The Rarest WWI Marine Sniper Rifle

[Jim Tarleton]

I thought the forum members might find this information interesting. To my knowledge, this information has not been previously published. This is a portion of the information I have been publishing on the Jouster forum. It is part of the story of how four dedicated, long time members of the Marine rifle team planned, designed, and implemented the WWI Marine sniper program.

The men were Major Thomas Holcomb, Major Douglas McDougal, Major Garland Fay, and Major Daulty Smith. Fay's sister was married to Doyen.

Those familiar with Marine rifle team lore should recognize all these names, as each had won prestigious matches and awards. Several had been rifle team captains or coaches. These men devised the design for the Marine Mount, enabled the assembly of the scoped rifles, started a sniper school in Cuba, issued the rifles to prospective snipers, and ran the rifle range detachment which trained snipers at OSD. They controlled every aspect of the sniper program, from design of the rifle to the training of snipers. One of them, Major McDougal, tried to implement a heavy barrel sniper rifle in a quest for even greater accuracy.

On 5 Jan 1918, Major Douglas McDougal, Inspector of Target Practice, contacted WRA with a request for 1000 heavy barrels and stocks for the M1903 Springfield rifle. On 8 April 1918, McDougal ordered 1000 A5 scopes for his concept of a more accurate heavy barrel sniper rifle he intended to assemble in house. McDougal had salvaged 1000 receivers for the project, but he needed stocks and barrels.

Major McDougal contacted Springfield Armory for the stocks, but nothing has surfaced about his dealings with SA. Major McDougal still needed the heavy barrels from WRA, but WRA V.P Henry Brewer was not enthralled about making the heavy barrels. Brewer believed the 1000 barrel order was more trouble than he needed for the money WRA would make. Maj. McDougal had already made two of the heavy barrel sniper rifles using pressure test barrels, but it is not known, to me, if any others were ever made. Those two HB sniper rifles McDougal had made are undoubtedly the rarest Marine sniper rifles in existence.

Maj. McDougal received 926 A5 scopes from WRA by war's end. No definitive evidence of assembly of scoped rifles by the Marines has been found by me. Any rifles assembled would stand out with a heavy barrel and soldered taper bases on a very low SN receiver (receivers that had worn out barrels). It is certainly possible they did assemble an unknown quantity of rifles, but their status is unknown to me. No delivery of barrels or stocks has surfaced to date, that I can find, so it is unlikely any additional scoped heavy barrel sniper rifles were assembled by the Marines. One of the letters below indicates McDougal was unable to obtain rifles, or barrels, "from the government".

Information

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