was picked up from the magazine, chambered the breechblock locked again ready to fire. The rifle’s hammer was cocked by the rearward movement of the breechblock.
A left-side view of the rifle with its action open, note the complex machining on the rear of the breech bolt (Matthew Moss)
Externally, the slide-action’s receiver looks similar to that of the production Model 1895 but internally they are very different. The action is certainly less open than the Model 1895’s but the lateral locking mechanism is less robust. Additionally, with no lever, as in the Model 1895, the slide-action rifle lacks the safety mechanism which prevents the action from opening accidentally.
A view inside the open magazine with the floorplate hinged open (Matthew Moss)
The model is in the white and while externally the machining and tool work is very neat, inside the action we can see where the cuts in the receiver wall have been more crudely made. In terms of design, the slide-action prototype was certainly simpler and had fewer working parts than the Model 1895 lever-action.
Winchester purchased the .30 calibre slide-action design but never produced it, it is believed that only Browning’s prototype was built to prove the concept. The prototype was part of Winchester’s collection and may now be found at the Cody Firearms Museum.
Today, were taking a look at a Winchester prototype developed in the mid-1860s, a period when Winchester was seeking to build on the success of the 1860 Henry Rifle and place the company on a firm financial footing. Oliver Winchester had taken control of the New Haven Arms company before the Civil War and while for a time it had been known as the Henry Repeating Arms Company he eventually sought to put his stamp on the company, renaming it Winchester Arms Company in 1866. At the same time he decided to focus the company’s energies on winning military contracts around the world.
Left & right profiles of King’s prototype musket (Matthew Moss)
This developmental prototype is in the ‘musket’ configuration: with a longer barrel, a bayonet lug and a wooden forend. The prototype represents one of the many developmental steps towards what would become the Model 1866. It has a number of interesting features – a steel, rather than brass, receiver and a hinged loading port developed by Nelson King, Winchester’s superintendent between 1866 and 1875.
The rifle itself was built by Luke Wheelock, Winchester’s model room mechanic and a designer in his own right who would go onto develop his own rifle designs for Winchester.
King’s 1866 patent (US Patent Office)
The rifle is 54.5 inches long, with a 33.75 inch barrel. Believed to have been built in 1866, it is chambered for a .45 calibre rimfire round. King patented his loading port in May 1866. He described how the port worked:
“Through one of the plates S (preferring that one upon the right-hand side) I form an opening, 0, as denoted by broken lines, Fig. 1, and also seen in section, Fig. 7. This opening is formed so as to communicate through the frame directly to the chamber E in the carrier block, as seen in Fig. 3. Through this opening, and while the carrier-block is down and all parts of the arm in a state of rest, insert the cartridges, point first, through the said opening in the plate S into the chamber E the second cartridge pressing the first into the magazine, and so on with each successive cartridge until the magazine is filled, or until the requisite number has been inserted therein, the follower G being pressed up before the entering cartridges. In the rear of the chamber E2 the frame forms a shoulder to prevent the cartridges from being forced out through the opening in the plate S3 is a cover for closing the opening in the plate S3 and is hinged thereto, as seen in Figs. 1 and 7, the hinge being provided with a spring,a1, the tendency of which is to open the cover C. A spring-catch, d, (see Fig. 1,) secures the cover when closed, so that by pressing upon the said catch the cover will fly open. After the requisite number of cartridges have been placed within the magazine, close the cover, as seen in Figs. 1 and 2.”
A close up of the hinged loading gate (Matthew Moss)
To paraphrase: ammunition can be loaded through the opening in one of the receiver side plate when the carrier block is down, insert the cartridges through the opening, pressing the first into the magazine and so on until the magazine is filled… a cover for closing the opening is hinged to the receiver side plate. A spring catch secures the cover when closed.
According to Herbert Houze, King developed the covered loading port design in early January 1866, with a design drawing dating to the 14th January, confirming this.
King altered the design of the rifle’s cartridge carrier so that a cartridge could pass through its lower section straight into the magazine when the action was closed. In theory the aperture could be placed on either side of the receiver, in practice is was placed on the right. Prior to this Winchester had experimented with systems where the tube could slide forward (G.W. Briggs US #58937), a port in the base of the receiver (J.D. Smith US #52934) or a sliding forearm covering a loading port at the rear of the magazine tube (O.F. Winchester UK #3284 [19/12/1865]).
A look inside the hinged loading gate (Matthew Moss)
King’s system had the benefit of allowing the rifle to be quickly loaded or topped off without rendering the rifle unusable while loading. Positioning the port in the receiver allowed the magazine tube to be enclosed by a wooden forend.
A cartridge guide was fitted inside the receiver which guided rounds through the cartridge carrier and into the tube magazine. The rounds were prevented from popping out of the magazine, when the carrier was aligned and the cover open, by a shallow shoulder which projected in line with the carrier’s channel to hold cartridges in the tube by their rim.
The musket with its action open, bolt to the rear and loading gate open (Matthew Moss)
The hinged cover is held shut by a spring catch mounted on the rear of the cover. When the knurled section on its front is pressed rearwards the cover pops open. The spring catch is actuated when it tensions against the cover’s hinge as it is closed. On the back of the cover there is also a cartridge stop for when the cover is closed.
Another small but interesting feature of the prototype is the catch at the rear of the lever loop, this differs from the manually turned catch seen on the Henry and production 1866. This design appears to be a much better safety feature, simply requiring the user’s hand to depress the catch to unlock it from the stock. It also appears to be a much simpler mechanism than that seen in later models like the Model 1895. The trigger also had an extension protruding from its rear which appears to prevent the trigger from being pulled when the lever isn’t full closed. Neither of these features appear in King’s May 1866 patent.
It appears that the idea of the port with a hinged cover was superseded by what we now recognise as the classic Winchester loading gate in the summer of 1866. King’s new system replaced the hinged cover with a piece of stamped spring steel attached to the inside of the receiver side plate by a screw. The spring steel gate could be pushed in, with the nose of a cartridge, to allow rapid loading. The front face of the gate formed a cartridge guide removing the need for the separate machined guide used in King’s earlier iteration of the system.
(Rock Island Auction Company)
King’s revised loading port system required just five, rather than twelve, components: King’s altered cartridge carrier, receiver side plate, spring metal loading gate plate and retaining screws. This simple but elegant design continued to be used for decades on various models of rifle. The company were so pleased with the refinement of the rifle that, according to R.L. Wilson, King was awarded a payment of a $5,000 reward by the company’s board of directors.
Winchester introduced the rifle in 1866, with the first deliveries being made early in 1867, the new rifle was offered in various barrel lengths and patterns including carbine, rifle and ‘musket’. Winchester found some success selling 1866 rifles to the militaries of France and the Ottoman Empire, while many other countries purchased rifles for testing including Britain and Switzerland (whom came close to adopting the Winchester.) The rifles also found success on the civilian market with around 4,500 sold in the first five months.
Right side profile of the rifle showing the hinged loading gate (Matthew Moss)
The Scientific American described the new rifles as “elegant in appearance, compact, strong, and of excellent workmanship. On examination we find its working parts very simple, and not apparently liable to derangement.”
King incrementally developed his loading system before radically simplifying it and this prototype rifle represents an important developmental step in the design of what would become the Model 1866 – one of Winchester’s most important rifles.
Special thanks to the Cody Firearms Museum for allowing us to take a look at this fascinating prototype rifle.
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Bibliography:
Winchester Repeating Arms Company, H. Houze (1994)
Winchester: An American Legend, R. L. Wilson (1991)
In 1940, following the evacuation from Dunkirk the British Army was in desperate need of small arms, with over 100,000 rifles left behind in France. In dire need of rifles Britain turned to the US and its huge industrial base and approached a number of companies about tooling up to produce Lee-Enfield Rifle No.4s. Savage Arms took on one contract and projected production of 1,000 per day but establishing production of a rifle US companies didn’t have the tooling and gauges for would take time.
Right side of the Remington (Matthew Moss)
Remington was also approached by the British Purchasing Commission and asked if they could manufacture up to 400,000 rifles. Remington estimated it would take up to 30 months to tool up for No.4 production. However, Remington believed that if they could lease the old tooling previously used at the Rock Island Arsenal to produce M1903s, from the US Government, they could tool up to produce the M1903 in just 12 months. It was suggested that the tooling be adapted to produce rifles chambered in the British .303 cartridge. Some ergonomic changes could also be made so the rifles mimicked the British No.4.
Left side of the Remington (Matthew Moss)
On 12th December 1940, the British government issued a Letter of Intent to Remington for the manufacture of 500,000 rifles in .303 British. Some sources suggest the British agreed to an advanced payment of $4,000,000. Much of this covered the lease, transport and refurbishment of the M1903 tooling. The rest went on the purchase of raw materials and the necessary accessories for half a million rifles.
The tooling lease was agreed in March 1941, and the US Government also supplied 600,000 stock blanks which had been in storage in exchange for ammunition produced by Remington. With the passage of the Lend-Lease act, on 11th March, the Remington contract came under the control of the US Government, rather than a private order. Remington received the last tooling shipments from Rock Island Arsenal on 22nd April, and by the end of May had the production line up and running.
A detail view of the rifle’s action and follower note the ‘2’ stamped on the follower (Matthew Moss)
A contract to produce the hybrid rifles at a cost of $5 per rifle was agreed in late June. Remington’s engineers began setting up the equipment and working out an ad hoc production layout that would allow 1,000+ rifles per day to be built. At least four pilot models were built, with some of these guns being sent to Britain. The rifles were reportedly received in September 1941, and following preliminary examination were described as “very successful”. Four of the rifles were distributed for further testing but by the end of 1941 the project had been abandoned.
A close up of the adapted muzzle and foresight so the rifle could fit a No.4 bayonet (Matthew Moss)
Remington made a number of external and internal changes to approximate the British No.4. They fitted a front sight post with sight protectors which was moved further back from the muzzle to enable the rifle to mount a Rifle No.4 spike bayonet. As such the upper barrel band does not have a bayonet lug.
Many of these parts are still in-the-white, unfinished, including the barrel, barrel bands, floor plate, front sight assembly, rear sight assembly and the bolt itself. The bolt does, however, have a parkerized cocking piece.
The rifle’s bolt (Matthew Moss)
The hybrid also moves the rear sight back onto the receiver, which necessitates a longer piece of wooden furniture covering where the M1903’s ladder sight would normally be. The style of rear sight was also changed to a two-position flip sight with apertures for 300 and 600 yards mimicking those seen on the No.4 Mk2.
A close up of the rifle’s bolt, cocking piece (which wasn’t properly inserted) and rear sight (Matthew Moss)
They also redesigned the charger guide to support the Lee-Enfield-type chargers rather than the M1903 stripper clips. The bolt was adapted to work with Britain’s rimmed .303 round, with the extractor modified for the British cartridges wider, thicker rim.
A close up of the bolt head (Matthew Moss)
The rifle did not have the Lee-Enfield’s detatchable box-magazine, instead retaining the M1903’s 5-round internal magazine. The magazine follower does not appear to have been altered either. Markings on the rifle are minimal and include a ‘7’ on the front sight post, a ‘B2’ on the bolt handle and a ‘2’ stamped on the magazine follower. No roll marks or serial numbers appear to be present.
The faux Lee-Enfield stock with spliced in semi-pistol grip (Matthew Moss)
The rifle’s stock has also been adapted, so instead of a straight wristed-stock a piece of wood has been spliced in to create a Lee-Enfield style contour, forming a semi-pistol grip. The stock is marked with the inspector marks ‘WJS’, which indicate the stock was originally inspected by W.J. Strong and accepted between 1918 and 1921, as well as a pair of later Springfield Armory inspection cartouches: ‘SPG’ – the initials of Stanley P. Gibbs, who was an inspector at Springfield Armory between 1936-1942 and ‘GHS’ – the initials of Brigadier General Gilbert H. Stewart (GHS), Springfield’s commander in the late 1930s- early 1940s. This would suggest that the stock was refurbished at Springfield Armory before being transferred to Remington where it was subsequently adapted.
A detail shot of the stock’s Ordnance stampings (Matthew Moss)
In August 1941, the US began its re-armament programme and in September the British contract with Remington was cancelled. At the same time production in Canada and at Savage’s J. Stevens Arms division in the US had gotten underway and it was decided that the adapted hybrid .303 M1903s developed at Remington was no longer needed. The hybrid contract was formally cancelled in December 1941, and additional .30-06 M1903s and M1917s were taken under the Lend-Lease Agreement to fulfil the needs of the Home Guard. Savage believed that they could significantly increase the number of rifles they could build per day, they managed to enter full production by the end of 1941 and by 1944 had produced well over 1 million No.4s.
Remington went on to produce M1903s for the US military, overcoming issues with the original engineering drawings and the tooling dimensions to eventual produce 365,000 M1903s by mid-1943, before switching to production of the M1903A3 pattern and producing 707,629 rifles. In total Remington produced 1,084,079 M1903-pattern rifles during World War Two.
The Remington .303 M1903 hybrids are perhaps the rarest M1903 variant, with only a handful built. They would likely have been perfectly serviceable rifles and helped plug the desperate gap in Britain’s arsenal. Rapidly moving events ensured that these rifles became a footnote in both the Lee-Enfield and Springfield 1903’s histories.
Special thanks to both Remington and the Cody Firearms Museum for allowing us to take a look at this extremely rare rifle.
‘Production of Military Rifles by Remington Arms Company in Ilion, New York During World War II’, American Society of Arms Collectors Bulletin 92:14-24, R. Marcot
Last summer I had the chance to visit the newly renovated Cody Firearms Museum. With the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic I thought now was a good time to finish my walk-around video taking a look at the new museum.
The museum has always had an extremely impressive collection of firearms and gun related artefacts, some of which we’ve been lucky enough to feature in videos, but the new museum puts more of these amazing firearms on display than ever before.
The CFM’s new and improved ‘gun fan’ (Matthew Moss)
The $12 million renovation has also allowed the museum to become much more interactive too with working models, touch screens and shooting simulators.
A view back through the first main gallery (Matthew Moss)
A new intuitive layout lets you explore firearm history either by chronology or by theme. In the photo above we can see some of the displays in the chronological gallery that shows the evolution of civilian and military firearms from their invention to the present.
Some of the weapons of the West on display along with the original Winchester factory name stone (Matthew Moss)
One of the features I really liked was that many of the cases can be viewed on both sides allowing you to see all around the firearms.
Around the exhibits are touch screens where you can call up more information, first hand war stories and even animations of how various firearms work.
A gallery full of beautifully engraved firearms including some presidential presentation pistols (Matthew Moss)
There is also a gallery of ornately decorated firearms which includes some incredible pieces.
A detail shot from the military gallery (Matthew Moss)
Unsurprisingly, the military gallery was one of my favourite parts of the museum with dozens of guns organised by conflict and period.
One of the cases in the military gallery (Matthew Moss)
A look back through the recreated machine shop (Matthew Moss)
One of the best features of the original museum has also been retained, a recreation of a gun factory’s drafting room and machine shop.
A detail shot of some of the ammunition packaging on display in the ‘general store’ (Matthew Moss)
One of the most interesting little sections is a recreation of a general store showing off some of the items that companies like Winchester made alongside their well known firearms.
A case dedicated to experimental prototypes with the Gatling used in the initial development of the Vulcan in the foreground (Matthew Moss)
Downstairs is a space dedicated to experimental prototypes and a rolling wall of cases that include examples of hundreds of types of firearms and ammunition.
Some of the rolling cases open in the hall dedicated to showing off as many firearms as possible (Matthew Moss)
The newly refurbished museum puts the collection front and centre in a way that will enthral the average museum-goer and satisfy any avid gun enthusiast.
You can find out more about the museum here and check out some of the firearms we have had the privilege of examining from the CFM’s collection here.
