Searching for the Best World War II Sniper Rifle: Part 4

To read part 3 of this series which examines the Soviet Mosin-Nagant 91/30 PU, click here.

After learning that my father trained with an M1903A4 in England during the summer of 1944, and later jumped into Holland with it as a first scout for I Company, 101st Airborne, 506th Regiment, I have been particularly interested in World War II sniper rifles and tactics.

Before he passed away, I asked Dad how he trained in England with the 03A4. He said that he spent several months on a known-­distance (KD) range and shot to 500 yards. He didn’t have special ammunition; they just used what they had. The soldiers involved with this training knew that if they could cover a 50-­cent piece with three shots from 100 yards, they would have reached the pinnacle of shooting. No one ever did.

Part of the training required the first scout to be issued tracer ammunition and stay about 300 yards ahead of the company. When the scout found a German position, he was to fire at it with tracers so everyone else knew where to send rounds. As my father recalled, the problem with that tactic was that everyone learned where he was on the battlefield — including the Germans.

I asked how far he would have considered firing at an enemy target, and he replied, “150 yards to 200 yards, maximum.”

This distance seems a little short to me, so I asked why.

“The rifle just wasn’t accurate enough to reliably hit a person that could shoot back much past that,” he said.

That settled it. I decided that I would either purchase, assemble or borrow several World War II bolt-­action sniper rifles, acquire period ammunition and compare the performance.

The Rifle & Optic

Following Germany’s invasion of Russia in June 1941, the effectiveness of properly trained and equipped snipers, and their widespread deployment by the Soviets, became apparent. The U.S. ignored sniping during the interwar period and had no sniper program prior to World War II. There was no research available regarding the making of a legitimate sniper rifle, so the Model 1903A4 was a design of desperation. It has not been regarded as a premier sniper rifle by many evaluators, but it was broadly issued by the U.S. Army and Marines for every theater and earned a reputation for reliability.

Approximately 29,000 M1903A4 rifles were produced. Typically, receiver markings of the M1903A4 are unique. The standard roll marks for the M1903A3 are evident, but they are upside down when compared to the M1903A3. They appear on the left side of the receiver with the serial number on the right side of the receiver.

I am not aware of any accuracy specification that was applied to the M1903A4, but barrels used for these rifles were carefully selected to be as close as possible to the minimum dimension specifications. Significant numbers of these rifles were produced by Remington. The rifles were primarily stocked in a “scant” stock with a partial pistol grip, but many were set into a full pistol grip “C” stock. The M1903A4 was standardized and accepted in January 1943.

A commercial Weaver 330/330-C — an established hunting scope with 2.75X magnification — was mounted and later re-­designated the “M73B1.” Having a small objective, these non-­waterproof optics were the best stopgap available on the market. The M73B1 had a three-­quarter-­inch maintube with elevation and windage drum-style turrets that featured quarter-­minute-­of-­angle (MOA) click adjustments. The click adjustments were rather crudely produced, however, with deeply knurled turrets and a notched spring-­steel plate that rubbed on the knurls to provide the tactile clicks. The quarter-­MOA adjustments were reasonably accurate, though, and repeatable. The M73B1 scope allowed users to focus the eyepiece and separately focus the reticle. The low 2.75X magnification of the scope was partially offset by a very fine crosshair reticle, which made aiming fairly precise to ranges of 300 to 400 yards.

Starting with a variant of M1903A3 that lacked iron sights, the scope was mounted in Redfield rings on a Redfield Junior base mount. So desperate was the Army for scopes that buyers were sent throughout the country to sporting goods stores to buy up inventories of the Weaver 330-C. After the war, the Weaver-­made M73B1 was replaced by the Lyman M81/82, a military version of the Alaskan scope.

Guns & Ammo’s test rifle started out as a 1903A4 reproduction built by Gibbs Rifle Company. I replaced the stock with an original C stock and handguard. I also replaced the Gibbs scope with an original Weaver 330-C. It was as close as I could create without paying more. The bolt works smoothly and the trigger tested at a clean 4 pounds on a Lyman gauge. In weight, the M1903A4 was the lightest of the four guns tested for this series at 9.7 pounds.

Ammunition

Dad used the ammunition he was issued during World War II, primarily .30-­caliber M2 Ball or M2 armor piercing (AP) loads. He said there was never any special ammunition he knew about for snipers. He was given some tracer ammunition for the jump into Holland, but he never used it. Since then, I have not seen any stories concerning special ammunition used by U.S. snipers during the war. I have read numerous reports that snipers preferred AP ammunition because it was more accurate. I have also learned that snipers preferred certain arsenal ammunition, particularly Denver Arsenal Ball ammunition when they could get it. The M1903A4 was capable of very good accuracy, and performance limitations were often due to the loads available and the variation of issued ammunition accuracy.

To evaluate the M1903A4, I acquired a small amount of 1944 Denver M2 Ball and 1953 Lake City M2 Ball. Both were loaded with lead-­core, flat-­base, spitzer bullets that weighed approximately 152 grains. I also acquired some 1944 Lake City M2 AP rounds and a small amount of 1953 Twin Cities M2 AP; both were loaded with a hardened steel-­core, flat-­base spitzer bullet weighing approximately 165 grains.

At the Range

Testing was done on a known-distance (KD) range in New Mexico with targets positioned at 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 yards. We fired at the B27 human silhouette target to match the sight picture a sniper would have seen. With each issued ammunition, we only fired three-­shot groups at each range due to the limited supply of ammunition. The M1903A4 was zeroed using a five-­shot group of a handload consisting of 46.5 grains of N135 and a Hornady 168-­grain A-MAX bullet. We fired a three-­shot group with the selected issue ammunition and then touched up the zero. Incidentally, the M1903A4 was quite easy to zero and proved accurate with the Weaver 330-C scope. After zeroing, we fired across increasing distances and dialed the elevation turret for the range come-­ups while predicting trajectory performance of the ammunition. These adjustments were quite precise and correct, not to mention that they were repeatable with the Weaver 330-C scope.

G&A Editor-­in-­Chief Eric Poole was the man on the trigger for accuracy testing while I spotted shots and gave wind calls. We did not try to dial for wind; that’s a good way to get into trouble with an old scope. It is not possible to “zero” the turrets of the 330-C. You have to remember the zero setting and how many clicks or turns you have on the turrets. This can lead to confusion if you’re dialing on two turrets. Additionally, these old scopes have backlash and crosstalk between the turrets that we don’t consider today. To adjust, keep making changes in the same direction or go beyond the desired setting and come back to it in the same direction every time.

Our standard practice was to shoot in the same wind condition based on wind flags and observed vegetation. By the afternoon, it was too windy to read mirage. We succeeded most of the time, but several groups showed an obvious miss of a wind change. With the low-­power scope, wind corrections were generally “Hold right-­half,” “Hold right-­edge of silhouette,” or “Hold right-­edge of cardboard,” for example. Greater resolution wasn’t possible, especially beyond 300 yards due to the low power of the scope.

Fighting a fishtailing, 12:00-­to-­2:00, 10-­ to 20-­mph wind for the duration of this test, we had a bullet that often landed left or right of an otherwise respectable group. Measuring the elevation dispersion was always a better result than the windage of the group, particularly at 500 yards. So, it is hard to conclude from our limited test that the M1903A4 preferred one type of ammunition more than another.

Conclusion

As Dad reported, 200 yards may have been a bit conservative for the effective range of the M1903A4, but G&A’s results depended a lot on the ammunition. Despite shooting extremely well with handloaded ammo, the M1903A4 with period issue ammunition was a 2-­MOA rifle. Based on our testing, snipers would have barely been able to hold shots to the size of a human torso at 500 yards under most battlefield circumstances. The accuracy potential was far more limited by the ammunition and scope used than the inherent qualities of the rifle. Head shots would have been iffy beyond 200 yards, but torso shots would have been possible to 400 yards — and maybe 500. The handloaded match ammunition showed the potential of these rifles, and the limitations were affected by the low-­power Weaver 330-C/M73B1 optic and its thin reticle, and the ammunition variables. By 500 yards, target resolution was difficult with the 2.75X magnification scope, even in ideal light conditions. At that distance, the thin crosshair — with so little magnification — covered more than half the target.

The conclusion to the World War II Sniper Rifle Series will offer a comparison of the four bolt-­action rifles, the optics and ammunition. It will highlight the pros and cons of each system and compare our performance results to 500 yards. 

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