What year did USMC start stippled butt plates?

[Parashooter]

Methinks this business of attributing all hand-punched buttplates to Marines may be a bit over-enthusiastic. I learned about stippling '03 buttplates from my old brownshoe (Army) coach when I was a very young PFC on the Fort Dix rifle team in the spring of 1964. One day in the pits he picked up an AP core and showed my how they used them to punch up buttplates back when he was a 'cruit like me. There wasn't a Marine in sight!

Let's be realistic, anyone with a hammer and a pointed bit of hard steel or carbide can stipple the heck out of an '03 plate in a couple of minutes - and I can assure you the practice wasn't confined to Leathernecks.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Lancebear]

Para,

Agree with every point in your post...but if J.B. observes a few USMC characteristics on one rifle, the buttplate stippling was probably put on by a Marine. Yea, a stippled buttplate does not a Marine rifle make, ya' need a few more USMC things to make it plausable. Fun topic though.

The photos I posted are of a real USMC '03, yes...it lives at my house.

Regards,

LB