Any lever guns in VietNam, or a Movie Mistake?

[Ian Sean]

Ian Sean I heard of people who were MACV what does this term mean. I ve heard it alot in books but never heard what it stands for, so if somebody could please educate me on it I would really appreciate it. Thank you, sorry for the thread jack.

As was mentioned, Military Assistance Command Vietnam, His specific group of a dozen or so guys (mostly combat vet Sargeants) were training South Vietnamese troops with our weapons, tactics, and doctrine, and then taking them out in the countryside.

Spent about 9 months doing this and was finished up his tour in an Infantry unit...again. Dad retired in early '67, after 22 years in the Army.

 

[Arcticfox]

I'm sure that there was a variety of "personal" weapons in use over there. A soldier during the Reagan era told me about a show of force operation he was involved in, where one of his compadres brought 2 of his .45 lc out to play! I don't know if he was telling a tall tail, but its funny to visualize a soldier blazing .45s on a mission!

 

[7mmsavage]

It was definately a Red Rider BB gun

I have "The Short Timers" by Gustav Hasford, and in it he mentions the Red Rider. I was just quickly scanning through the pages but could not find it, but if I remember correctly the soldier carrying it meets his demise by charging an enemy machine gun while working the lever and firing away. It's a cool book, i recomend it to any other Full Metal Jacket fans.

 

[Pork Fat]

I remember the BB gun being in the book. It was one of the affectations that the "Grunts" were given by the author. Kind of like the nicknames (Animal Mother).

When I was a kid in the old Ridgely Elementary School library (early 70's) I devoured all the C.B. Colby books they had. One was about the Special Forces and contained lots of black & white photo illustrations of training and equipment. One showed an SF soldier using a slingshot to cause an opponent to break cover, giving his partner with an M-1 a clear shot.

I wonder if those books are still there. I doubt that they are. They were printed in the 50's and 60's and may have glorified the military a bit much for today's educational trendiness.

 

[bogie]

I used to have a Wrist Rocket slingshot.

It used to ride in my car's glove compartment. With a box of .58 balls.

Considering that one of the things would go through an inch of pine at about 25 yards, I figured that if I ended up broke down in a bad neighborhood, I at least had something.

I actually got pretty good with the thing back in college - I could hit a 12" diameter tree at about 50 yards with pretty fair regularity.

 

[Sniper X]

When I started working at the Monterey Bay Aquarium after ETS'ing out of the Army, I was talking to a guy wh claimed to be an ex-sniper from the US Army. Since I actually was a trained US Army Sniper and in the 10th SFG till I ETS'd, I asked him a few questions, like the first one,

WHat weapons system were you on? I asked this for two reaons, first to see what era he had been in if he 'was' a sniper, and second to see if he had been in and a sniper.

When his answer was
a Winchester model 1894 with a scope. I knew he was fibbing about ever being a sniper.

My dad went to Viet Nam 4 times, twice in fixed wing (OV-1 Mohawks) and twice again in Rotary wing, flew both dustoff helos and command ships, both UH1s as far as I know, maybe a OH58. I asked him and even though he never was into guns, he said he never saw anyone with a lever gun, said he probably would have noticed a "cowbow" peice as he called it!

 

[sdown]

pretty small world

SniperX,

I too worked at MBA and (in the mid late 80's) I had a conversation with my boss at the time and he claimed to have been in Korea with a lever gun....an 1886 winchester. I certainly did not believe him about that. Must be some sort of aquaruim malady.

Steve

 

[Rifleman 173]

In Viet Nam there were ALL sorts of rifles, pistols and shotguns available. All you had to do was ask around. Heck, there were open or black markets where you could buy just about anything you wanted. G.I.s generally used issued rifles and pistols. Special Ops used all sorts of different weapons. The Vietnamese used ANYTHING that they could scrounge, beg, borrow, manufacture or steal. They used black powder (cap and ball) stuff left over from many, many years ago. I saw one SKS which had half of a pair of binoculars mounted on it They showed it to us when I went through Sniper School at An Khe (Camp Radcliffe) in 1970. That was a "locally produced" sniper rifle for a communist soldier. The glass on the SKS "sniper rifle" had a cross hair etched into the lense and it was taped into place. So, did they have lever action rifles? They sure did BUT not too many. I can remember seeing only one lever action rifle over there and it was badly rusted. It had once been somebody's hunting rifle and shot some strange caliber of some sort.

 

[Trebor]

When I was a kid in the old Ridgely Elementary School library (early 70's) I devoured all the C.B. Colby books they had.

I loved those books. Colby was like a gunwriter for kids.

I've tried to track down copies since then but they are really hard to find.

 

[Sundog45]

I just watched FMJ last night and in the scene where he's blown up in the explosion, you can see the thin profile of the rifle. It's a red rider for sure, very flat stock. I am a lever gun fan, and definately noticed this in the movie. As far as our troops carrying something like that in Vietnam, I don't know. But I can tell you this I served as a Marine in Desert Shield/Storm. Rode with Mechanized Recon, and the gunner brought his own Marlin 336. This is a fact, not fiction. So if we carried personal weapons in recent conflicts, you can bet we carried them over there.

I carried an EK commando knife, non-issue fighting knife as well. Hope this helps.

"Traditions stay alive because free men have the right to exercise them."

Semper Fi,,,,Happy Birthday Marine Corps.

Sonny

 

[W L Johnson]

Daisy Red Ryder
about 3/4 down the webpage http://www.imfdb.org/index.php/Full_Metal_Jacket
You'll shoot your eye out kid!

 

[garyhan]

For documented use of leverguns in Viet Nam, see Charlie Askins biography "Unrepentant Sinner". He used a Savage 99 .358 to take out some VC. Also used an early S&W M29 .44 mag to good effect.

gary

 

[Al Thompson]

Zombie!

 

[Hangingrock]

Individual long arms not that I saw, but handguns yes. It was not common but individual weapons were to some degree prevalent depending on unit. I had a S&W 1917 that Flaigs of Millvale had cut done the barrel length, added a rib, front sight with brass bead, adjustable rear sight and smoothed the action. They didn’t charge my dad one thin dime. It was sent over in a care package.

 

[SharpsDressedMan]

Don't know about use in VN, but in the late 60's, early 70's, the Army took a shot at rifle "point shooting" by training G.I.'s with LEVER ACTION Daisy BB guns with the sights removed or taped over....it was supposed to help quicken the soldiers instinctive shooting of rifles against fast targets. I think there was even an article on it in Guns & Ammo. Supposedly, it worked pretty well, but they did not continue the program long. Who knows, maybe even a lever action BB gun made in to 'Nam!

 

[USMC8541]

Soldiers did purchase Rifles from sporting goods stores and took them to Vietnam, I have a book somewhere with a photo of a LRRP soldier carrying his Marlin 45-70 for Busting Bunkers.

 

[KSCCHTrainer]

Don't know about use in VN, but in the late 60's, early 70's, the Army took a shot at rifle "point shooting" by training G.I.'s with LEVER ACTION Daisy BB guns with the sights removed or taped over....it was supposed to help quicken the soldiers instinctive shooting of rifles against fast targets. I think there was even an article on it in Guns & Ammo. Supposedly, it worked pretty well, but they did not continue the program long. Who knows, maybe even a lever action BB gun made in to 'Nam!

I was there from March of 1970 to September 1971 and we actually had a couple of those Daisy BB guns and a whole big washtub full of BB's. Nobody I knew was stupid enough to take one into combat, but we sure shot up a lot of beer bottles and sparrows with it. No sights at all on the thing, so if one hit anything smaller than that washtub on the first shot, it was pure dumb luck.

I saw a Vietnamese soldier carrying a Winchester 94 lever gun in the Bien Hoa area around the middle of 1971, so they were there. Never saw one of our guys with one but it's sure possible. I traded an RVN soldier 2 cartons of Salem cigarettes for a genuine Thompson submachine gun. It was very prone to jamming until I finally managed to scrounge up a new set of recoil springs from a Marine armorer for it.

Spent a whole year and a half over there in several "Radio Research" units (Army Security Agency to the uninitiated) and never really got shot at or had to shoot at anyone the whole time.

 

[Lovesbeer99]

Way to bring back an old thread. When I read the first post my imediate reaction was - hey I wrote something just like this years ago - then I realized this is my post. Good stuff.