During the Vietnam war the Marine Corps

 had no designated or standardized sniper rifle in the inventory. Snipers were sent into the field with various different rifles ranging from old 1903 Springfields to purchased on the open market civilian rifles.

In 1966 in an effort to standardize a few things they approached the Remington arms company and purchased 700 of their model 40X -700 bolt action rifles that had been designed for target shooting and varmint hunting. The basic model the 700 had been around for years even back then. It's still quite popular today with hunters and target shooters.

The Marines, being pretty cheap with the taxpayers dollar, opted not for blued finishes and stained and varnished stocks. Instead they had the metal parkerized to prevent rusting and had the rifles fitted with plain walnut stocks with a linseed oil finish. They also had somewhat expensive recoil pads replaced with a simpler and cheaper steel buttplate.

They topped the rifles off with a fairly common telescopic sight made by Redfield and called it a day.

The rifle was designated the M40.

The bottom line is that the Marine Scout/Snipers went off to war with their daddy's hunting rifles. As a bonus the Marines didn't have to do a whole lot of training because a lot of the Scout/Snipers were hunters and were already familiar with these rifles. Likely a number of them had them at home for hunting deer or varmints.

As time wore on the wooden stocks on these rifles warped and had to be replaced. To prevent future warpage the Marines looked to the hunting community again and began replacing the aging wooden stocks with a synthetic stock and upgrading the telescopic sights with one more durable.

The synthetic stock rifle was designated the m40a1 and was nothing more than the action of the earlier M40 being put in a new stock. They have, over the years replaced the telescopic sight with a fixed 10 power Unertl scope instead of the variable power Redfields and

It was and is to this day nothing more than a hunting rifle.

As time went on, the armorers would rebuild these rifles as various components wore out and there have been rebuilt several times and it is likely that many of the original 700 rifles are still in the Marine Corps supply system having been rebuilt numerous times.

A few years ago the Corps changed the stock again to make it adjustable to the individual shooter and took another thing from the hunting community, the bipod which allows the shooter to be more stable while shooting in the prone position.

In short, the Marine Scout/Snipers are still going off to war with their daddy's deer rifles. It's true. Feel free to look it up.

The reason I post this is because the American public is pretty gullible. After the anti second amendment people decided to rename sport/utility rifles with the ominous name of 'assault rifles' the next thing they will go after is the basic hunting rifle.

Of course, they won't go after the basic hunting rifle because the American public will sympathize with the guy that likes to hunt deer and varmints. What they will simply do is rename the hunting rifle. They will rename it the 'deadly sniper rifle'.

And that, Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public is how those that want to disarm the American people will prey on your ignorance and gullibility.

Don't be fooled again.



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