Armory Tour

Armory Tour

Springfield 1903 (M1903):

This was one of the greatest weaopns in the histoy of the United States. Soon after the introduction of the Krag-Jorgensen rifle in 1894 the U.S. Army began to look at the idea of yet another rifle, this time using the Mauser action. Initially it was planned to have a 30 inch barrel for the infantry and a 20 inch battel for a cavalry cabine, but this was changed to a universal rifle with a 24 inch barrel, firing the .30-03 round. The new rifle, known as "the Springfield" from its main place of manufacture, had a Mauser-type bolt, and a five-round magazine with a cut-off plate. There were the inevitable changes in the first few years, the most important being the adoption of the .30-06 round with a lighter bullet and a sharper nose, which was introduced in 1906; this had greater muzzle velocity, a lower trajectory, increased maximum theoretical range to 2,850 yards and also reduce the wear on the barrel. New rifles were built chambered for this round, but the existing rifles had to be re-chamberd, although this was not difficult. the M1903 proved very popular, its only significant disadvantahe being its small magazine capacity of only five rounds. it remained in service for many years and underwent many modifications including the introduction of the Pedersen device in 1918, which gave it an automatic fire capability.

Garand M1:

This outstanding rifle was designed by John C. Garand of the National Armory, Springfield, who worked on various designs throught the 1920's eventually taking out a patent for the successful system in April 1930. In the Garand system, gas was tapped through a port under the barrel into the gas cylinder where it drove the opperating rod to the rear, causing the bolt to rotate slightly and travel to the rear ejecting the spent round. A spring then pushes the opperating rod and bolt to the front chambering the next round from the magazine. The rifle has a 24 inch barrel and is chambered for the .30-06 round. An eight round magazine is contained entirely in the stock and when emptied ejects compleatly out playing a dual-purpose of making room for the next set of rounds to be loaded and to alert the user that they are out of ammo and need to reload. Commonly known as "the Garand" it was standardized as the M1 on January 9, 1936 but a variety of problems meant that the first production weapons did not reach units until early in 1937. Even then it had futher problems, but once these were solved production built up rapidly. Total U.S. production, which continued well into the 1950's, was just over 6 million. The M1 was the standard rifle of the U.S. throughout WWII and was the only self-loader in general use, giving the U.S. forces a great advantage over their enemies who, apart from some German units in 1944-5, continued to use bolt-action weapons to the very end. The M1 remained in front line use throughout the Korean war, but eventually replaced by another Garand design, the M14.

Grand M14:

When NATO selected the 7.62mm round in 1953, everyone then needed a new rifle to fire it. European countries mainly setteled on the FAL, but the U.S. already had a superb semi-automatic weapon in the M1, they took this design as the basis to the new M14 rifle.