Probable WWII 1903 Marine Sniper w/A5 scope

[Punch the Clown]

I can't see building an entire rifle around a WWII Remington replacement handguard. Why not get a set of Steve Earle blocks and see where you stand, without the handguard.

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

So if you had to put a A5 on Unertl bases you would have to change the rings to #2's to do it?

And I would imagine you cannot interchange the Mann Neidner bases with Unertl bases on the receiver and barrel because they probably have different locations for the screw holes? I doubt they would be the same patterns and would interchange would they?

Am I correct in my thinking?

No. The base screw hole spacings are the same, as is the base separation (7.2").

Whoever changed those bases was a relative amateur. Look at the bottoms of the screws where they were cut. Whoever cut them did not radius the rough cut thread ends to avoid thread damage. NO Corps armorer would have left them in that condition. Look at the holes in the spacers. They appear to have contact with the threads due to being the same size or slightly undersized. A Corps armorer would have drilled the shim holes slightly over sized to avoid this. The spacer would have been slightly smaller that the bottom of each base so it would not be visible when assembled. Little things that make the difference between an expert and a wanna be.

The reason the base has a spacer on one side is that the two bases were not level with each other when installed. This usually happens when the holes are not in alignment, making that base slightly rotated from the other. I use a Sun Optics and a Forster Drill Jig to drill and tap my rifles. Find one, take your barreled action and pace it in the jig and check the center line of the holes to see if the two bases are aligned in the vertical plane. I suspect you will find the front two holes slightly rotated from the axis of the rear holes. If they check out OK, replace the front base.

Level the barrel and check to see if the two bases are level in the same horizontal plane (put a long accurate level across the tops of the two installed bases). The bases' tops should be dead level with each other.

Good luck!

jt

[cplnorton]

Thanks so much for your help Jim!

[cplnorton]

I've been digging. Not that this proves anything at all with my rifle, which it doesn't. But I find some of this info really intersting because it's much different than what I thought a couple weeks ago about the 1941's. This might explain though why we are finding differences from rifle to rifle.

This is all taken from the book named, "US Marine Corps Scout Sniper World War II and Korea," by Peter Senich, it was made in 1993.

But in the book they have a interview with Colonel Walter R. Walsh who was the officer who established and commanded the USMC scout sniper school at New River starting in late 1942. This interview starts on page 165. The interview was done in 1990. Colonel Walsh I guess was also part of the rifle team in the 1930's so he was familiar with the rilfes pre-WW2 and then went on to create the basis of the sniper program.
Here are some of the interesting quotes he said.

"Rifles began arriving from Philadelphia almost immediately, about the same time, as I remember. They came in huge green boxes and had scopes on them. These were the same scopes we had used on the USMC Rifle team in the matches. By the time I left the school in mid 43, there were about 100 (03) sniper rifles with scopes there. I'm certain the scopes were mostly Unertl, although we had also used Lyman and Fecker scopes on the rifle teams. Some of these could have been in the sniper program since much of the rifle team equipment and people were involved with the program at large."

"The same situations existed with the care and maintenance of the sniper rifles in the user units. The rifle/scope combinations were held in unit inventories and maintained there. Maintenance was not always of the highest quality; thus any reports about sniper effectiveness have to be weighed against these variables, if known. Also, care given the rifles and scopes in the field varied with the individual, some giving better care than others. Obviously the level of performance was directly affected by this factor. The school at New River had it's own armorers, but they performed only basic routine maintenace on the sniper rifles. Major, higher echelon maintenance was performed at Philadelphia if required. During my short tenure there, no rifles were returned to Philadelphia, however."

"The sniper rifles were USMC Rifle Team National Match 03's made at Springfield Armory and used by the team in the 1930's. They all had polished bolts and most had "C" stocks, although some team rifles still had straight "S" stocks, some of the older shooters, having started with the straight stocks, preferred to stay with them even after the pistol-grip C stocks became standard. "

"All team rifles were carefully worked over with the major effort expended on getting the bedding correct. As I recollect, correct bedding of the barreled action was a 6 o'clock bed. Where the barrel touched the stock only at the forend at the 6 o'clock position."

[cplnorton]

Also in "US Marine Corps Scout Sniper World War II and Korea," by Peter Senich, it was made in 1993.



They also have a interview with Stan Deka who was a WWII Marine Scout sniper trained in New Zealand from the 2nd Marine Division. He was a scout sniper on Tarawa, Tinian, and Saipan. Now I should state that another question he was asked if he saw any other scopes than Unertls and he said No. But the one question that he was asked that I found intersting is this one. The first sentence is the question asked by the interviewer, then his answer below.

"Were you resonsible for taking care of your weapon, or was it taken to a unit armorer for repair or adjustment?"

-"We maintained our own weapons; very few repairs were needed."



I'm going to keep digging. But if they maintained their own weapons that might be why we are finding so many differences in them from rifle to rifle, such as some trigger housings are staked, some are not, and other differences. It just seems I never find two rifles the same. Even ones that experts agree are real snipers.

Now all this info woudn't make any difference if these rifles that were returned and rebuilt at say Philly after the war, which I imagine many were. And it doesn't prove anything at all on my rifle. Because what everyone has said so far, makes perfect sense. I just found it interesting because it's much different than what I had initially thought on the WWII Marine snipers. And I had thought I knew a decent amount on them. But the more I dig, the more I realize I didn't know much at all on them.

If you don't have the book, and like these snipers, get it. Man there is a lot of neat info in there. I'm still reading it. So I hope there are some more little tidbits in there like this.

[PhillipM]

This is the only picture needed to show this rifle did not have scope blocks applied at an arsenal. This is just somebody's match rifle.