Outfitted with a bull barrel and fitted into a walnut oil-finished stock, the final order was for 995 rifles each of which were designated the M40. 308 – which was built in their custom shop on the Model 40XB target rifle action. Winchester’s loss was Remington’s gain and in 1966 following upon the recommendations of a report prepared by the USMC MTU, Remington presented to the USMC a rifle – chambered in. It also ended any chance the M70 had of becoming sniper standard in the years to come.
The changes Winchester made were enough to damage the company’s reputation for many years and was something some people never forgave. In what was almost a case of corporate suicide, the arms maker changed the rifle to make it cheaper, easier and faster to produce. In 1964 Winchester made a fateful decision. (Hathcock, for example, used a Winchester Mod 70 in 30-06 during his first tour). The first rifles sent to Asia to be used as sniper weapons were actually from the third marine division rifle team that had been rebuilt for use for highpower competition at Camp Perry. While the twin mercies of demographics and geography combined to ensure that my experience of what historians call the “Ten Thousand Day War” was limited to watching it unfold on the BBC evening news, I – like many of my generation – developed a fascination with that conflict and being a gun nut my interest naturally extended to the weapons used by the legendary snipers of that war – US Marines Hathcock, Mawhinney and England as well as the Army’s Adelbert Waldron who was, until surpassed by Chris Kyle, the US military’s record holder with 109 kills.Īt commencement of hostilities the USMC outfitted marksmen with a number of different weapons and in those early days the Winchester Model 70 was the un-official USMC sniper rifle. Amongst aficionados of the bolt gun the incomparable K98 or, that victor of two world wars, the SMLE usually comes to mind but in my opinion there are few post WWII bolt guns that carry the same cachet as the one attributed to the rifle first used in Vietnam by the United States Marine Corps Scout Snipers – the USMC M40. For some ‘students of the gun’ it will be one of the timeless creations of John Moses Browning or the eponymous brainchild of Canadian Jean Cantius Garand that stirs the blood.
Sometimes the merest mention of the name or the designation of a certain firearm will ignite a keen interest and debate amongst gun owners.
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