Accuracy of US Service Rifles

James White is a WWII Marine Veteran, NRA Instructor, Former ORA President, and Distinguished Marksman. He served the ORA for many years and began the Sharpshooter. These writings are from the Sharpshooter archives and his personal collection.

This article is concerned with rifles carried by Infantry Soldiers and Marines during the years of Our Country’s history. Weapons such as carbines, pistols and machine guns are not included.

The accuracy of a service rifle is the combination of the accuracy of the firearm and the marksmanship ability of the man shooting it. No matter how skillful the rifleman, his success is limited by the accuracy of his weapon. The reverse is also true. No matter how accurate the weapon, its accuracy is wasted if the rifleman is unable to use that accuracy.

Muskets

Muskets, not rifles, were the main weapons used in the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Mexican War. In the Revolution, the American Continental Army was armed with French Charleville and some English Brown Bess muskets. The .69 caliber Charleville became the official service arm of the United States and began to be manufactured at the new Springfield Armory in 1795. A musket had a smooth bored barrel. It fired a lead ball, enough smaller than the bore that reloading could be done easily and quickly, even in a barrel that was fouled with residue from the black powder used as a propellant. Due to the loose fit of the bullet in the barrel, a musket was capable of hitting a man sized target only out to about 100 yards.

Bows and Arrows

Several centuries before the time of the musket, bows and arrows were used in wars. The English, especially, had skilled archers whose longbows required from 75 to 100 pounds of pull to draw and shoot. A 15th Century longbow could shoot many more times in the same length of time, was at least as accurate and usually had a longer range than an 18th Century musket. Muskets would have been a step backward were it not for the fact that it took years of practice to become a bowman. A man could be trained to load and fire a musket in a relatively short time. 18th Century battles between European armies were usually fought between two lines of men shooting at each other while a short distance apart before going at each other with bayonets. Not much accuracy was required of a musket or the man shooting it.

Rifled Barrels

A rifled barrel that imparted a spin to the bullet gave muzzle loading rifles better accuracy than muskets. Rifles were sometimes used in the American Revolution. Some rifles in the 1770s could make head shots at 200 yards and were capable of hitting a man sized target out to as far as 300 yards. But a rifle required much more time to reload than a musket. That was an advantage of a musket over a rifle. More shots could be fired in the same length of time with a musket. And, as with a longbow, it required far less time to learn to shoot a musket than it took to become skilled with a rifle.

Rifled Muskets

The first true service rifles were rifled muskets adopted in 1855 and used in the early 1860s in the Civil War. The Union Army was armed with Springfield rifles, the Confederate Army mainly with Enfield rifles. The rifles were muzzle loaders and used black powder. Both of these weapons shot Minie’ bullets, elongated projectiles of .58 caliber with a cone shaped cavity in the base. The bullets were undersized in diameter to make them easily loaded. When a Minie’ bullet was fired, the cavity in the base caused the bullet to expand to contact the rifling and create a better gas seal. This allowed the speed and ease of loading of a musket, but with the improved accuracy and range of a rifled barrel. As a best case, shooting prone with a rest for his rifle, a really good rifleman with a good rifled musket could hit a man sized board “nearly every time” at 500 yards.

Horse drawn artillery, which had once been able to unlimber their guns at a distance of 300 yards from a line of men armed with muskets, was forced back to at least 600 yards from soldiers armed with rifled muskets.

Both sides in the Civil War had sharpshooters, highly skilled riflemen who used accurate rifles, many with telescopic sights, to kill enemy soldiers at long range. The Union had several regiments of sharpshooters who used Sharps rifles. The Confederacy had fewer sharpshooters, due to the scarcity of the specialized rifles necessary for that type of service. Rifles used by Confederate sharpshooters were imported from England, and were mainly those made by Kerr and Whitworth. Both rifles were usually equipped with telescopic sights. The Kerr was a heavy barreled target rifle and was very accurate. The Whitworth was a better military arm, lighter and more rugged, but it also was accurate. With no wind, almost every one of the heavy bullets of a carefully loaded Whitworth rifle could be kept within a three foot circle at a distance of 800 yards. Statistically, that would mean that the rifle would allow a good rifleman to put about 75% of his shots inside a one foot circle at that distance.

1873 “Trapdoor” Springfield

The 1873 “Trapdoor” Springfield was a single shot rifle that fired the .45-70 cartridge. The combination of a breech loaded rifle firing a fixed cartridge made possible the firing of more shots in the same length of time than could be fired with a muzzle loader — and with the advantage of remaining in position while reloading. The 1873 Springfield was used until at least 1899. It was the rifle used by US troops in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. In the late 1940s, an 1873 Springfield could be purchased from the Director of Civilian Marksmanship. Not that it could probably be done every time, but I’ve seen one of these rifles shoot five-shot groups off the bench at 100 yards that were a little smaller than three inches; using the issue metallic sights, and shooting original surplus black powder GI ammunition manufactured in the late 1880s.

The Krag

The Krag, adopted about 1892, had a gate located on the right side of the receiver which could be opened to allow loading of cartridges into a five-shot magazine. It fired a .30 caliber, round nosed bullet of 220 grains weight at a medium velocity. This combination of rifle and cartridge had only fair accuracy. Soldiers shooting black powder 1873 Springfields could sometimes outshoot other soldiers armed with smokeless powder Krags. The Krag bolt action was smooth and was easily operated in rapid fire. But the combination of powder and components used in Krag ammunition was such that barrels could become inaccurate after as few as 1200 rounds.

M1903 Springfield (and variants)

The M1903 Springfield rifle in all of its varieties was manufactured from 1904 until 1944. The bolt action M1903 was loaded from a 5-round stripper clip, from which five rounds were stripped into the magazine, the clip not going into the rifle.

Cartridges were sometimes packaged in cloth bandoliers that held twelve clips, or a total of 60 rounds. Ammunition was carried in a cartridge belt with ten pockets that could hold a total of 100 rounds in 20 stripper clips for a M1903 rifle.

In the 1920s the Springfield Rifle was revised to be the M1903A1.

In the 1920s and 1930s, special M1903A1 rifles were made at Springfield Armory for use at the National Matches, held at Camp Perry, Ohio almost every year. Only barrels of highest quality were used on National Match rifles. Barrels were measured with a star-gauge. A barrel of high quality had a small star punched at 6 0’clock on the muzzle. Some National Match rifles that were available for sale came with cards showing the inside diameters of the lands and grooves at regularly spaced intervals in the barrel. On another card was a five shot group fired from that rifle using Match ammunition at 200 meters. One exceptional example of such a card had five shots that fit into a rectangle measuring one inch high by one and three quarter inches wide, measured on the OUTSIDE of the bullet holes. .30’06 military ammunition which was developed in the 1920s shot a 172 grain boat tailed bullet and was designated Ball M1. The accuracy of some lots of Match Ball M1 produced in the 1920s was not equaled until 1964 by M72 .30 Caliber National Match ammunition.

In 1952 I bought a M1903A1, made by Remington in early 1942. In 1953 it was altered by mounting it in a target stock with my first ever glass bedding job. The sights were replaced with a Lyman 48 rear and a Lyman 17A front sight. The rifle could shoot close to two inch groups of five shots at 200 yards with GI Match ammunition and slightly better with hand loads. It could shoot a certain lot of 1943 UT Ball M2 into a little over two inches at 100 yards.

The M1903A2 was a rare Springfield variation. It was a stripped down rifle, in effect a barreled action, adapted to fire through a cannon barrel. It was used for inexpensive artillery training in the Second World War. After the end of the war, most of these rifles were rebuilt into M1903A1s.

Remington and Smith-Corona

During World War II, M1903A1 rifles began to be made by Remington and Smith-Corona. Remington revised the design of the M1903 in early WWII in order to manufacture rifles using fewer operations and less material. This variation was called the M1903A3. One change was to make rifles with barrels having only two grooves. Remington claimed that two-groove barrels were as accurate as barrels with four grooves. Another change was to a better rear sight than the leaf sight which was located on the rear of the barrels of M1903A1 rifles.

Components were taken from off the shelf and assembled into rifles to be used by snipers. This version was called the M1903A4. Most M1903A4s were fitted with two-groove barrels. No effort was made to select barrels for accuracy. Serial numbers were marked in a different location on the receivers of M1903A4 rifles and bolt handles were turned down to clear a telescopic sight. They were made without front or rear sights, having only Redfield JR mounts so that telescopic sights could be fitted. The M1903A4 was used in the latter part of WWII and early on in the Korean War but it was not a good sniper rifle.

A friend has an exceptional M1903A3 that proves Remington’s claim that two groove barrels could be as accurate as four groove barrels. With this rifle, in the original oil soaked M1903 stock and using the GI sliding aperture rear sight, he can shoot hand loaded ammunition into 1 3/4 inch 10 shot groups and M2 Ball of a good lot into groups a little larger than two inches, both at 100 yards, and fired prone with a sling.

M1917 Enfield

The M1917 Enfield was used in World War I. This rifle was similar to the British Pattern 14 Enfield, but had a one-piece stock and fired .30’06 ammunition. The rifle cocked on the closing of the bolt. It had an aperture sight located on the bridge of the receiver and not on the rear of the barrel like the M1903. Sgt. Alvin C. York used a M1917 to win his Medal of Honor in France in 1918, although the film about his exploits depicted him using a M1903 Springfield. M1917 Enfield accuracy was most likely very similar to that of a M1903 Springfield.

M1 Garand

In 1937 a rifle invented by John C. Garand was adopted as the service rifle and was given the official designation as the US Rifle Caliber .30 M1. It was commonly called The Garand. The M1 used the same ammunition as the M1903 Springfield. The M1 was the first semi-automatic service rifle. It fired a round at each pull of the trigger and was operated by the gas pressure that propelled the bullet through the barrel. Critics said that the M1 was too complicated, would be too expensive and could never be mass produced.

In 1940 a controversy arose as to which rifle was better, the new M1 service rifle, or a competing rifle developed outside of government circles by a former Marine, Melvin M. Johnson, Jr. In November, 1940, the Marine Corps began a comprehensive test of four different rifles: The M1903 Springfield, the M1, The Johnson rifle and a rifle developed by Winchester. Only the M1903 was bolt operated. The other three rifles were each semiautomatic.

Six field grade Marine officers comprised a board that devised and conducted the tests. Each of these officers was an experienced rifle shooter. Two were Distinguished Marksmen. One of these men, then Lt. Col., later Col. Victor F. Bleasdale, was the commanding officer of the 29th Marines for part of the time that the writer of this article was a rifleman in that regiment during the fighting on the island of Okinawa.

Forty enlisted Marines were selected to do the firing during the tests. All had qualified at least as sharpshooters, but the skill level varied from members of Marine shooting teams down to Marines who had qualified only once.

The tests proved that while the Springfield was the most accurate and most dependable of the four rifles, the use of a semiautomatic rifle would give superior fire power over any bolt operated rifle. The M1 was superior to the other semiautomatic rifles. The Marine Corps determined that the M1 was the most satisfactory rifle available.

100,000 of the rifle that critics said “was too expensive and couldn’t be mass produced” were made during the month of September, 1943. The cost per rifle was $26.00.

The Johnson rifle was given the designation of US Rifle Caliber. 30 M1941. It was used in the early part of WW II by Marine Paratroopers.

Ammunition for the M1 was held in an eight-round clip that was loaded into the magazine with the cartridges. The clip was ejected from the rifle as the last round was fired and the action remained open, ready for reloading. M1 ammunition was packaged in cloth bandoliers that held six clips, or a total of 48 rounds. In the field, ammunition was carried in a cartridge belt with ten pockets that could hold a total of 80 rounds in M1 clips.

The sights on an M1 had an aperture rear sight and a post front sight protected with ears on each side. These sights were the equal of the metallic sights on any service rifle, used by any country, before or since. They were set with positive clicks that gave minute of angle adjustments and were simple to operate.

The M1 Garand could be easily field stripped for cleaning. In my WWII Marine unit, contests were held in which each man was timed while blindfolded, as he field stripped and reassembled M1s, Carbines and BARs. This could usually be done in less than a minute with an M1. There was an incentive to do well. The man who required the most time in a 40 man platoon was threatened with extra duty.

The various parts of an M1 which made semi-automatic firing possible had an effect on the accuracy of the rifle. Added to that was the necessity for a certain amount of looseness of fit so the rifle could be easily disassembled for cleaning. The average M1 was not as accurate as the average M1903 rifle firing the same round. But it made up for that by allowing a rifleman to remain in position, without having to operate a bolt between shots. The M1 weighed about one pound more than a M1903 rifle. That extra weight, combined with the gas operation of the M1, which extended the recoil, made the M1 seem to have less recoil than a M1903 and made it easier to shoot while aiming with better sights. More hits could be made in the same length of time with an M1 than with a M1903.

M1C and M1D

During and after World War II, some M1 rifles were fitted with mounts for telescopic sights. Two methods were devised to fasten the mounts to the rifles and given the designations M1C and M1D.

The mount on the M1C was fastened to the left side of the receiver with screws and alignment pins. The M1D mount was removable. It was fastened by a thumbscrew to a collar on the barrel, located just in front of the receiver.

The telescopic sight on both types was mounted off center to the left in order to allow for 8-round clips to be loaded, and to allow the metallic sights to be used. A leather cheek piece, laced to the butt of the stock, positioned the shooter’s face so that his shooting eye was in line with the telescopic sight.

M1C and M1D rifles were both very fine in fit and function. Many were rebuilt rifles, with everything but the receiver being new and of choice quality. Their accuracy was the best of any M1 service rifle, but they were not as accurate as rifles used by snipers need to be. The telescopic sights were lacking in power and field of view.

M1 Service Rifles

The average M1 service rifle could probably shoot good lots of Ball M2 ammunition with all shots inside a circle of about 9 inches at 200 yards. But M1 rifles could be accurized to be very accurate with high quality ammunition. Military rifle team armorers and government arsenals were able to alter .30 Caliber (.30’06) M1 rifles so that they would shoot M72 Match ammunition with its 173 grain bullet almost as accurately as National Match M1903 rifles shot Match ammunition in the 1930s.

The accuracy standard for a National Match M1 called for the rifle to be able to keep ten shots within 3 1/2 inches at 100 yards. But most accurized M1 rifles, using Match ammunition, were able to achieve at least that level of accuracy at 200 yards. A National Match rear sight with half minute adjustments and a smaller aperture made accurized M1s even more accurate.

Accurized M1 rifles were not usually field stripped for cleaning after every firing. Bores were cleaned and working parts brushed clean and lubricated without field stripping the rifle. Repeated field stripping could cause wear that might undo the steps taken to accurize an M1. Accurized rifles were field stripped only when necessary — once or twice in a shooting season, unless fired in hard rain or extremely dusty conditions. The steps taken to accurize an M1 would not make it any less useful as a service rifle. But the rifle might lose some of its accuracy if it were exposed to the rigors of everyday service, especially combat.

M14

In 1957 the M14 rifle was adopted along with a cartridge that shot the same diameter bullets as the .30’06 but with half inch shorter cartridge cases. The new 7.62 MM NATO round (called .308 Winchester in its civilian version) shot bullets of the same weight as the .30’06 but at a muzzle velocity about one hundred feet per second slower. The Ball M2 .30’06 round shot a 153 grain bullet. M80 7.62 MM Ball used a 147 grain bullet with a better ballistic shape. If two bullets, one Ball M2 fired from an M1 rifle and the other Ball M80 shot from an M14 rifle were fired at the same instant, the boat tailed 147 grain M80 bullet, although starting at a slower velocity, would pass the flat based 153 grain M2 Ball bullet at about 300 yards.

The rear sight on an M14 was identical to the sight on an M1. The front sight was slightly smaller than the M1 front sight. The shorter sight radius of the M14 gave slightly coarser sight adjustments than the sights on an M1.

The US Navy and the US Air Force did not adopt the M14 rifle, but retained the M1 as their service rifle, some of which were converted to shoot 7.62 MM NATO ammunition. This was done initially by the Navy with an insert that locked in the chamber. It was learned that the insert could be ejected along with a fired cartridge case, which made firing a subsequent round very dangerous. Later conversions were made by rebarreling.

M1 rifles, if accurized and fitted with a heavy barrel, can be very accurate when chambered for the 7.62 NATO cartridge. The only requirement to convert an M1 to 7.62 NATO is a new barrel chambered to accept that cartridge. Loading with an 8-round clip, firing and functioning are the same as when chambered for the .30’06 round.

I have an M1 that has been accurized and fitted with a heavy 7.62 MM barrel. It has National Match, half minute sights and an excellent trigger. With hand loaded ammunition, using 175 grain Sierra Match bullets, the rifle shoots close to, if not under, one minute of angle accuracy. It has only been fired with the iron sights. The rifle has fired numerous perfect slow fire prone scores at 100 yards, with many of the groups having 8 or 9 of the ten shots measuring less than an inch from center to center. The errant shots were probably caused by a malfunction of the nut that presses on the trigger. (The shooter.)

The M14 feeds from a 20-round magazine which fits into the receiver of the rifle from the bottom. M14 rifles could be equipped with a selector which could be set for full automatic firing. A variation of the M14 was a rifle with a bipod and a heavier barrel to provide more heat sink for prolonged firing. This rifle was designated the M15 and was intended to replace the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR).

Accurized M14s make excellent match rifles. M118 7.62 MM NATO ammunition can shoot accurately to 1000 yards and is very accurate at 600 yards. 7.62 MM NATO M118 Match ammunition, loaded at Lake City Arsenal for use by military rifle teams, used a bullet which was similar to the .30 Caliber M72 bullet.

Some lots of M118 Match ammunition were very accurate and were used by snipers during the Vietnam War, but almost always in bolt action rifles. The US Marine Corps started the Vietnam War using Model 70 Winchester rifles. A Remington 700 rifle with a heavy barrel was later standardized as the USMC M40 sniper rifle.

In the 1970s, the bullets used to load M118 Match ammunition became less accurate. Some military rifle teams began to replace the 173 grain closed point bullet in M118 Match ammunition with a more accurate commercially made open point 168 grain bullet. The only change needed to do this was the pulling of the GI bullet and the seating of the new bullet. Everything else was the same, including the amount of propellant powder. Ammunition with the replaced bullets was called “Mexican Match”. The load was safe and was accurate. The use of the lighter bullet resulted in a lower velocity which was satisfactory for 600 yards, but when fired in some barrels the velocity dropped below the speed of sound before the bullet had traveled 1000 yards. A bullet that becomes subsonic can be erratic and is usually not accurate.

The cost of the ammunition which was being used by rifle teams was increased, when it was made into Mexican Match, by the price of the 168 grain commercial bullets. That bullet was more accurate because of its open point and the way it was made. The Geneva Convention prohibits the use of open point bullets in wars.

In 1980 a new match cartridge was introduced which used Sierra 168 grain match bullets. It was very accurate. The load was a hot one and the velocity was adequate for shooting out to 1000 yards. The new match ammunition was designated M852.

The box in which the M852 ammunition was packaged had a warning prohibiting its use in combat. M118 ammunition, legal for use in combat, was retained but was renamed “Special Ball”.

The accuracy of a service grade M14 with Ball M80 ammunition was usually better than that of a service grade M1 firing Ball M2 ammunition. The .30’06 Ball M2 military round had air space in the cartridge case. The forward or backward position of the powder in the case had an effect on accuracy. Slower powders, usually used in commercially produced .30’06 ammunition, which would fill the case and give better accuracy, could not be used because of the danger of excessive port pressure which might damage the long operating rod of an M1. Powder loads for M14 ammunition filled the cartridge case. This resulted in less variation in shot to shot pressures and made M14 ammunition more accurate.

The same condition existed with M14 rifles as with M1 rifles when work had been done to accurize them. Service in the field might cause a rifle to lose accuracy until it shot no better than a standard service rifle.

The US Army mounted telescopic sights on accurized M14 rifles. The rifle was intended for use by snipers and was given the designation of M21. It was not as accurate, nor did it maintain its accuracy as well as bolt action sniper rifles that shot the same ammunition.

I have shot about a half dozen National Match M14 rifles that were issued to be used by the Oklahoma State Civilian Rifle Team in the National Matches. All shot well. One was extremely accurate. I owned a heavy barreled M1A, a commercial version of the M14. That rifle was very accurate. The zeros with that rifle at every distance out to 600 yards used the same sight settings for either M118 or M852 Match ammunition.

M16

Each time a new service rifle has been adopted by the armed services, cries of disdain and dismay are heard. The cries were especially vociferous when the M16A1 was adopted around 1964. Some Army generals had done all they could to give the rifle a bad reputation and discourage its adoption. Tests were held that were so designed as to insure that the new rifle would fail them.

The M16 fires a 5.56 MM cartridge that is almost the same as the .223 Remington cartridge. The service load used a 55 grain bullet of .22 caliber. Because of this the M16 was given the nickname of “Mouse Gun”. Since the stock of the M16 is made of a rigid plastic material, there were references to “Mattel”.

The 5.56 MM Ball cartridge is very accurate. Most lots will shoot groups out to 300 yards that are the equal of 7.62 MM M118 Match ammunition. The cartridge gives excellent barrel life. I have shot M16A1 rifles in the Small Arms Firing School at Camp Perry, Ohio that would keep a ten shot group in the middle of a silhouette “E” target at 300 yards — after over 10,000 rounds had been fired through the barrel of the rifle. A friend’s bolt action .223 Rem. rifle has over 7,000 rounds through its barrel and can still shoot with one minute of angle accuracy.

About 13 inches forward of the receiver, M16 rifles have a collar surrounding a port in the barrel. Gas from firing escapes into the collar and is piped through a small diameter tube to the receiver of the rifle to force the bolt carrier back and actuate the action. An M16 barrel is smaller in diameter inside the hand guard to allow mounting of an M79 grenade launcher. The sling swivel of a service grade M16 is fastened to the collar on the barrel. Depending upon the tightness or looseness if a loop sling is used, the barrel can be deflected and the elevation zero can be affected. A hasty sling can be used satisfactorily.

The barrel of the M16A1 had a rifling twist that made the 55 grain Ball bullet ride the borderline of being unstable. This marginal stability caused bullets to tumble when they hit human targets and made wounds at close range which were as severe as those caused by .30’06 or 7.62 bullets. The maximum effective range of the rifle was about 400 yards, which was adequate for most service in Vietnam.

When the M16 was introduced into Vietnam, it came with few instructions or tools for maintenance. The hot gas piped into the receiver to actuate the rifle condenses into a black soot. If not cleaned periodically, the moving parts can become very dirty. The rifle is easily disassembled for cleaning, but early on, the users of the rifle did not know much about cleaning the M16. Something else that wasn’t known and that was how to use the M16. It usually was carried with the selector switch set to “FULL” and was used in the “spray and pray”, fully automatic mode, fed by twenty and thirty round magazines.

When the Marine Corps developed the M16A2, the provision for unlimited full automatic firing was replaced with a selector setting where three round bursts were fired. There was a penalty for this feature. In effect the trigger system has three sears, which results in three different trigger pulls.

The M16A2 has a heavier barrel and better, easier to adjust sights than the M16A1. The bullet weight of the standard load was increased from 55 to 62 grains and the rifling twist was tightened to one turn in 7 inches. The changes make the M16A2 capable of keeping shots within a 20 inch circle at 500 yards.

AR15

The semiautomatic version of the M16 is the AR15. It can be configured the same as an M16 service rifle or as a match rifle, commonly called a “space gun”.

Since they would never be equipped with grenade launchers, currently made AR15s have barrels that are full diameter under the hand guard. The sling swivel can be on the hand guard, which does not touch the barrel. The use of a loop sling doesn’t affect the rifle’s zero. Except for the gas tube, the effect of which on accuracy is negligible, the barrel is free floating from the receiver out to the muzzle. All this makes the AR15 very accurate. Barrels having a fast rifling twist of one turn in 7 or 8 inches are used which can stabilize bullets of 80 grains weight. These bullets do not require much more allowance for wind than do .30 caliber bullets. A good heavy barreled AR15 can keep all shots within a 12 inch circle at 600 yards.

The AR15 is semi-automatic only and has no provision for full automatic firing. Excellent commercially made triggers are available.

In a recent NRA Regional Match at the NRA Whittington Center near Raton, New Mexico, the wind was gusty. Abrasive dust from the unpaved firing lines filled the air. Bolt action rifles and M14s were literally put out of action by the dusty conditions, which had little or no effect on M16 and AR15 rifles.

Rifle Matches

Since about 1900, when the Marine Corps began to organize teams to compete in big rifle matches, there has been a great rivalry between the Marine Corps and the Army. In 1995 the US Army’s Advanced Marksmanship Unit switched from M14 rifles to M16s. There were growing pains while Army armorers developed ammunition and methods to make M16 rifles shoot accurately at 600 yards. The M16 rifles they created had heavy barrels with a rifling twist rate of one turn in 8 inches, in order to stabilize 80 grain bullets for 600 yards and yet be able to accurately shoot 69 grain bullets at 200 and 300 yards. Within a year Army rifle teams were beating Marine teams, who still shot M14 rifles. The Marines got their own development project under way. Now the M16 is also used by Marine rifle team members. The first year with the M16s, at the National Matches, a female Marine used an M16 to beat out all other military shooters and win the service rifle championship.

Since 1955 I have shot M1903, M1, M14, AR15 and bolt action rifles in high power rifle competition. This includes 17 trips to the National Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio. My last match was a month ago. My Distinguished Rifleman badge was earned in 1981, the 451st award to a civilian since that program began in 1884.

In World War II as a rifleman in a front line Marine Corps Rifle Company I shot various kinds of automatic and semiautomatic weapons, sometimes at human targets.

Because of its accuracy, reliability and the light weight of its ammunition, my first choice of a service rifle would be an AR15/M16, but one capable only of semiautomatic firing. My next choice would be an M1 shooting the 7.62 MM NATO cartridge.

The following comments probably go counter to “conventional wisdom”.

To many people it “just stands to reason” that the most hits can be had in the shortest length of time with a firearm that is fired fully automatic. A fully automatic Uzi or MAC-10 might be an ideal weapon in a small room or in a narrow hallway, but neither would make a good service rifle.

Shooting a firearm fully automatic while traversing the muzzle rapidly, as if spraying water from a hose, has the result, dependent upon the speed of the swing and the distance from the gun, of widely separating the impact points of the bullets — leaving spaces for a target NOT to be hit. More shots can be fired with a fully automatic weapon, but the number of HITS might be less than when fewer shots are fired in the same amount of time, but with a weapon that is fired semiautomatically.

Years ago our shooting club conducted “Bowling Pin” matches. A shooter standing 15 feet from a wooden table would endeavor to knock five bowling pins off the table in the shortest time with shots from a pistol. The last bowling pin to hit the ground stopped the clock and determined the time. Used bowling pins could be obtained at no cost to the club. One of our members was the consistent club champion in these contests. He used a M1911A1 .45 ACP pistol.

Another club member had a legally owned MAC-10 which fired full automatic and also shot the .45 ACP cartridge. The man who owned the MAC-10 challenged the club champion to a match. He would use his MAC-10 against the club champion’s M1911A1 pistol.

The club champion put the five bowling pins on the ground with five shots in his usual five or six seconds. After shooting his SECOND 20-round magazine, the man shooting the MAC-10 still had one bowling pin left on the table. His time was several times that of the club champion.

It is my opinion that no service rifle should be fired fully automatic while hand held. At the very least a bipod should be used when firing full auto, and then only while firing prone. Even with a bipod, the first full auto shot goes where the rifle is aimed, with subsequent shots going where the barrel points after the gun has been thrown off line by recoil.

I once fired a magazine of 20 rounds from a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) at a “D” target at 200 yards. The “D” target simulates the prone silhouette of a man, 19 inches wide and about a foot high. I shot the BAR with a bipod in the classic BAR prone position, behind the rifle with the flap of the buttplate on the top of my shoulder and my left hand on the comb of the stock. I fired the 20 rounds in 2-shot bursts. When I saw the fired target, I had two 10-shot groups, each about four inches in diameter. One group was well into the upper part of the “Dog” target. The other was near the bottom of the black with one shot that leaked out into the 4-ring.

If M14 and even M16 rifles are fired fully automatically, they are usually shot from the hip while held by both hands. The degree to which the rifle is thrown off line by recoil is related to the number of shots fired. The more shots, the greater the recoil, the more the barrel is off line and the longer it takes to realign the rifle with the target.

I’ve seen videos of Lieutenant Dan Combs of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol demonstrating the fully automatic firing of a Thompson submachine gun from the hip. He was able to keep shots inside a small area at about 15 feet distance by controlling the recoil of the gun. It took Lt. Combs several seconds to get into a position that allowed him to control the recoil. I wonder if he would have had the same control with a surprise target, or with the necessity of shooting at widely spaced targets. This skill probably required much practice. In far less time, he could have trained himself to be able to shoot accurate single semiautomatic shots from the hip. Accurately shooting a rifle from the hip is almost instinctive and can be learned quickly. Multiple shots can be fired with repeated pulls of the trigger and the point of impact of the bullets can be adjusted rapidly. Shots can be fired in this manner with surprising accuracy.

If time permits, a rifle should be fired from the shoulder, using the sights to aim and from the steadiest position possible. But if shots must be fired quickly from the hip, the recoil of shots fired full auto could delay the adjustment necessary to get hits if the first shots miss.

The powers that be in the US Marine Corps must have agreed with my opinion, at least to a degree, when the unlimited fully automatic capability of the M16A1 was replaced with a three shot burst mode for the M16A2. Three shots were selected because recoil supposedly doesn’t affect where the rifle points until after that number of shots has left the barrel. But recoil after the three rounds have fired will be three times that of a single round and the rifle will be pushed off line more than by a single shot. If three shots go into, essentially, the same point of impact, why are the other two shots necessary? My choice would be to shoot the rifle semiautomatically and then quickly adjust the aim to shoot more shots, if more shots were needed.

Lones Wigger is a former Army officer who for many years has been one of the world’s best rifle shots. In the late 1960s he was in Vietnam. As an experiment, Wigger on several occasions took over a squad of soldiers who had just been relieved from front line duty. He would single out the “slowest” member of the squad and give him some training, usually only lasting a few minutes. Two silhouette targets would be set up at 50 meters. Each man in the squad was issued 10 rounds of ammunition for his M16. The man who had been given the brief training would shoot at one of the targets. The other members of the squad would each shoot their ten rounds at the other target. The man who had received the training fired his shots with his rifle set for semiautomatic fire. The other squad members were not told how to shoot but would invariably shoot with their rifles set for full auto. They all shot at the same time. On each occasion, the lone soldier had more hits on his target from his ten shots, than the total number of hits on the other target, out of perhaps a hundred shots fired by the other squad members.

Col. Wigger never could get the Army’s top brass interested in the results of his experiments.

The miasma of ignorance and paranoia about guns that has arisen in the United States in recent years has even infected the armed forces, especially the US Army. Training with individual weapons has been down graded in the Army.

The most military of all skills, the ability to use an individual weapon, has at times been treated with a certain amount of contempt and derision by the Army’s leaders — the “musket” syndrome. And yet, the Army has some of the world’s best rifle shooters in its Advanced Marksmanship Unit. Some people say that shooting at bullseye targets at known distances has no relationship with wartime use of weapons. But, everything that is shot at is a target of sorts. Targets used on rifle ranges are standardized — and more difficult to hit than many targets encountered in wartime. Targets in wartime are very often of a fleeting nature, so additional training is needed to simulate those conditions. But, shooting at the more demanding bullseye targets is excellent preparation for that training.

Some 30 years ago, two generals at an Army installation in Colorado became involved in a discussion about the relative merits of “KD” (Known Distance) training, shooting at bullseye type targets, versus training by shooting only at silhouettes.

Two groups of soldiers were selected. One group composed of men who had never fired at silhouettes, but who had qualified on bullseye targets in the past, shot against another group of men who had never fired at bullseye targets but who had just finished qualifying while firing at silhouettes. The men chosen from this group had shot the highest scores on the silhouettes. The scores fired previously by the men who had never fired at silhouette targets were not considered. Not only did the men who had trained only on “KD” ranges with bullseye targets outshoot the group trained only on silhouettes, EACH OF THEM SHOT A PERFECT SCORE!

James S. White

Duncan, Oklahoma, 2/2000