Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/739629
rifle that became a general infantry rifle, not as before just specialist weapons issued to augment the firepower based on bolt-actions. The weapon was more or less designed by 1926 (then still in .276 Pedersen), by John Camillus Garand of the Springfield Arsenal. It was almost discarded in the trials, as John Pedersen's toggle lock retarded blowback rifle was lighter and handier, but then the US Military came to their senses and reverted to .30- 06 – which in turn flushed the Pedersen Rifle down the drain as too weak to withstand the repeated pounding from the potent round. As a result of all these, the rifle was accepted into the inventory of the US Army only 10 years later (January 9, 1936) and mass produced at a last moment – since 1940. The US Army accepted (although grudgingly) it as a replacement for the bolt-action Springfield M1903 rifle, but still resented the accuracy lost in the interest of firepower. The Doggies' reluctance was nothing compared to open hostility from the prewar Leathernecks' establishment, who deemed M1 the Mickey Mouse Rifle, an insult to a decent red-blooded rifle shot, and a potential ammunition waster. It was only after the Guadalcanal campaign that the reality of nightly banzai charges in dense jungle finally made the marines accept the Garand. Once they got it, they fell in love with it so much, that when it came to replacing the battle rifle during Vietnam War, wrenching the M14s – essentially selective-fire, magazine-fed Garands – out of their clenched fists was the hardest part in the acceptance process of the M16 rifle. GUN PORN