Some Holy Grails

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tark

tark

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Wow! this new job is more fun than a monkey with a hand grenade !!

A few pics of some of the holy grail's of firearm collecting....which will never end up in anybodies private collection, because they are government property!

R.I.A. 1903 #1 M-1 Model shop Garand #2. The gas cylinder on #2. Appears to be a type 1 production gas cylinder. A Pederson Device with accessories. Last pic is four Indian rifles found on the battlefield at Little Bighorn
 

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tark said:
Wow! this new job is more fun than a monkey with a hand grenade !!

A few pics of some of the holy grail's of firearm collecting....which will never end up in anybodies private collection, because they are government property!

R.I.A. 1903 #1 M-1 Model shop Garand #2. The gas cylinder on #2. Appears to be a type 1 production gas cylinder. A Pederson Device with accessories. Last pic is four Indian rifles found on the battlefield at Little Bighorn
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Wow!

Ahhhhhhh....the Petersen device. Let's give the GIs a piece of equipment about the size of a pistol, which fires pistol cartridges, plus a bunch of magazines and extra ammo to carry around in addition to their rifle and its ammo and clips........

Or, I guess we could just give them actual pistols. Hmmmmmmm......;)
 
My holy Grail was a Steyr Mannlicher-Schoenauer carbine. I finally pulled the stops, found one, bought it. It was a .257 Roberts. I paid a haggled $1,200 for it at a gun store. Bought 120 rounds of Federal Premium 120 grain Nosler Partition cartridges. What a beauty she was, and launched those Partitions 1 moa.

Well, I got to go hunting in Texas all of about three times in 10 years on someone else's leased property. Did not see a single deer except a fleeting glimpse of one bolting through a stand of trees on a neighboring property. A few years later I couldn't justify having it so I sold it.
 
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The 4 Indian rifles... left to right...sharps carbine, sharps carbine, Winchester, Springfield Trap Door??? At angles different than you normally see it’s not as easy to tell what I’m looking at.
 
WestKentucky said:
The 4 Indian rifles... left to right...sharps carbine, sharps carbine, Winchester, Springfield Trap Door??? At angles different than you normally see it’s not as easy to tell what I’m looking at.
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Think you nailed it. By 1876, the year of Little Bighorn, surplus Civil War Sharps' rifles would have been common trade goods with the tribes.

The Trapdoor Carbine was, of course, current Army Cavalry issue, though considered by many horse troops inferior to it's predecessor, the Spencer repeater. The single shot Trapdoor and its early problematic copper-cased ammunition were cited as major contributing factors to Custer's defeat.

A '73 Winchester would have been some cutting edge stuff at that battle! Those guns saw some amazing history, wish they could tell stories!
 
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tark

Very cool seeing a Serial Number 1 on the RIA Model 1903 and Serial Number 2 on the M1 Garand! Please let us know when you come across more historical treasures!
 
WestKentucky said:
The 4 Indian rifles... left to right...sharps carbine, sharps carbine, Winchester, Springfield Trap Door???
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Correct. All four rifles are in dismal condition. I'm guessing their owners discarded them for better guns, taken from the dead soldiers on the battlefield.
bannockburn said:
Very cool seeing a Serial Number 1 on the RIA Model 1903 and Serial Number 2 on the M1 Garand! Please let us know when you come across more historical treasures!
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The Museum if full of them. I'm trying to post a pic of General John Buford's cavalry saber but my phone isn't working right. Buford is generally regarded as the man who saved the union at Gettysburg. He recognized the Confederate forces as part of Lee's army, not just a confederate raiding party. He organized a hasty defense and held off the Confederate army just long enough for the Union Army to arrive.

there, I got it
 

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tark said:
Correct. All four rifles are in dismal condition. I'm guessing their owners discarded them for better guns, taken from the dead soldiers on the battlefield.
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I'm going out on a limb and say these aren't battlefield discards -- they were surrendered when the majority of the Sioux returned to the reservation that fall.

While an Indian might "trade up" taking a better gun for one he already had, the other Indians would most certainly take his discard and use it.
 
Years ago I saw what, if I recall correctly, was an 1873 Winchester in an antique store. The stock was only partially present - looked like it had been eaten away over time (What was left cleaned up and stabilized). Supposedly a ground find somewhere in West Texas. Oh yes, if only they could talk.
 
Cool stuff........... Thanks for posting. So cool that it's beyond "holy grail" status because it probably will never be seen in a private collection. Closest I ever came to any of that stuff was a Springfield M-1 with a serial number in the eleven thousand range. But it was one of those "Blue Sky" imports from S. Korea in the late 1980's. Unfortunately the barrel was shot out, chamber was pitted badly, among many other issues and I traded it off to a guy who could re-barrel it and had a replacement barrel in his shop. Always wondered about the values on low serial number Garand receivers.
 
Vern Humphrey said:
Look at the Sharps on the left -- the forearm is almost completely worn away. I suspect a couple of the others are that way, too, but we can't see it from this angle. That comes from being carried across the warrior's thighs, rubbing against the saddle -- for many, many, many miles.
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The trap door on the right is even worse. I have always wondered why all four of those Indian guns looked like that.
22250Rem said:
So cool that it's beyond "holy grail" status because it probably will never be seen in a private collection
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Those guns are owned by the Department of Defense and there is NO chance any of them will ever end up in private hands. We can only dream and drool on our keyboards.
 
If any of you have a chance check out the Springfield armory museum in MA. I’ve never been to rock island but they look darn similar.

Awesome pieces of history you get to spend time with tark!
 
We've got quite a few weapons you won't find at the Springfield Armory National Historic Site. Three FG-42s, one first model and two second models. A few STG-44s. Transitional Garands, which led to the M-14. Most are one of a kind prototypes. Some are full auto and are fed from a box magazine. The only 1892 Krag carbine in existence, tag # 6042. It is third from top and looks like a short rifle. Finally, a 1901 Springfield, at the top, with a long barrel, tag # 6764 A rod bayonet 1903 under it. The collection has four rod bayonet 03s and the 1901 rod bayonet rifle.

I'm still drooling a lot.....every day
 

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They've also got my Holy Grail. Back in the Stone Age, I was in the 30th Infantry at Fort Sill, OK. We supported the Artillery School with "infantry type" activities, including running the Infiltration Course (where troops low-crawl under live machine gun fire.) The M60 was not cleared for overhead fire in training, so we had six M1917 water-cooled machine guns. I fell in love with them and would love to have one.
 
tark

Wow, more awesome "stuff"! Love the Model 1892 Krag Carbine, the FG42s, the Model 1941 Johnson Rifle and Johnson Light Machine Gun, and the M14 program prototypes T25 and T28!
 
There is one glaring omission in the museum's inventory.....A ten year old kid came in the other day and wanted to see "Hitlers Buzz saw."

We don't have an MG 42..:(
 
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Al-jim19 said:
Awesome pieces of history you get to spend time with tark!
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And that is all I get to do! I will never hold one. Only a very few people are authorized to touch those guns.......and I ain't one of em!!

That's fine with me. Just being in the same room makes me tingle all over....
 
Backing up a little, the Pederson device was going to give the soldiers a high-capacity semi-auto for point-blank use when storming trenches. That would have been a huge improvement in firepower over the bolt-action rifles they were made for, and the .30 cal. pistol round was planned to be enough to neutralize enemy soldiers in that close combat. My FIL has a Springfield MK 1 set up for the Pederson device.
 
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