32sl (self loader) ??

"Mike, dont forget the Mounties used the 351 as well"

A lot of bad guys during the 30s loved the 351 too. Dillinger, Nelson, Van Meter, Barrow; the list goes on and on. If you look at the firearms recovered after shootouts during this era there was at least one 351 Winchester in nearly every instance and sometimes more than one. It's curious to me that these guys, with their survival at stake, selected the 351 when today we poo-poo it so? I don't agree that they selected it simply because it was "less expensive" than the competition. The 351 was one of the most expensive rifles Winchester made at the time - look at the catalogs - my 1908 Sears catalog shows the 1907 at $18.90 with the 1894 Win at $15.53 and the 1892 at $13.16. I'd have to think that if it wasn't doing the job they would have dropped it immediately.

I might also add that members of the FBI and Border Patrol (Charles Askins being the most famous) also loved their 351s - so much so that they would buy them with their own money - pretty good recommendations for any rifle.

I've got two of these rifle and they are easy to use and reliable. I've never had a FTF with the factory mags and in the historical accounts I've never read of a 351 jamming. I think the 351 cartridge and 1907 rifle is one of the most underrated combos in history.

John
 
While we might consider it useless, at the time of it's invention it was miles ahead of anything else. The most powerful semi-autos at the time where pistol based Mauser C96 and long barreled Lugers, both with inferior ballistics (7.63 and 9 mm). You can argue that a 30-30 Lever is more firepower, but if you want to get off a couple of quick rounds from 25 - 100 yards, this was it. It came 10 years before the widespread use of the submachine gun or light machine guns like the BAR, and with that 351 cartridge it obviously stayed competitive until WWII.
 
Of course, the .276 was developed after WWI, but that was the last war in which the U.S. had experience. In that war, the U.S. used the M1906 ball cartridge, with a flat based bullet, and there were many complaints that it was outranged by the German 8mm boat tail bullet. That was, of course, mostly in machineguns, but I still fail to see why the Army would want to adopt a less powerful and shorter range cartridge. The common belief was that no semi-auto could be made that would function with the .30-'06, but in fact, Garand had already built a rifle that would do so and had been ordered to stop work on it.

We did so, of course, later, but that was almost entirely out of a perceived need for controllable full auto rifle, a goal to which both range and penetration were sacrificed. At that point, the enemy weapon was assumed to be the AK-47, so there would be no glaring discrepancies in range and power.

Jim
 
The common belief was that no semi-auto could be made that would function with the .30-'06, but in fact, Garand had already built a rifle that would do so and had been ordered to stop work on it.
Click to expand...
Automatic rifles for full-power rifle cartridges were nothing new by the end of WWI, having been developed and tested extensively since the introduction of the Mondragon rifle in 1905. Browning developed and tested the BAR and got it adopted by the US Army in 1917, 5 years before Garand developed the rifle that was eventually developed into the M1. The M1918 BAR actually saw combat during WWI, replacing the Chauchat among AEF troops. M1918A1 rifles originally were semi/full auto rifles, the later WW2 M1918A2 was full auto only with the "slow/fast" selector.

The 1918 Pedersen device was indeed a good job of salesmanship, as the cartridge was low-powered and the device reportedly jammed frequently in field conditions. It is doubtful whether the Pedersen device actually saw use in combat: even though the Army adopted it in 1918, the 1903 rifles had to be modified to use it at a time when the war was in full swing and taking up most factories' capacity.

The 276 Pedersen had nothing to do with the WWI Pedersen device, it was developed after WWI in response to a perceived need for a less powerful rifle cartridge. When MacArthur vetoed it, he was privy to a lot more information than we have, and vetoed the cartridge after he had ascertained that the Garand design could be modified to use the 30-06. MacArthur was likely apprehensive remembering the logistical nightmare that accompanied the previous service cartridge changeover that took over 10 years to equip troops with new rifles. Remember, we fought the Spanish-American war in 1898 with 45-70 rifles that had supposedly been replaced by Krags several years before. Most of the Krag-Jorgensen rifles used in the Spanish-American War were in the hands of state militias, and had been provided by private funding instead of the complex US Government requisition process. Capitalism triumphs over bureaucracy!

As for the 351 Winchester round, it is likely the round's success was based on the Win 1907 rifles' reliability rather than its own merit. Kind of the same thing as the 1911/45ACP or 9mm Parabellum/Luger combination. Many successful cartridges owe their success to the firearms originally chambered for them, just as many flops were attributable to the combinations fielded.
 
"Mike, I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but remember in WWI, trenches didn't just consist of a hole in the ground. There were barricades, head logs, machinegun shields, and all the other means of protecting folks who needed to keep an eye on the enemy."

I don't buy that, either.

Military planning after World War I, what planning there was, focused primarily on how to prevent getting into another war like World War I.

Development of an automatic rifle was part and parcel to that, as was the development of US tank theory and application, not to mention leaps and bounds in the tactical application of artillery.

Up to World War I (and even a bit later), far too much emphasis was placed on a medieval concept of soldierly combat -- a single Doughboy, armed with his trusty and overly powerful .30-06, would lovingly raise the ladder sight on his Springfield Aught Three and pick off the Godless Baby Eating Hun with one shot at 1900 meters.

In a driving rain storm.

At night.

With his eyes closed.

And while providing "trench favors" to the comely French maiden whom he had rescued from said Baby Eating Hun.

Military officers who actually got a solid taste of warfare in the trenches realized that long range rifle fire wasn't all that it was cracked up to be -- artillery and the machine gun ruled No Man's Land. Not the rifleman.

The argument that the German boat-tailed bullet design outranged ours was also a bit specious. While it was the truth, it really wasn't a practical truth, because in the trench situations of WW I, few, if any, targets presented themselves at distances that couldn't be reached by US machine guns firing the 150-gr. flat based bullet.

Yes, the United States switched to a heavier BT bullet after WW I. Range increased to something like 5,500 meters. Which made most military firing ranges obsolete in the United States. It also got people to thinking...

Just what are we going to be shooting at at 5,500 meters?

And, if we DO have an identified target at 5,500 meters, are we going to be shooting machine gun bullets at it?

Hell no, we're going to be dropping artillery shells on it.

Just prior to World War II the US military switched BACK to the 150-gr. flat based bullet, the same design that had seen the US through World War I.

Fact is, after World War I it was recognized that ultra long distance riflery was a think of the past, and really had never been of great tactical consideration in the first place.

Even in the 1920s, many forward thinking military officers, the rising stars who would command in World War II, recognized that the .276 was more than powerful enough for the rifleman, whom they realized was RARELY going to engage targets at more than 400 meters.

Past that, machine guns would come into play, employing direct and indirect fire, along with mortars, and much past that? Well, then we're into the God of War's territory.
 
"As for the 351 Winchester round, it is likely the round's success was based on the Win 1907 rifles' reliability rather than its own merit."

There are historic accounts from people who actually used it in anger suggesting that the 351 round outperformed what was expected from its paper ballistics punching holes through bullet-proof vests and car bodies. My father and uncle used it successfully for deer size critters (and smaller) in the 1930s-1950s and only gave it up when they stopped hunting. Which begs the question; if it was so great then why wasn't it chambered in any other rifles? Why weren't more produced? I would hazard a WAG that non-22 caliber semis just weren't that popular with the general public and other firms like Remington had their own semi-auto with their own cartridges to market. One could argue that a cartridge with hot 357 mag ballistics is no great shakes today but back then I bet it was a hot ticket.

John
 
Carbine article

I have a 1977 book entitled Guns of the World, from Peterson Publishing. I believe it is a collection of magazine articles, but am not sure. In it is a chapter/article Written by a Konrad Schreier Jr on the "M1 Carbine".

It seems a well written article. One of the issues the author touches is the selection of the .30 carbine ctg. He calls it "very puzzling" and "complete mystery" the caliber "remains a puzzle". He states that the .30 carbine round was adopted "without any developmental testing, very unusual in the U.S Army"and that Edwin PUGSLEY of Winchester suggested the .30 carbine ctg, and it was developed from a "modification of the .32 SLR".

Now, that was one guys article from over 30 years ago, and who knows if he's got it right. As far as no testing, there was a war on in Europe at that point (June 1940) and the US entry was anticipated. That likely had a strong factor in expediting the "light rifle" project.
 
Essentially the military put out a specification for the basic rifle and the cartridge it was to fire.

At least half a dozen inventors/manufacturers proposed rifles for the competition.

What I don't know, though, is whether they also proposed cartridges, or whether Winchester had, in conjunction with the Army, already arrived at the modified .32 SL cartridge PRIOR to the specification being announced.

That seems to be one of the sticking points in the history of the carbine that I have never seen addressed -- when did Winchester propose the .30 Carbine cartridge, and how did it affect the creation of prototyes and ultimate selection of Winchester's design.
 
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