THE MYSTIQUE OF THE DOUBLE RIFLE – PART TWO

In the early 1980’s I started looking for an affordable double rifle in a caliber that would be suitable for big game. Besides being able to deliver the correct amount of energy on target, it had to be such a caliber that loaded cartridges, cartridge cases, and projectiles would be readily available. To purchase a rifle in 40 caliber, for instance, would exacerbate the problem of obtaining ammunition and loading components.

I would have liked to have a rifle my favorite caliber, 30/06, but rifles chambered in this caliber are fairly scarce. Furthermore, extraction problems can be encountered in rimless calibers. It wasn´t long before I encountered a side-by-side double rifle in 9.3 x 74R caliber. I knew about this cartridge and it made my decision to purchase the rifle that much easier. It plenty of muzzle energy for big game and the components area readily available.

First of all, let me discuss the 9.3 x 74R caliber. In Europe they usually denote a caliber by the diameter of the projectile, the length of the cartridge case and then a suffix which denotes whether the case is rimmed or rimless. Thus this cartridge has a 9.3 mm (.366) diameter projectile and cartridge case is 74 mm (3 inches) long. The “R” means that the case has a rim on the cartridge case for in extraction. The case also has a slight taper which also aids extraction. Extraction is always a concern in a double rifle as the cartridge case is not turned by a bolt for primary extraction. The case is pulled straight back and out” This cartridge is widely used in Europe and today one hears more and more about it in the United States. In fact, some U.S. companies now make the projectiles for reloading and others carry the ammunition and cartridge cases.

The rifle was manufactured by the company Richard Fischer Jr. in Suhl Germany Suhl (Thuringia State) ins the ancient arms marking center of Germany and still produces fine firearms for those with a taste for quality and beauty. The rifle was proofed February 1931 and thus it was manufactured some time before that date.

When purchasing a double rifle, one must check the information available on the “flats” Remove the barrels and turn them over and look at the marks located on the flats directly under the chambers. The caliber will be stamped at this location, mine is stamped 9.3 mm/74.5 It is stamped with an N for nitro proofed or quite simply nitro cellulose, smokeless powder. The projectile weight used in regulating the barrets weighed 18 grams which is in the range of 285 grams. A box 9.3 x 74R cartridges that were manufactured by DWM in Germany shows a 19 gram projectile with3.85 grams of smokeless powder.

A U with a crown above it means that the firearm has had the final proof. The proof mark was used on German firearms prior to 1939 when new proof law was instituted. A stamp, st m G shows that the barrets were proofed for rifled barrels with a steel jacketed projectile. A G with a crown above it means that it was proofed for a firearm with rifled barrels. An E with a crown above is also stamped on the flats which shows that the rifle was proofed for express rifle barrels. Finatty a stylized eagle with spreading wings shows that a proof was carried out on the unfinished barrels. Evidently they did not wand to go thought the final finishing and regulating only out that the barrel(s) had a structural flaw in them.

To be able to ascertain what all of the different proofs mean for the different countries involved in the rifles manufacture, you must have a book on proof marks which is available and is listed at the end of this article.

The reasons that I appreciate this rifle, when I go hunting, are many and varied. First of all, if I am back packing into the mountains the rifle can be broken down into there separate components. The rifle is also light when compared with many of the bolt action rifles chambered for big magnum. U.S. calibers. When the rifle is assembled for use it is well balanced and easy to carry in rough terrain. Due to the fact that there is no long action, as found on bolt action rifles, the rifle can have a 26-inch barrel and still be shorter than a comparable bolt action rifle. I also have two barrels at my disposal that fire powerful cartridges. The first barrel should accomplish the task at hand, but if not, then the second barrel is readily available by merely putting your finger on the second trigger. You do not have to move a bolt or work the slide as on widely used American hunting rifles. Of course one can argue that semi-auto hunting rifles are available where you can send a number of rounds down range by merely squeezing the trigger. That is true, but I am not a proponent of “spray and pray” marksmanship. This is especially true when one considers the number of hunters who traverse hill and dale during the hunting season. People can get wounded or killed by senseless shot after a fleeing game animal. I feel that if you haven´t bagged the animal in one or two shots, it is time to quit firing and look for another opportunity to bag your deer or elk!

This particular double rifle does not have automatic ejectors as is the cases most doubles. Automatic ejectors will increase the price of the rifle for one thing. The other is that with dangerous game it is felt that the ping of cartridge cases catapulting out of the rifle will attract the attention of a wounded, dangerous animal. If you are reloading the ammunition, it also allows you to put fired cartridge cases in your pocket rather than digging through the snow looking for them.

When this double is turned over, there is a trap door at the toe of the butt stock which houses four cartridges. This you always have spare ammunition with you if need be I am not one that goes into the forest with a box or two or ammunition as I am hunting and going on seek and destroy mission. If you can´t bag your animal with a half dozen rounds or less, it is time to spend more time on the range or gbe more selective when choosing your shots.

As I got older, I added a 23/4X scope to the rail built in between the barrels. This aids me in sighting in the rifle as well as scanning the brush or trees to see if an animal is legal… before pulling the trigger(s). There is no reason to have a 3 x  9 variable scope installed on the rifle as a double rifle a 100 to 150 yard rifle. Furthermore I am hunting and stalking the animal to get within a decent range which is part of the hunting.

Experience if I just wanted to put meat on the table, I wound use a heavy caliber sniper rifle and shoot at targets at 500 to 1000 yards. That is not my idea of hunting and I will stick to the 100 to 150 yard shots. Remember the thrill of hunting is summed up in the first four letters of the word hunting… HUNT!!

Finally we come to regulation of the rifle. It had been regulated at the firearms factory, but with modern components, that make up newly manufactured cartridges, it is required that you find which lot of ammunition or manufacturer gives you the best results in your particular rifle. I have fired factory loads, reloads with the cast bullets first. It is safe to say that my experience with cast bullets left groups at 50 looked like the path of a swarm of killer bees. In short my experience with these has been dismal at the best. Accuracy such as this was not seen since the Napoleonic Wars!!

Jacketed bullets have brought excellent to mediocre results. One needs to vary the powder charge, the powder type and of course the projectile weight and type. The number of permutations and combinations can be extreme to say the least. After many rounds fired, I came onto a winning combination. I use 286 grain loadings of RWS and Norma ammunition with an RWS loading in one barrel and a Norma factory loading in the other. This gives fine results; so easy yet so long to find this perfect combination.

 

When it comes to reloading I have found that you do not repeatedly reload the cases as many times as you would with a bolt action rifle. I use my case 3 times and then move on to new cases. Repeated use can result in head separations which is not advisable.

When I hunt with reloaded ammunition, I use virgin brass so that I do not have a problem in the field. I might add that when a head separation results, I do not need any toll other than a cleaning rod wit a brass bristle brush of 38 caliber. The tapered case, which aids extraction, also lends itself to removing a headless case!!

If you have not tried a double rifle for hunting, I recommend that you look it. This is not a rifle for the average “meat hunter” who goes into the forest to put meat on the table. It is comparable to fly fishing which is also for certain type of fisherman. If you want fish, just grab a cheap casting rod and reel and a can of worms. However there are some of us who appreciate the finest in fly rods and rifles to create the finest experience in field and stream. In the case of hunting, a double rifle can be a love affair of wood and metal for the hunter and gun enthusiasts.

For information on proof marks, consult the following publication.

Wirnsberger, Gerhard. The Standard Directory of Proof Marks. Published by Jolex, Inc.

THE MYSTIQUE OF THE DOUBLE RIFLE – PART ONE

For those who know anything about firearms, the double rifle has always elicited awe and respect. It reminds of the early days of hunting dangerous game in India and Africa; when men pitted their hunting prowess against the most dangerous game on the “dark continent. It elicits respect due to the fine workmanship bestowed on double rifles as well as the technology involved to make the rifle into a highly efficient firearm.

Prior to the invention of smokeless powder, semi-automatic rifles or even bolt action rifles, it was the hunter armed with a single shot rifle and cartridges loaded with black powder. What was needed was a large and thus powerful cartridge in order to bring down an elephant or charging lion with the one shot at the hunter´s disposal. If this shot failed, then there would be one less hunter on the planet!! Enter the double rifle. If still fired a large diameter projectile with black powder, but it had two barrels if the first shot should fail. These rifles were made in large calibers such as the 12 bore (12 gauge) so that the black powder propellant could deliver maximum shock to the target. Some of the these double rifles were designed into what is called a paradox double rifle. The first part of the barrel was smooth bore and toward the end of the barrel it was rifled to give the projectile a spin and thus give stabilization through its flight.

As the gun smithing art progressed, calibers such as the 577, 577/450, 450, 470 and eventually the 600 nitro express were placed on the market with the double rifles chambered for these cartridges. At first some of the these cartridges use black powder as the propellant but later the cartridges were loaded with smokeless powder and were dubbed nitro express rounds. The smokeless cartridges had several advantages: first when the cartridge was fired there was no large cloud of smoke to give away the hunters position and second they had a much higher chamber pressure and thus more foot pounds of deliverable energy when an animal was hit. I might add that collects in the bore of a rifle fired with black powder can produce a caustic mix that can pit the barrels. Remember, black powder has a key ingredient, sulfur which can form sulfuric acid when mixed with water.

Witch these large powerful cartridges, there was a great deal of recoil and which was transmitted to the hunter´s shoulder. These double rifles were made heavy to decrease this heavy recoil generated by the powerful cartridge and could weight in the 15 to 25 pound range. This rifle would be a heavy load for a hunter of middle age or order to carry through the tropical heat of Africa or India so gun bears were used to carry these heavy rifles. When game was spotted, the loaded rifle was handed to the hunter for the shot. After the shot was fired, the rifle was handed back to the bearer.

Normally the double rifle cartridges had a tapered case with a rim at the base to facilitate extraction. In modern times some double rifles were manufactured with rimless cartridges, but the extraction of these rimless cases can fail with the inherent problems associated with a cartridge case stuck in the chamber.

Double rifles are made with both box locks (the least expensive) and side locks (the most expensive). The side locks cab be hand detachable and thus can be removed in the field if a spring breaks, for instance. Of course, an extra ser of side locks would have to be carried in the field and this raised the price of the rifle with hand detachable side locks.

Besides the inherent labor required to produce a fine double rifle, most of the well to do hunters of the era had the stocks and metal embellished with engraving, carving, inlays, and checkering. This could drive the price skyward, depending on the owners taste for the very best that money could buy.

Regulating a double rifle, to have both barrels hit within a specified area at 100 or 150 meters, was a gun maker´s nightmare. After the barrels were made and fitted as best that could be done, the rifle was taken to the range and fired with the specified load for which the new rifle was to be regulated. After firing, the barrels would have to be readjusted and re-soldered and fire again, and again…. and again. the process was only stopped when the proper regulation of the barrels was achieved. Firing expensive, high intensity cartridges was a tedious and expensive part of the final manufacturing process.

The double rifle is a rifle of close to moderate range and is not for varmint shooting at ranges of three to five hundred meters. Once the range is extended beyond the distance in which the rifle was regulated, the point of impact for the two projectiles will deviate greatly. Not only are we talking about the normal bullet drop as the range increases but the lateral dispersion of the projectiles.

The point of impact for the two projectiles can also be altered depending on the powder charge used, the type of powder used, the weight of the projectiles, the type of jacket material used on the projectiles, etc. When a double rifle is regulated, then this act of using a standard load in the rifle prevents one from going to the gun shop and saying, “Give me a box of ammo of this caliber”! Stick to the regulated load for the double rifle.

To fire a double rifle, fire the right barrel first and then the left barrel. For best results fire left barrel within five seconds of the right barrel. If not the heat generated in the right barrel can cause the barrel to move with a resultant loss in accuracy. Do not hold the barrel with you free hand! Lightly grasp the fore end, without any undue pressure and then fire the rifle. Do not let the barrel rest on a fence rail, branches or the side of a tree trunk.

Why would want a double rifle after reading the few points outlined in the paragraphs above. Well first of all, a double rifle is not for everyone. In fact it is only for the chosen few. You must follow the rules carefully if you are going to have any luck firing the rifle accurately. If you can find factory loads that work well in your rifle then you can stick to these loads. If not, you may want to reload. Reloading is also a requisite if you have a rifle in an absolute caliber or it the factory ammunition is very expensive. Cartridges for the fairly new (in double rifle years). 7000 Nitro Express can cost in the neighborhood of $ 70 per ROUND! Of course, anyone who awns a. 700 Nitro Express doesn´t have to worry about the cost of ammunition as he loads his double rifle into his Rolls Royce.

What do double rifles cost? The textbook answer to this questions is … whatever your want to pay for them. The double rifles of continental Europe are the least expensive. The British double rifles are the most expensive as they are virtually hand made and hand fitted with the finest finish, engraving and stock wood. As a ball park figure, the best British double rifle will cost some $ 60,000 on the low end. Used European doubles can be had for $ 5,000 on up. I might say, for clarification, that some good buys can be has in Britain for used double rifles which are not of the Royal grade.

If you are interested in a double rifle, check the many firearms auctions that are held around the country. Get a copy of the Double Gun Journal at Barnes and Noble and get some books on double rifles. One that comes to mind is Shooting the British Doubke Rifle by Graeme Wright.

I hope I have piqued your interest on the world of double rifles. In the second part of this discussion I will go over a German double rifle that I have had for many years and is still my favorite rifle.

Using Old, Old Wood for a New New Rifle

During the last ice age vast areas of the northern latitudes of what is now the United States were covered with, yes, ice. Glaciers slowly moved across the land and ground the bedrock into dust. Everything in their path was pushed out of the way and deposited far from their original source. As proof of this, walrus and caribou remains have been found as far south as the Carolinas. Trees slowly moved south as the temperature cooled.

When the climate warmed and the glaciers retreated signs of their visit remained. Large boulders in New York’s Central Park still have the grooves in them caused by the glaciers. Long Island, NY is a terminal moraine left behind as the glaciers retreated. Potholes and lakes were formed as the glaciers melted and turned to water. Eventually, vegetation began to carpet the landscape once again and as the cycle of living and dying ensued, the rotting vegetation began to form soil once again to provide a substrate for a new forest.

During the periods of heavy rainfall and snow melt in the spring, some of this vegetation was washed downstream and was deposited in the bottoms of ponds and lakes. Parts of trees and even full sized trees ended up in lakes, became water logged, and sank to the bottom. In time they were covered with clay and other sediment and were lost far below the lakes surface, not to be seen again for thousands of years.

One of these lakes lay north of New Haven, CT in the town of Hamden. The organic debris from the forest was washed into the lake and sank to the bottom. In times of heavy rainfall and flooding, layers of leaves, twigs and nuts were buried. Logs and various other wood debris were also covered and would not be seen again until the area was mined for clay to make bricks.
The logs which are found in this area are generally Eastern hemlock, various oaks, and sycamore. Buried deep under a tomb of clay they do not rot because the temperature is cold, oxygen is in short supply and the moisture content is high.

Yale University (especially the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies) has carried out radio carbon dating to determine how long these logs have been buried. This determination is based on the half life of Carbon 14 and has given quite accurate results over the years.
This author had a sample of Eastern hemlock carbon dated and found that it had died 1,250 years ago. An oak log was dated as having died 4,200 years ago. It has been found that sycamore logs are some of the oldest trees having been dated some 6,200 years! This probably attests to the fact that some 6,000 years ago the hills of Connecticut were made up of a large number of sycamore trees.

In the mid 70´s I noticed a large log, more than 2 feet in diameter, which had been pulled from the clay pit. A thought quickly came to mind: “How about making a gun stock from this ancient tree?” A chainsaw and 10 minutes of cutting led to a stock blank that was the approximate size of a normal rifle stock and about 3.5 inches thick. As a person who holds a BS in forestry and as well as a Masters Degree in forestry from Yale, I new that some quick work needed to be done to prevent the rapid deterioration of the stock blank. Rapid drying and shrinking of the wood stock blank would result in checking and splitting much to the chagrin of the gunsmith who would turn a rough piece of wood into a thing of beauty.

The wood was taken to a nearby stream and with the help of a large rock, was submerged in the water. This was left in situ for nearly a month. Now the wood was completely saturated and was ready for a chemical stabilization process. I took several pounds of polyethylene glycol (which looks like a block of paraffin in its solid state) and dissolved it in a special long vat of warm water. To keep the water warm a gold fish tank heater was installed. The stock blank was now immersed into this vat and left for several months. Remember “Haste makes waste.”

The technical explanation of this process is as follows: The wood must be thoroughly soaked with water for the PEG to be able to move through the wood cells. After this chemical has completely saturated the wood it is slowly dried over many months in a dark cool place. The PEG turns back into a solid after drying and fills the cell walls of the wood. If the cell walls are saturated with a solid material they cannot shrink when the wood is dried. If the wood cannot shrink, then it cannot crack and split.

After the initial several months of drying in a cool location, the stock blank was set aside and nothing more was done to it for 5 years. Then I sent it to a gunstock maker and had the sycamore stock blank semi-inleted for a Martini action which had been rebarrelled to .22 hornet caliber. A friend of mine (Rick Dotzenrod at Big Sky Firearms & Outfitters Incorporated) has a gunsmith shop and he engraved the action on both sides and used silver for the relief engraving of a fox and a crow. Additionally, he fitted the old wood onto the new rifle. Finally, to embellish the rifle further, he finished the exterior of the stock to a high gloss.

The stock does not have the brown color of normal sycamore wood, but looks more like mahogany. Referencing the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory Wood Handbook I found that sycamore gets red with age and this piece was certainly old. It is unfortunate that I did not save a piece of the raw wood to be carbon dated but like they say “Too soon we get old, to late we get smart. ”

The end result is a beautiful little .22 hornet single shot rifle that is more than a little unique. Everytime I take the rifle out for target shooting I think of the long and interesting process that was required to bring the gun to fruition. I must say that my good friend, Rick Dotzenrod, did most of the labor for this project. It goes to show that two heads are better than one.

Clyde can be contacted at 719 547 2135 or www.WesternLogHomeSupply.com

MOSIN – NAGANT MODEL 1891 RIFLE – U.S. MANUFACTURED

World War broke out with a vengeance in August, 1914. It wasn’t long before all of the combatants were looking for increased supplies of food, money and weapons. The United States traded with England, France and Russia. Germany and its allies were not recipients of our largess. This was the state of mind of our international politics; we traded with one side in the conflict while we told the world that we were neutral. If you look up the word neutral in the dictionary it does not correspond with the meaning of neutrality that the Wilson Administration had at that time.

The Russians were off to a bad start militarily from the very beginning. The soldiers were under trained and they were short of supplies which included rifles. In 1915, the Russian government signed contracts with Remington Arms and Westinghouse to build rifles for them. Westinghouse received an order for nearly 2 million rifles and these were produced at the Savage Arms Co. plant in Chicopee Falls, Mass. As Westinghouse did not have any rifle production facilities.

Many of these rifles were shipped but the political situation in Russian prevented all of them from being accepted by the Russian government. This was the case with both Westinghouse rifles as well as Remington. With a large surplus of rifles on hand in the USA that could not be delivered, the U.S. government purchased some 250,000 of these rifles and used them to train the large numbers of recruits that were mobilized after our entry into the war in April, 1917. They were not of the correct caliber, but they were certainly better than broomsticks which were being used in training.

The Russian M-1891 rifle in my collection was made by Westinghouse. Its serial number is a little over the 1.3 million range. The bolt and the receiver serial number match on the rifle which is always a plus. On the left side of the breech is an U.S. ordnance bomb stamped into the metal. This signifies its use by the U.S. military (army) in WWI.

On the left side of the butt stock is an imprint in the wood; Angliskii Zakaz which translates into English Contract. The equipment at the Chicopee Falls, Mass. Plant was owned by the British Government and they were paying for these Russian-Westinghouse rifles. As they say, Truth can be stranger than fiction!

After the Great War many of these rifles were sold to the American citizens as it was a non-standard arm and it was not worth keeping in U.S. Ordnance inventory. Many were turned into sporting rifles by cutting the wood back and in some cases the barrel length was also reduced. The original rifles can still be found on racks at pawn shops and at gun shows. It is a very interesting rifle of World War I and a nice addition to any collection.

Soviet Era Model 91/30 Rifle Used in the Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War began in 1936 and raged for several years with the usual ferocity that only a religious war could top!  Germany backed Franco with weapons and manpower; the Soviets backed the Republicans with war material as well. American volunteers went over to help the Republicans as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Ernest Hemmingway put the conflict into words in his book For Whom the Bells Toll.

 

This author obtained a Model 91/30 rifle for the paltry sum of $10.00 in l961. What peaked my interest was the inscription on the side of the receiver; Made in USSR. This was in English letters and not Cyrillic as used by the Soviets/Russians. Why would anyone put this on the side of the receiver? Anyone who knows anything about military firearms would know that this was a Soviet weapon especially with the hammer and sickle embossed on the top of the receiver.

 

A few years back I was talking to a fellow military weapons collector and he told me how he was in Spain looking for firearms in the late 1950s. He met a Major from the Spanish Army in a bar and he mentioned to the Major that he was looking for interesting firearms. The Major said, “If you are interested in firearms, meet me here at 0900 in the morning.” In the morning, they took a ride together to an old castle and on opening the massive door, the building was packed from floor to ceiling with captured weapons from the Spanish Civil War.

 

The amount of weapons located here was beyond George’s financial means and so he contacted Interarmco.  He said there I was in my early 20’s and watched the deal being made. The rifles, mostly 9l/30’s, sold for less than $2.00 each.

 

With this lucky piece of information, I was able to piece the puzzle together. The rifle in my possession was not stamped SA meaning Suomen Armeija and that it was once the property of the Finnish Army. The date on my rifle was 1936 which was the start of the civil war and was made at Izhevsk arsenal in the USSR. A book on the Spanish Civil War that I read some years ago gave the total Russian contribution of rifles to Spain as 500,000.

 

Why was the rifle stamped: MADE IN THE USSR?  A Golden State Arms Corp.  advertisement, from that period, offers these rifles for the sum of $14.95 each. The advertisement is headlined: HUNTERS – CONFISCATED ‘MN’ RUSSIAN RIFLES. It has a disclaimer that says; “Their sale in no way aids any iron curtain country.”

 

This was the McCarthy era and one had better be careful in word and deed if they were not to be branded a Communist sympathizer. To be sure that no one purchased one of these rifles and later found out that it was manufactured, and probably purchased, from the “commies” and additional notation was stamped on the receiver.

 

I have seen several other rifles with this inscription and all were made in 1936. This does not mean that rifles with other dates were not also sold to the Spanish government and used in the civil war. If the rifle does not have the import marks stamped on the rifle circa 1970’s and/or was purchased in the late 1950’s or 1960’s and is not stamped with an SA, it could very well be one of the Spanish rifles. The only other sources would be a GI weapon brought back from the Korean War. It is probably safe to say that not all importers were so politically correct to stamp the rifles “Made in USSR” The advertisement that lists the sale of these rifles also shows Spanish M-1893 Mauser carbines in 7 mm caliber for $19.95. These were most likely some of the weapons mixed in with the Model 91/30 rifles.

 

The provenance of any military weapon is always of prime importance to those in this field of collecting and who have even the slightest interest in history. This is certainly an interesting rifle to have in any collection and gives one the incentive to look for weapons of this type at pawn shops or gun shows.

Mosin Nagant Rifle Model 91 / 30 - Korean War Capture

During the Korean War, the United Nations forces captured 100,000 of weapons; many of these were the 91/30 Mosin – Nagant rifles and carbines. These rifles did not have the fine workmanship of the German Mauser of WWII and thus they were not highly sought after as a souvenir.  I have talked to veterans of the conflict and learned that piles of these captured weapons were put to the torch.

 Some of these captured weapons were reissued to the ROK (Republic of Korea) forces if not for a front line weapon, but as a weapon for guard duty or rear line use. A 91/30 in my collection was manufactured by Izhevsk Arsenal in the Soviet Union. It is stamped with the date of manufacture which is 1936.

 The interesting thing about the rifle is the Korean lettering on the stock in white paint. I have taken it to a local man of Korean birth and had it interpreted. It says basically; BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN LOADING THIS RIFLE.  This evidently refers to the caliber in 7.62 Russian. They did not want some recruit with minimal knowledge of ordnance to try and fire a .30 U.S or .303 British round in the rifle. This was probably a prudent precaution when one considers the level of training of recruits drafted in any army. They may know just the bare minimum about the rifle in which they were issued and from there on it’s a matter of luck that the recipient of a rifle doesn’t shoot himself of a peer. A soldier in WWI wrote home in 1918; “If the men keep shooting themselves in firearms accidents, the Germans will win the war without firing a shot!”

The rifle in this short dissertation is a most interesting one. It is not just another rifle which was made in a foreign country for the military, but was actually used in one of our “limited” wars. Was it discovered in a front line cache or was it part of the great Chinese invasion of Korea in November, 1950?  We can sit here, while holding the rifle, and think up scenarios of the possible story behind the rifle, but in some cases, dreaming can be as interesting as the real facts.

NOTE: The name of the rifle is Mosin – Nagant.  Mosin is pronounced MO-seen and Nagant, is pronounced Nah-GON (the second syllable is nasalized). The word Nagant is Walloon  and is a Belgiun-French name.

It is not known how many 91/30 rifles were manufactured in 1936 but some 17.5 million 91/30 rifles were produced from 1939 to 1945.

The information was taken from the excellent book on the rifle entitled: The Mosin-Nagant Rifle by Terence W. Lapin. It is published by North Cape publications and is recommended for those interested in a lot more on this series of rifles. 

The Johnson Marine Corps. Rifle - P and US Markings

To view high resolution photos of the Johnson rifle, sight details, and all drawings by PVT. Treadway and letters to Melven Johnson please visit the following link: Johnson Rifle

In response to a question about the P and US markings on the Johnson Rifle:

1)      The P stamped on the barrel is evidently a proof mark. The final stage of firearms manufacture is to fire a proof load in the rifle to test its strength. These are in the range of 55,000 lbs per sq. inch. The barrel on my rifle is not the one that it had when it left the factory and may have come from another rifle or been a replacement barrel. In Europe, this proof testing is sanctioned by the government and various stamps are used to make sure that the firearm has been proofed.

2)      My rifle does not have a proof mark on the receiver.

3)      The US mark on my rifle remains a mystery and may always remain so. It was certainly not put on at the factory as I mentioned in my article.

4)      If the Marine Corps had placed an identifying mark on the rifle it certainly would have been USMC.

5)      If Johnson Automatics would have purchased this rifle after the war, it would certainly have been reconditioned with a new barrel, stock, etc. as he had plenty of parts on hand. In his advertisement he states that the rifles were reconditioned. Thus Johnson Automatics certainly did not mark the gun with the US.

6)      If a firearms owner had wanted to show possession of the rifle I expect he would have stamped his name or initials on some spot on the rifle. Who ever did this certainly had a mission in mind.

7)      The stamp was placed on the rifle well down the line, after it left the factory. The barrel in the rifle is not the one that was on it when it left the factory as I found the original manufacturing records and took down all of the numbers on the bolt, barrel, magazine, etc. when it left the factory.

8)      So where did it come from? Who knows who did it or when. I mention it in the article because it is on the rifle and that is all. Sometime dreaming about the history of a firearm is part of the fun of collecting. I have never seen another mark such as this on any Johnson rifle so it was a very localized form of identification.

9)      The US marks were on the rifle when it came into my possession in 1961. I did not add them to enhance the value of the firearm. I would not have done this as even back then I knew that working over a historical firearm to your liking is a good way to ruin the monetary value, if not historical value of the firearm. To put false stamps and identification of firearms is fraud in my book!

10)  When I went through the records which were compiled by Johnson Automatics, all three legers were at my disposal. These included the non-prefix numbers, the A and the B. I have been told the only one left at the non prefix ledger. The others have been lost. It is unfortunate that I didn’t have then photo copied for posterity. So soon we get old…so late we get smart!

11)  As luck would have it, the serial number of my rifle appears in Bruce Canfield’s excellent book on the Johnson Firearms. It appears on page 249 on the second edition of the book entitled: Johnson’s Rifle and Machineguns published by Andrew Mowbray Publishers in 2006. There are serial numbers for 29 rifles that are known to have been shipped to the marines and mine is one of them. How many survived the war or are sitting in someone’s closet, undiscovered, will never be known.

If I can be of further assistance in your search for information on your Johnson rifles or mine, do feel free to contact me.

 

Clyde Cremer