Interesting Sniper On Julia Site

[JGaynor]

On the James Julia auction site for October (firearms Session 1) is the following piece:

1903-A1 SPRINGFIELD USMC SNIPER RIFLE. SN 1436422. Cal. 30-06. 24" bbl. This rifle is very exotic and professionally done, and according to the consignor (who was a retired USMC E-9 armorer) these rifles were made up by the Marines for the Korean War. The rifle itself is a 1931 dated '03-A1 with a Koll Morgan Stith 4x telescope installed on a MC-52 type Griffin & Howe mount. Bolt is a standard 03-A1 that has had the handle professionally modified and a modified safety to accommodate the scope. Rifle is mounted in a standard Springfield C-type stock with a checkered National Match buttplate and WWI era leather sling. Scope is accompanied by the standard leather scope caps that it was issued with that are marked Stith, San Antonio Texas. Also included is a Books hard case and spare bolt assembly. PROVENANCE: Carl Metz Collection. CONDITION: Rifle shows approx 95% of the orig gray green Parkerized finish on receiver, bbl and bands with the bolt, triggeruard and floor plate assy being blued. Buttstock and handguard show very good with only minor rubmarks present. Koll Morgan telescope shows near excellent, retaining better than 98% of its orig black finish with the Griffin & Howe mount matching in condition and color. Leather scope caps show very good. Leather sling is soft and pliable though shows significant wear. Mechanics are crisp and bore is bright and shiny showing only light wear. Hard case is in good condition, as is the spare bolt assembly. 4-38446 BEK27 (4,000-6,000)

I have never seen this combination before. If the description is accurate one would think it represents the highwater mark in an '03 based sniper.

Sharp-eyed readers will note some discrepancies in the description. There is no MC-52 scope mount. MC-1952 is the USMC designation for the USMC version of the M1-C sniper rifle which used a Griffin and Howe mount desiganted "MC-1". At any rate the mount looks more like a commercial G&H than an "MC-1".

Regards,

Jim

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[rebound]

Original gray green parkerized on a 1931 dated 03?
Should it not be black parkerized.

[Calif-Steve]

Story guns are always neat. I am not to sure about this story, however.

[Ramboueille]

On the James Julia auction site for October (firearms Session 1) is the following piece:

1903-A1 SPRINGFIELD USMC SNIPER RIFLE. SN 1436422. Cal. 30-06. 24" bbl. This rifle is very exotic and professionally done, and according to the consignor (who was a retired USMC E-9 armorer) these rifles were made up by the Marines for the Korean War. The rifle itself is a 1931 dated '03-A1 with a Koll Morgan Stith 4x telescope installed on a MC-52 type Griffin & Howe mount. Bolt is a standard 03-A1 that has had the handle professionally modified and a modified safety to accommodate the scope. Rifle is mounted in a standard Springfield C-type stock with a checkered National Match buttplate and WWI era leather sling. Scope is accompanied by the standard leather scope caps that it was issued with that are marked Stith, San Antonio Texas. Also included is a Books hard case and spare bolt assembly. PROVENANCE: Carl Metz Collection. CONDITION: Rifle shows approx 95% of the orig gray green Parkerized finish on receiver, bbl and bands with the bolt, triggeruard and floor plate assy being blued. Buttstock and handguard show very good with only minor rubmarks present. Koll Morgan telescope shows near excellent, retaining better than 98% of its orig black finish with the Griffin & Howe mount matching in condition and color. Leather scope caps show very good. Leather sling is soft and pliable though shows significant wear. Mechanics are crisp and bore is bright and shiny showing only light wear. Hard case is in good condition, as is the spare bolt assembly. 4-38446 BEK27 (4,000-6,000)

I have never seen this combination before. If the description is accurate one would think it represents the highwater mark in an '03 based sniper.

Sharp-eyed readers will note some discrepancies in the description. There is no MC-52 scope mount. MC-1952 is the USMC designation for the USMC version of the M1-C sniper rifle which used a Griffin and Howe mount desiganted "MC-1". At any rate the mount looks more like a commercial G&H than an "MC-1".

Regards,

Jim

Jim,

I agree the mount is nothing more than a commercial G&H and the USMC Kollmorgen 4X scopes weren't available during Korea, they didn't began to appear until 1954-1955 for the US Marines, long after the Korean armistice was signed.

What they have is a ruined M1903 rifle with holes drilled in the receiver and a USMC Kollmorgen scope that's worth exponentially more that the sum of the remaining parts. That auction also has a fake M1C from the same collection.

[Chuckindenver]

i comented about this and other rifles in this sale, on the Jouster site.
lots of nice rifle, and a few made up rifles, this is likely one of them.
the Remington M40 is suspect as is the M40A1.
and the A3 NM..

[Arisaka99]

"Interesting" was the term my dad always used to describe something new my mom cooked that he did not much care for.

[JGaynor]

"Interesting" was the term my dad always used to describe something new my mom cooked that he did not much care for.

Well I don't believe in second guessing the folks who had to make the decisions 65 years ago but an M1903A1 with an Alaskan in a G&H mount would, I think, been a near ideal sniper rifle for the time. Especially if the fore stock was trimmed back to sporter proportions and the junk on the end of the stock discarded. As it happened we wouldn'r see anything close to that until Vietnam.

I agree the provenance sounded a bit "fishy".

Regards,

Jim