Rifle Production April 1918

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  • SmokeEaterPilot

    Active Member
    Jun 3, 2011
    524
    Was going through some old files found this one particularly interesting.

    In just a year you can see the 1903 rifle production had not increased very much at all. Especially a full year after the US declared war. Rock Island made very few rifles, I think less than 50 per day (primarily for interchangeability testing IIRC). Their primarily responsibility was manufacturing replacement parts and Springfield focused on new production rifles.

    Also, notice the term "Russian Rifles." These rifles were never given a designation of "United States Rifle Model ______." You can see people referring to these rifles as "United States Rifle Model 1916" on occasion, but it seems to be entirely a made up collector term. They're either referred to as "Russian Rifles" or "M91s."

    eBkp2vwl.jpg
     

    bigmancrisler

    2A Preacher
    Jun 4, 2020
    1,263
    Martinsburg, WV
    Was going through some old files found this one particularly interesting.

    In just a year you can see the 1903 rifle production had not increased very much at all. Especially a full year after the US declared war. Rock Island made very few rifles, I think less than 50 per day (primarily for interchangeability testing IIRC). Their primarily responsibility was manufacturing replacement parts and Springfield focused on new production rifles.

    Also, notice the term "Russian Rifles." These rifles were never given a designation of "United States Rifle Model ______." You can see people referring to these rifles as "United States Rifle Model 1916" on occasion, but it seems to be entirely a made up collector term. They're either referred to as "Russian Rifles" or "M91s."

    eBkp2vwl.jpg


    Since when did RIA make M91s? I thought only Westinghouse and Remington made them.


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    TheOriginalMexicanBob

    Ultimate Member
    Jul 2, 2017
    32,151
    Sun City West, AZ
    Rock Island had put their 1903 tooling in storage several years before the war and restarting production would have required overhauling the equipment and possibly retraining and hiring personnel plus ordering raw materials. That would have taken time...plus the fact that the '03 was a pretty labor intensive rifle using high quality methods rather than mass production. The Rock Island tooling was later stored again and in WWII, provided to Remington for production of '03 rifles. The poor physical state of much of that tooling caused Remington no end of headaches to maintain production targets and resulted in Remington's redesign into the 1903A3.
     

    SmokeEaterPilot

    Active Member
    Jun 3, 2011
    524
    Since when did RIA make M91s? I thought only Westinghouse and Remington made them.


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    That is correct. This isn't RIA or SA production specifically. Just an Ordnance Officer providing an update to the acting Chief of Ordnance of daily production of rifles (government production and those contracted out to private businesses).
     

    Dave91

    Ultimate Member
    Nov 25, 2009
    1,988
    Anne Arundel
    Was going through some old files found this one particularly interesting.

    Rock Island made very few rifles, I think less than 50 per day (primarily for interchangeability testing IIRC). Their primarily responsibility was manufacturing replacement parts and Springfield focused on new production rifles.

    I didn't know that about RIA '03s. I have one from July of that year. Do you have any records of how many they made that month?
     

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