Marine 03 rifles

[blackhawk2]

Lebanon G/S this past weekend 11 Jan 14 ....Spoke to a dealer I have known for a long while....He was stoked....He had just purchased a SRS lettered Marine 03....He also showed me his brother 832846....He purchased the pair, from the same person....It wears a Sedgley 1-42 bbl regards alex.......

http://i848.photobucket.com/albums/ab42/techkya/01141402_zps28d390ba.jpg (http://s848.photobucket.com/user/techkya/media/01141402_zps28d390ba.jpg.html)

http://i848.photobucket.com/albums/ab42/techkya/01141401_zps35606399.jpg (http://s848.photobucket.com/user/techkya/media/01141401_zps35606399.jpg.html)

[RCS]

This SA 1903 serial number 1031506 with a Sedgely 9-41 barrel with vise marks, punched buttplate, un-cartouched stock is very close to one in your SRS letter listing the forty serial numbers

[TDP0311]

I actually almost purchased these rifles several weeks ago... only thing that stopped me was that the USMC one was a reconstituted drill rifle, on top of not really having the funds to purchase both at the time.

Great history behind the USMC one though!

[cplnorton]

Those rifle serials very well might have served on Guadalcanal. The 8th Marines of the 2nd Marine Division were an infantry unit and deployed to Samoa for training after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They soon then reinforced the 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal.

Most likely those rifles spent some time in combat on the Canal if they were indeed reissued to the 8th Marines.

[cplnorton]

I have one really close to one on your list as well. On your list is 806743. I have 806372. It has a 7-41 USMC barrel with vice marks, hatcher hole, serial number electro penciled on bolt, stippled buttplate, uncartouched stock, and that light colored Marine Phosphate.

I would love to know if it maybe served on the Canal, but will probably never know.

[Rick the Librarian]

The 8th Marines were sent to Guadalcanal relatively late in the fighting, the first week in November, 1942; you're right that they spent several months on Samoa.

[TDP0311]

The rifle on that list came from 2nd Marine Regt- it's SN is in paragraph (c), which deals with rifles that came from 2 Marine Regt for major overhaul. 2nd Marines landed on Tulagi at the beginning of the conflict in support of the Raiders, and it is very likely this rifle saw action there. Its a shame it was made into a drill rifle, but the man who sold it did a good job restoring it. He even found the exact month USMC Sedgley barrel that the rifle had on it before, which is very impressive.

The 2nd rifle was most likely not a Marine rifle. It bears no signs of any Marine usage...

Photos #2 and #5 are of the non USMC rifle.

[Rick the Librarian]

Keep in mind that the SRS data takes a (figuratively speaking) "snapshot" of a given firearm of where it was at a given place and time. There is no guarantee that the rifle stayed with that particular unit later.

[Shooter5]

The 8th Marines were sent to Guadalcanal relatively late in the fighting, the first week in November, 1942; you're right that they spent several months on Samoa.

IIRC, it was finding enough shipping for resupply/reinforcement and convoy protection amidst all the ongoing and continual naval battles that became an issue for getting more troops into the fight.

[firstflabn]

He even found the exact month USMC Sedgley barrel that the rifle had on it before, which is very impressive.

Serial number quests are always tantalizing, but if I understand the sequence of events, this sounds like a very long shot.

If the current barrel is the same date (9-41) as the one ruined in making it into a drill rifle - is the assumption that the ruined one was the rifle's only wartime barrel?

If so, then the scenario had to go like this:

1. Rifle sent to Philadelphia for repair prior to May 1, 1941.
2. Rifle receives new barrel in Philly 4+ months after shipment.
3. Rifle then returned to same regiment after repair.

Either extreme chance or overly complex record keeping would have been required. It's not like someone taking stuff to the dry cleaners where there's a reason to take pains to return the same item as turned in. Reserve stocks are established for a reason and identical items get a catalog number. Turn this broken one in; get another one issued. The level of detail is curious - but doesn't say anything at all about what happened next.

The D-series T/O for a USMC division called for 7406 '03s. For a ballpark idea, let's ignore losses and attachments. That means around 15,000 '03s on Guadalcanal. The USMC had over 60k '03s in 1925. No idea if they kept them all, but with the entire corps numbering way way less than 60k in the '20s, a reasonable guess is that they controlled their own large mobilization reserve.

Had this rifle been damaged or worn out in training - or - had it just been pulled out of post-WWI storage and failed its initial serviceability check prior to issue to an expanding unit? That, too, is indeterminate with current knowledge.