The United States of America was a pioneer in sniper rifle use in the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s, but as was typical of modern armies, they allowed sniping to be downplayed and virtually ignored in peacetime. 

In 1908 Warner & Sawsey in the U.S.A. created the Model of 1908 Musket Sight and a few years later, the Warner & Swasey Model of 1913 Museket Sight. Winchester had developed the A5 rifle scope, which was a simple tube. 

Some Springfield Model of 1903 rifles were fitted with sniper scopes for use in the last two years of The Great War, now known as World War I. After the war sniping was again neglected. 

In World War II, the countries at war developed sniper rifles. The U.S.A. entered the war over two years after it started, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.

USMC 1941 Sniper Rifle

The U.S. Marine Corps developed a sniper rifle using the Model of 1903 rifle and an 8-power scope made by Unertl. This was called  the “USMC 1941 Sniper Rifle” based upon the M1903A1 Springfield rifle. As many National Match rifles were used for these conversions to sniper equipment, but then they had to use some other non-National Match rifles. The rifles were fitted with the Unertl 8X scope. The return spring was not fitted on the U.S.M.C. scopes. A Micarta carrying case that could hook onto a pack was issued to store the scope in if it was removed. Such cases were apparently intended to be hooked onto a back pack rather than a web belt.

M1903A4 (Sniper’s)

A late 1943 M1903A4 serial number 34221XX. This rifle is original with the blued finish but the M73B1 scope has been refurbished by the military.

The U.S. Army was slower to react and it was not until 1943 that they ordered 20,000 sniper rifles from Remington. These were Model 1903A3 rifles fitted with Redfield Hunior mount and Weaver 330, renamed M73B1 scopes. The rifles were resignated M1903A4 but remained marked as 1903A3. In this way if a rifle was deemed unsuitable for further use as a sniper rifle, it could easiely be converted back to a standard1903A3 configuration by removing the scope mount and adding iron sights. Later other models of scopes were fitted. Although these were seens as an interim solution, the scopes that they wanted were not available and so the M1903A4 sniper rifles remained the standard.

The U.S. Army really wanted a sniper rifle based upon their standard rifle, the  M1 Garand. As a Canadian I like to point out that Mr. Garand was born in Canada. 🙂  The problem with fitting a scope was that the rifle was loded and emptied from the top, so the scope had to offset to the left. Two basic designs were created which led to the M1C (and a USMC variation called the MC1), and the M1D.

M1C

The M1C was a complicated installation requiring drilling and tapped the receiver at the Griffin & Howe factory and this was slected by the army. It ran into the problem of not enough scopes being available so only a very few are believed to have made it into action in the Philippines in 1945 just before the Japanese surrendered. 

M1D

Mr. Garand’s M1D design weas simpler and any M1 rifle could easily be converted by changing or sleeving the barrel and attaching the scope with a single screw. The U.S. Army realized their mistake during the Korean War and the M1D was officially accepted, however the reality was that the M1C and U..S.M.C. Unertl equipped scope remained the standard U.S. sniper rifles in Korea. The M1D was used afterwards, right up to the 1991 Gulf War. The normal scope for the M1D was the M84, but some were foitted with M81 and M82 scopes and possible some Lyman “Alaskan” scopes of a certain prefix letter series. Some newer scopes may have also been fitted in later service. 

U.S.M.C. 1953 MC1

The U.S.Marine Corps adopted the Garand as a sniper rifle, but with a longer Griffin & Howe type “slide” and a Stith-Kollmorgen MC-1 4-power scope.

U.S. Military Sniper Telescopes

• The U.S. Army’s WWI – Korean War scope numbering was confusing. Here are the main sniper scope models:
• Warner & Swasey Model 1908
• Warner & Swasey Model 1913 (Canada bought 500 of this model as well)
• Winchester A5
• Lyman 5A (licence made copy of the Winchester A5)
• Unertl 8X USMC-SNIPER Scope
• Weaver “330” (civilian scope, VERY FEW of which were used by the U.S. Army)
• Lyman “M-73”  / “M-73E1” (military version of the “Alaskan”) renumbered “M81”
• Weaver “M73B1” (military version of the “330”)
• Weaver “M73B2” (French redesign of military scope for U.S. Army. M73B2 which had a different adjustment system was made in liberated France in 1944-45.)
• Weaver “330 SCOPE-M.8”
• Lyman M81 (cross-hairs)
• Lyman M82 (tapered post)
• Lyman M84 (tapered post)
• Kollmorgen MC-1 scope 4X for the USMC 1952 Sniper’s Rifle

U.S. Sniper Rifles

• USMC 1941 Sniper Rifle

• M1C & M1D

M1D 36005XX shown here with a leather cheek rest, which was needed because the scope was offset to the left. The cheek rest in the photo is a modern replica. An origina cheek rest was later fitted to this particular rifle.

• The M1C and M1D sniper rifle variants of the Garand semi-automatic rifle were developed in 1944. The more difficult to make M1C was declared to be the standard and went into production in 1944-1945, but only a few may have made it to the combat zones in the Pacific before the wear “ended.” The M1D design was shelved, but revived for production, or rather conversion of existing rifles, during the Korean War. However, once again, they were delivered too late for the war. Some M1D rifles were used into the Vietnam War and even into the 1991 Gulf War. The Americans usually call the preparation phase “Operation Desert Shield” and the actual invasion  “Operation Desert Storm,”) which were actually just the names of American operations during the Gulf War. There were other operations in that was as well e.g. the British “Operation Granby.”