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Hi Rick,
I agree that most knowledgeable people would not consider the M2 .22 to be a cheap rifle. However when I bought mine through the DCM in 1956, the M1’s & M2’s were selling for $30 for “serviceable” and $15 for “unserviceable”. Some may have thought of this as an obsolete army rifle like the M1903 or 03A3 and bought it to convert to a nice “squirrel rifle”. An “unserviceable” M1/M2 could be one missing a rear sight or other parts and was maybe fair game for “sporterizing”. There were a lot of spare parts available from dealers just after WWII. I do not know for sure, but I believe that these spare parts were sold by the army as surplus scrap, for spare parts were never offered through the DCM after WWII. I believe that the M1/M2’s were (unlike the M1903 or 03A3 rifles) declared “obsolete” and no supply of spare parts were maintained in the supply system.
During WWII, the M1/M2's had been superceded by commercial .22 target rifles and were probably not manufactured, nor repaired by army facilities. It was cheaper to repace them with the commercial versions than to maintain a logistics chain for either or the SSA .22's. They were probably probably put into storage and sold off.
JMHO
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Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but just about all 1903s and "derivatives" were "cheap" by the late 1950s. I guess I got the feeling the term "cheap" was still being used as a descriptor today, which is definitely NOT the case! :)
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[/COLOR]Kurt,
I sent a PM.
Bruce[/QUOTE]
Bruce, you have email.
Kurt
