#30-06

WARNING – Image with blood shown. Those with weak stomachs should not click!

The paradigm was established by the 1870s: Future infantry combat would focus on a combination of entrenchment, and long-range concentrated fire from well-drilled units to defeat the enemy beyond his own effective range. The arms race for a smaller-caliber, lighter-weight cartridge accelerated, but it was the Americans and the British that would discover a need for an even higher performance round that could outmatch any fielded by their enemies. Two key conflicts were the Second Boer War, fought between the British Empire on one side and the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State on the other, and the Spanish-American War, fought by the United States versus the Kingdom of Spain, most importantly in Cuba and the Philippines. These two conflicts shared one common feature: The opposing sides of each were chiefly armed with advanced quick-loading 7x57mm caliber Mauser rifles, firing high-sectional density 173gr round-nosed bullets at a nearly 350 ft/s muzzle velocity advantage versus the .303 and .30 caliber rounds fired by the British and Americans.

When we last left my CMP M1 Garand, it was having some problems with operating rod dismount. At first, I assumed that the cause of this was chance and operator error, because it didn’t seem like my operating rod was out of spec, but when the oprod dismounted twice more after I wrote and published the article, I knew something was wrong. I checked the operating rod tab again, and this time, it was too small. Well, crap. Fortunately, the CMP guarantees all of their rifles, so I contacted the Program’s customer service, and was directed to Lead Armorer Larry Champion, who immediately sent me a FedEx label and told me to put my operating rod and sales invoice in the box. He gave me the choice of either repairing or replacing the rod, and I chose the latter. Then, I took the operating rod to FedEx, had them package it and slap on a label, and off it went.

The gear of the US infantryman during World War I was some of the best in the period, from the ammunition pouches, to the uniform, and the rifles. Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons has taken a reproduction uniform and an original M1917 rifle and M1911 handgun out to the Two-Gun Action Challenge Match, to put them to the test:

Kirsten Joy Weiss shares some tips for new people who are interested in shooting but have not yet shot a gun. These tips can also apply to experienced shooters who are going to instruct new shooters.

What happens when you shoot commercial ammunition through an M1 rifle? No, what really happens? Take a look at InRange TV’s video on the subject, embedded below. Ian and Karl go one step further than the average “let’s find out” video, and shoot the M1 against a measure with their high speed camera, so take a look:

The US trials that led to the adoption of the first standard issue military selfloading rifle are together one of my favorite parts of small arms history. Recently, Forgotten Weapons’ van Dyked and ponytailed founder and host Ian McCollum got a chance to handle one of my personal “holy grail” firearms, a T3E2 .276 caliber Garand rifle. His excellent video overview (including disassembly) is embedded below, and some further discussion on my part follows that:

The M1 is an old design, one of the very first successful selfloaders (certainly the first very successful one). That means that owning and shooting an M1 is an experience where almost anything can happen.

This is the fourth part of a series of posts seeking to describe and analyze the 7.62mm Lightweight Rifle concept promoted by the Americans, and subsequently adopted by NATO in various forms. This series will cover development from before World War II to the present day, but will focus primarily on the period from 1944-1970, which constitutes the span of time from the Light Rifle’s conception until its end in the United States with the standardization of the M16. This article itself deals with the fully automatic variants of the M1 rifle developed before US focus shifted to the then-new, shorter .30 Light Rifle cartridge that led to the 7.62 NATO caliber. Therefore, all rifles covered in this article were chambered for the standard .30 M2 caliber, and the series of fully automatic M1 derivatives chambered for the .30 Light Rifle experimental round will be covered in a subsequent installment. In more than one way, this is the first “true” installment of the Light Rifle series, as the three preceding articles can be considered prologue material, though that does not reduce the importance of their subjects. My readers should also note that while I consulted a variety of sources to write this article, my narrative heavily relies upon Bruce Canfield’s magnum opus The M1 Garand Rifle , as well as R. Blake Stevens’ U.S. Rifle M14 from John Garand to the M21. Indeed, the title of this article is adapted from the third chapter of that latter book, as I could think of nothing superior.

Tony Faulkner posted his creation in a local firearm group on Facebook. It is an exploded representation of a bullet’s components. This one is made from a Winchester 30-06.

The Chauchat Machine Rifle, formally designated the Fusil Mitrailleur Modele 1915 CSRG, has come to be widely regarded as one of the worst firearms ever made. The rifles made for the French military during WWI were chambered for the standard 8mm Lebel, but the weapon got its reputation as a stinker in American hands, where the “Automatic Rifle, Model 1915 (Chauchat)” made by the Gladiator bicycle factory experienced numerous issues, specifically with extraction of fired cases from chambers that often were not properly reamed for the US .30-06 caliber. What does a failure to extract do to a long-recoil weapon like the Chauchat? The answer lies in the video embedded below:

This is the third part of a series of posts seeking to describe and analyze the 7.62mm Light Rifle concept promoted by the Americans, and subsequently adopted by NATO in various forms. This series will cover development from before World War II to the present day, but will focus primarily on the period from 1944-1970, which constitutes the span of time from the Light Rifle’s conception until its end in the United States with the standardization of the M16. This article itself deals primarily with the M1E series of modified Garand rifles created at Springfield Armory between 1941 and 1945. However, some rifles in the series are left out, these being the sniper rifle variations (M1E2, M1E6, M1E7, and M1E8), as well as the 7.62mm M1 conversion (M1E14) developed in the early 1960s. My readers should also note that while I consulted a variety of sources to write this article, my narrative heavily favors Bruce Canfield’s magnum opus The M1 Garand Rifle , as it is the most recent and complete source of information on the M1E series that I know of. On some matters, Canfield contradicts earlier sources like R. Blake Stevens’ U.S. Rifle M14 from John Garand to the M21, which is itself an excellent volume.

Handheld fully automatic weapons require skill and strength to use effectively. Although a skilled and strong shooter can control even legendarily “uncontrollable” weapons like the AR-10 safely, many less-experienced smaller shooters, such as kids, have trouble safely controlling even “controllable” weapons like submachine guns. Unfortunately, this combination can sometimes have disastrous results.

Some of the .45 ACP rounds found had a curious green lacquer coating the bullet and mouth of the case. A little independent research revealed that this green lacquer is used by Compania Brasileiro de Cartrouchoes (CBC) to denote “military only” ammunition:

Fifty-four years ago plus five days, nearly thirteen hundred troops of the paramilitary Cuban exile group Brigade 2506 landed in Cuba, in an attempt to overthrow the Communist Cuban government, led by Fidel Castro. Sponsored by the CIA, the Brigade was armed with a motley of weapons, many ex-US military examples left over from World War II. Historical Firearms has posted to their Facebook page an album of photographs showing a cross-section of the weapons used by both the Brigadiers and the Communist forces.