Winchester Select-Fire Garand Prototype

The Cody Firearms Museum, at the Buffalo Bill Centre of the West, holds a number of interesting select-fire M1 Garand rifles, adapted by Winchester during the 1940s. In this article we’re going to examine one of the prototypes, the rifle is believed to date to the late 1940s, and appears to be chambered in one of the earlier iterations of the T65 .30 Light Rifle round, which would eventually be adopted as 7.62x51mm.

Very little information is available about the rifle and little has been written about it previously. It is believed to have been developed by Winchester engineer Harry H. Sefried II with former Cody Firearms Museum curator Herbert Houze crediting Sefried with the rifle, which he described as adaptation of the M1 into a ‘squad automatic rifle’. After some archival research and combing Winchester’s patents from the period we can now attempt to shed light on a little more of the rifle’s history.

CFM photo — Winchester M1 Select-Fire prototype (Danny Michael/Cody Firearms Museum)

Externally, the rifle has a number of instantly recognisable distinctions from the standard M1 Garand. It has a reshaped stock with an added pistol grip, a proprietary box magazine and a combined bipod and conical flash hider. If we look closer we’ll notice that the stock has a swell just ahead of the breech, flaring out in an almost triangular bulge. These changes to the stock also distinguish this rifle from Winchester’s other select-fire M1 adaptations, which retain the standard Garand stock profile.

From the patents available combined with an examination of the rifle we can learn a lot. We cannot rely on patents to tell the whole story of the rifle, however, as many of the elements that make up the weapon appear to have gone unpatented. The substantial external and internal changes made to the rifle suggest that this was not an attempt to adapt the M1 with a minimal number of component parts changes but rather an effort to generally improve the rifle, making it conducive to fully automatic fire.

Detail photo showing the rifle’s pistol grip, altered stock and magazine (Matthew Moss)

In summer 1944, Winchester’s CEO Edwin Pugsley directed Sefried to begin work on a select-fire conversion for the M1, to rival those being developed at Springfield Armory and Remington. Winchester’s select-fire Garand went though a number of iterations which resulted in two patents from Sefried. The first, filed in August 1944 (US #2479419), incorporated an elongated sear actuating lever and a selector on the lower, right side of the receiver. Winchester’s first attempts at a select-fire M1 conversion resulted in rifles with extremely high, uncontrollable rates of fire of over 900 rounds per minute. Sefried filed a second patent later in January 1948 (US #2464418) which used a catch to hook the sear. The rifle we are examining appears to have yet another select-fire system, one for which I have so far been unable to find a corresponding patent for. Winchester’s work on the select-fire adaptation came to a halt with the end of the war. It appears, however, that Winchester again began to work on adapting the M1 in the late 1940s, with Sefried again working on the project, filing his second select-fire mechanism patent in 1948 (US #2464418).

US2479419 sefrieds 1st patent — Sefried’s 1949 patent for another select-fire M1 conversion (US Patent Office)

The rifle’s receiver was originally a standard Winchester-made .30-06 M1 with a serial number of 1,627,456. This means its wartime production gun, dating from May 1945. It would appear that rather than the rifle being lifted from the rack finished, it seems that it was earmarked for prototype development because the receiver forging lacks the cuts/forgings needed for the en bloc clip release lever. This makes sense if it was known that the receiver was destined for use in a prototype which fed from a box magazine. However, the timeline of the rifle gets more complex when we consider that it was a late-war production rifle. There are a number of possibilities. The rifle may have been simply set aside for internal prototype work in May 1945 and not used until a T65 chambered rifle was developed later. Alternatively, it is possible that the rifle was converted during the initial attempts to create a select-fire M1 but was later rechambered from .30-06 to the new developmental T65 round.

This prototype’s trigger guard assembly, which also comprises the magazine well floorplate, is a self-contained assembly and does not interact with the weapon’s trigger mechanism or action. While Sefried had a patent for his own magazine system (US #2386722) this rifle uses a slightly different magazine release and floorplate, which is similar to one seen in Stefan Janson’s 1956 patent for a stripper clip-loading box magazine for the M1 (US #2894350). The magazine used in this prototype, however, is not the same as Janson’s. It has fixed feed-lips and a projection at its rear which appears to house an anti-tilt tab for the follower.

The rifle does not to appear to use the full-automatic system seen in either of Sefried’s patents. Similarly, the safety selector is located on the left side of the receiver, forward, in line with the breech. It has two positions with an arc of about 90 degrees. This position does not match Sefried’s patents for select-fire conversion, however, it does match the position patented by David Marshall Williams but not Williams’ selector’s orientation of travel. I have been unable to find a patent which matches this rifle’s selector or method fully-automatic conversion.

Left-side view of the rifle’s receiver showing the fire-selector (Matthew Moss)

The pistol grip is an interesting addition as neither of the other Winchester select-fire prototypes nor the original select-fire Springfield prototypes incorporated one. Visually it is very similar to that seen on the later Italian Beretta BM 59 Mark II. In an effort to lighten the rifle the prototype also has an aluminium buttplate. One of ingenious internal changes is the milling of the bottom of the barrel flat, this not only has the effect of lightening the rifle but also allows a new, straight operating rod to travel rearwards under the barrel. How this impacted on the barrel’s harmonics is unclear. The rifle certainly feels lighter and handier (when unloaded) than you would expect, weight is estimated to be around 7 or 8 lbs.

The bipod, patented by Sefried in April 1945, (US #2420267) comprises a pair of tube steel legs, which have a set height, and a conical aluminium flash hider. The legs are spring-loaded and the entire assembly attaches via a latch which seats over the rifle’s bayonet lug. The bipod is the only element of this rifle that can be attributed to Sefried directly. And by the bipod’s very nature of attachment may simply have been attached later.

Sefried's April 1945 bipod and flash hider patent (US Patent Office) — Sefried’s 1947 patent for the bipod-flash hider (US Patent Office)

The best documentary source available for the prototype is the entry in the Winchester Factory Museum’s collection inventory offers some tantalising clues but no definitive answers:

#1504 U.S. Model M-1 rifle (Garand)
Cal. 30-06; experimental semi or full auto.
3rd type 20 shot box mag.
Special butt plate for shoulder rest
Bipod and aluminum flash hider attached
From H. Sefried 10-26-45

The suggestion that the rifle is chambered in .30-06 is seemingly an error given the internal changes made to the rifle. ‘3^rd type’ suggests an iterative development of the rifle’s magazine while “special butt plate for shoulder rest” may allude to the aluminium butt plate but the prototype’s plate has nothing resembling a ‘shoulder rest’, instead it is a simple chequered aluminium plate about 5mm thick. While ‘From H. Sefried 10-26-45’ may refer to the whole rifle, I believe it more likely refers simply to his bipod.

A close up of Sefried’s bipod-flash hider (Matthew Moss)

The prototype appears to be chambered in an iteration of the .30 Light Rifle round, which later became known as the T65. The rechambering was achieved by installing a metal block which shortened the magazine well. Unlike earlier Winchester select-fire conversions this rifle feeds from a proprietary magazine designed to feed the T65 round. This magazine does not appear to closely follow the pattern used by Winchester on several other designs during the period. The projection from the rear of the magazine slides along a channel cut in the metal magazine well block. It has font and rear locking shelves, with the front shelf acted on by the magazine release lever.

A look at the rifle’s receiver and serial number markings from above (Matthew Moss)

S1230030_Moment — With the action open. Note the magazine insert at the rear of the magazine well (Matthew Moss)

Development of the .30 Light Rifle round, which would eventually become 7.62x51mm, began in 1944, with the round first being referred to as the T65 in 1946. It appears that the rifle is chambered in a version of the T65 cartridge, but which iteration exactly is unknown. However, its chambering does support the theory that the prototype may date from 1947-48. The T65 didn’t take on the now standard 7.62x51mm dimensions until 1949 in the form of the T65E3 round but without a chamber casting it is impossible to know the rifle’s exact chambering.

yn4QSZC — A photo representing the evolution of the .30 light rifle round (Courtesy of DrakeGmbH)

While Winchester continued to work on adapting the M1 Garand into a select-fire rifle none of their rifles were seriously considered by US Ordnance. At the same time John Garand was working on his own series of select-fire, magazine-fed prototypes (the T20 series) at Springfield while Remington had also been awarded a contract to develop a similar rifle, tested under the designation T22. These projects subsequently gave way to a number of other designs, all chambered in the T65 round, including the T25/47, T44 and T48. These were all tested before the Garand-influenced T44 was eventually selected in 1957, becoming the M14.

Addendum:

Harry Sefried II served in the US Army Air Corps during World War Two before joining Winchester as a firearms designer in 1944. In the 1950s he left Winchester to become Ruger’s chief engineer until he retired in 1979. He died in 2005, aged 84.

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Bibliography:

Patents:

‘Semiautomatic Firearm Convertible to Full Automatic’, H.H, Sefried, US Patent #2479419, 25/08/1944, (source)

‘Box Magazine Latch Mechanism for Repeating Firearms’, H.H, Sefried, US Patent #2386722, 29/09/1944, (source)

‘Support for Rifles and Other Shoulder Firearms’, H.H. Sefried, US Patent #2420267, 19/04/1945, (source)

‘Fire Control Mechanism for Automatic and Semiautomatic Firearms’, H.H, Sefried, US Patent #2464418, 02/01/1948, (source)

‘Strip Clip for Loading Box Magazines’, S.K. Janson, US Patent #2894350, 11/04/1956, (source)

Secondary Sources:

‘The Select-Fire M1 Garand’, F. Iannamico, Small Arms Review, (source)

Harry H. Sefried II Obituary, Hartford Courant, June 2005, (source)

‘Light Rifle, Part IV: The M1 Garand Learns To Rock And Roll’, TFB, Nathaniel F., (source)

Cartridge History for the Day – .30 Light Rifle, (source)

‘Winchester Proto-M14 Rifle’, Forgotten Weapons, (source)

Prince’s Breechloading Rifle

In February 1855, London gunmaker Frederic Prince patented an intriguing breech-loading system. Prince offered his rifle to the Board of Ordnance for testing where it outshot the then-standard Enfield 1853 Pattern rifle musket during trials at the School of Musketry at Hythe in 1855. However, the Ordnance Department refused to consider adopting the new breechloading system believing it to be too complex and expensive to manufacture. It would be another nine years before the British Army took breechloading seriously.

dsc_0354side by sidew — Prince’s Breechloader, with its action closed and open (Matthew Moss)

Prince’s system used a sliding barrel to open up the breech to allow the loading of a paper cartridge, once the breech was closed the percussion lock was then capped. Once the hammer was brought back to full cock the rifle was ready to fire. In order to load the rifle the weapon was placed on half cock, the ‘bolt handle’ was then unlocked by pulling back the locking piece which protruded from the base of the trigger guard. The bolt handle was then turned slightly to the right disengaging the two lugs, which locked the breech, and then the bolt could be pushed down a short ‘L’ shaped channel. This pushed the barrel assembly forward several inches, opening the breech and allowing the rifleman to load a paper cartridge.

Right side view of Prince’s action (Matthew Moss)

Once loaded the bolt handle was pulled rearward again, and turned to the left again to re-engage the locking lugs. The bolt locking piece was then pushed back into a recess in the bolt handle to secure it. The bolt handle, along with the lugs inside the receiver, act to keep the breech block locked during firing.

View of the inside of the action with the barrel pushed forward, note the pair of locking lugs and the rubber seal on the breech plug (Matthew Moss)

Hans Busk, the prominent Victorian rifle proponent, described Prince’s action, in his book The Rifle, and How to Use It (1861) as: “one of the simplest and handiest breechloading rifles that has yet been tried.”

Prince’s patent for the system was granted on the 21^st February 1855. Between 1854 and 1859, Frederic Prince patented no less than eight improvements to small arms ranging from actions to manufacturing processes and even improvements in metallurgy. Prince was a gunmaker working in London, for a time in partnership with William Green with premises on New Bond Street.

princef-18550221-386-b — Prince’s 1855 patent for his action (courtesy of Research Press)

One of the key elements to Prince’s system was his self-contained paper cartridge, protected by two patents dating from January 1855 (#33 and #173). Prince’s cartridges were relatively conventional in their design; made up of a paper tube with a wad between the bullet and powder. The paper was treated with a mixture of sulphuric and nitric acids, the process toughened the paper but also, according to Busk, caused it “to be entirely consumed in the barrel”, in theory leaving no debris behind, once it was ignited by the flash of the percussion cap. This had the result of greatly speeding up loading, in a similar way to the cartridges used by the continental needle guns but not going so far as to include the primer inside the cartridge.

Prince’s breechloaders used a back action, here we can see Robert S. Garden’s makers mark on the lock plate (Matthew Moss)

Prince’s February 1855 patent describes a conical plug at the rear of the breech with a pair of locking lugs which locked into the walls of the breech. The patent also mentions the possible use of rubber gas seals to obturate during firing and prevent gases being vented. A subsequent patent (#3036 22^nd December 1856) protected the concept of having a hollow, concave plug which could either be circular or hexagonal.
In his book Busk recounts that during the trials at the British Army’s School of Musketry at Hythe, Prince’s rifle was reportedly able to fire six rounds in just 46 seconds and a total of 120 rounds were fired in just 18 minutes by Prince himself. On another occasion, using a small bore version of the rifle, Prince was able to demonstrate how accurate his rifle was putting 16 rounds onto a small piece of notepaper, a grouping of 1 ¾ inches, at a range of 100 yards during a demonstration at the Victoria Regimental Practice Ground. The trials at Hythe saw it fired against the Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle musket where it put 48 out of 50 rounds on target at 300 yards compared to the Enfield’s 47.

view of the Prince’s breech, note the two cuts either side of the chamber to lock into the locking lugs once the breech is closed (Matthew Moss)

The School of Musketry’s annual report for 1855-56 makes some interesting observations. The report states that testing took place in July 1855 and noted that the Pattern 1853 performed better at 600 yards, no doubt because of its longer barrel, while the Prince “had a slight advantage at the shorter distance”. The report also notes that Prince’s rifle required “a greater angle of elevation than the rifle musket 1853, especially at the longer distances, which proves that the latter has a more horizontal trajectory”, the more parabolic trajectory of the Prince rifle is likely due to its shorter barrel and possibly its five groove rifling. In terms of rate of fire the official report the Pattern 1853 was said to be capable of 35 rounds in fifteen minutes whereas Prince’s rifle managed 72. This casts some doubt on Busk’s account of the trials, which of course may refer to a different test, but it does support the rapidity of Prince’s action. One final interesting observation from the report is that in operating his rifle Prince administered “copious lubrications of saliva” to the action which as a result “worked easily throughout”. The report concludes with the suggestion that Prince’s rifle should “be subjected to a prolonged trial before an opinion can be expressed as to its efficiency for infantry.”

Left side view of Prince’s rifle (Matthew Moss)

While Prince’s rifle performed admirably the War Office refused to order a batch for further testing, perhaps feeling his system was too complex or too expensive to manufacture, or perhaps not robust enough for military service. Another important factor to consider is that in 1855, the British Army had just two years earlier formally adopted the muzzle-loading 1853 Pattern rifle musket and was of course engaged in the Crimean War.

Underside view of the Prince’s bolt and bolt travel track, note the reinforcement around the track to strengthen the stock (Matthew Moss)

Prince’s patent is undeniably an ingenious breech-loading system. It is a testament to the belief in the design that in 1858, three years after it had first been rejected, a group of prominent London gunmakers including Manton, Wilkinson, Samuel Nock, Parker Field, and Tatham petitioned the Department of the Master-General of the Ordnance to reconsider their decision in a testimonial, published in The Field magazine in April 1858, arguing that they wished “to see the most effective weapon in the hands of our soldiers” and describing Prince’s rifle as “the best we have seen”. Several of these gunmakers, including Manton and Wilkinson, went on to produce rifles based on Prince’s system.

A survey of surviving examples of rifles using Prince’s action shows that a large number of contemporary gunmakers made rifles based on his system, although how many exactly were made remained unknown.

The rifles were produced by gunmakers including Prince’s own company – Prince & Green, as well as Wilkinson’s, E.M. Reilly, Robert S. Garden, Manton & Sons and Hollis & Sheath (later Hollis & Sons). According to De Wit Bailey the London Armoury Company also took on a manufacturing license for Prince’s action in 1861, it is unknown if any were ever produced before the company collapsed in 1866.

Many Prince’s patent rifles were made for civilian sporting and target use. The surviving rifles tend to have barrel lengths of between 25 and 31 inches and most have either three or five groove rifling. The rifles were made in various calibres from the British army’s preferred .577 to much smaller rook and rabbit hunting guns in .24 and .37 calibre. Other larger calibres include .500 and .90 inch bores. With the variety of makers the sights, stocks and fittings found on the rifles vary greatly from simple dovetailed leaf rear sights to more complex ladder sights. There is some variation in the shape and orientation of the locking lugs on the breech plug, this may indicate some experimentation by gunmakers to find the most efficient shape and angle. There is also variation in the style of the barrel bands which held the barrel to the stock, most have a single barrel band that loops over the barrel but there are several examples which have bands split in half and do not surround the barrel, one example has a set of two of these. All of the guns, however, have back action locks – in order to leave more room around the breech to ensure strength.

princef-18590128-259 — Prince’s later 1859 patent for his under-hammer siding breech action (courtesy of Research Press)

Following the rejection of his system by the military Prince developed another breechloading action, patenting it in January 1859 (#259). The new rifle combined a percussion cap magazine inside the rifle’s stock, below the barrel, with an under-hammer lock which was connected to a vertically sliding breech block. It is unclear if this design was ever produced, tested or sold commercially.
In refusing to adopt Prince’s breech-loading system it can be argued that the British Army passed on an opportunity to leap ahead of its rivals. The system was undoubtedly fast and accurate in action, it is possible the Ordnance Department felt the system was too complex and its sliding barrel was not robust enough for service conditions. However, the Prince rifle was a single victim of a wider trend between 1842 and 1865, the Board of Ordnance and later Ordnance Department examined and trialled dozens of breech-loading rifles during the period but did not feel it necessary to adopt one until they had been overwhelmingly proven in the field.

In early 1864, the armies of Europe were shocked by the decisive victory the Prussian Dreyse needle guns helped to bring about during the Danish-Prussian War. In 1865 the British began to seriously look for a breech-loading replacement of their Enfield 1853 Pattern rifle muskets. Following trials of various submitted designs Jacob Snider’s cartridge conversion was selected and in September 1866, the Snider rifle was introduced becoming Britain’s first breech-loading service rifle.

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Bibliography

Patents:

22^ndDecember 1854, Patent #2705
3^rd January 1855, Patent #33
23^rd January 1855, Patent #173
21^st February 1855, Patent #386
16^th November 1855, Patent #2590
22^nd December 1856, Patent #3036
28^th January 1859, Patent #259
15^th July 1859, Patent #1679

Sources:

The Rifle and How to Use It, H. Busk, (source)

Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle, P. Smithurst (2011),

English Gunmakers: The Birmingham and Provincial Gun Trade in the 18th and 19th Century, D.W. Bailey & D.A Nie (1978)

Guns Dictionary: Guns & Gunmakers, J. Walter (source)

Annual Report on the Instruction & Experiments of the School of Musketry, 1856

Special thanks to our friends at the Hayes Collection for letting us examine their rifle, and thanks to David Minshall over at the Research Press for his help researching the Prince’s various patents.

Patents: BESAL Light Machine Gun

On the 21st May 1943, Birmingham Small Arms Ltd.’s chief designer Henry Faulkner, along with Roger Wackrow, patented a series of features used on the BESAL light machine gun. The BESAL had begun life as a stop-gap, emergency light machine gun design which could be quickly manufactured alongside the Bren gun in the event of an imminent German invasion of Britain.

Instead, the design evolved into BSA’s attempt to have the BESAL adopted as a subsitute standard light machine gun. The images below comes from three British patents filed in May 1943 and granted in October 1945. They show the basic layout of the BESAL along with detailed drawings of the sight, universal magazine adaptor, bolt and the take down knob.