Can you identify this USMC Sniper Rifle and Scope? Khe San, 1968.....

C

canoeguy

US Veteran
Joined
Dec 16, 2005
Messages
1,640
Reaction score
3,922
Location
Far Southwest Virginia
I found an old Life magazine at a yard sale the other day, dated February, 1968, It has some fascinating pictures of Marines at the airfield in Khe San. One of the pics shows "A 19 year old Marine Sniper and his team identifying targets at the edge of the airfield", quotes from the picture caption. A good picture of the rifle and scope, what do you think it is?

414456762.jpg


It was a pretty good article, identifying the siege situation these Marines endured, Charlie just outside the wire, mortaring any aircraft attempting to land. One C-130 was lost to mortar fire while the Life magazine reporter was there, with much loss of life:

414456763.jpg
 
Register to hide this ad
I can’t tell what rifle is, but that looks like 3x9 scope. Early they had some m70s before they got in the groove with Rem700 308s issue they had some civilian market rifles.
 
Difficult to identify it positively from that picture. The M40 Remington in .308 with a Leupold scope was more or less the standard USMC sniper rifle in Vietnam, but there were others used, often the Winchester M70. Hathcock used a .30-'06 M70 with an 8X Unertl target scope (external adjustments).
 
Last edited:
My two cents: USMC Model 40, a Remington 700 short action in 7.62 NATO with a 3X9 Redfield.

Remington made a few thousand of these maybe 20 years ago as a tribute to their contribution to sniping in VN. A friend has one, but is still looking for an original USMC Redfield for it. We had the Redfield 3X9 on our M21 sniper rifles (M14NM with the Redfield), but with an articulated mount for ranges from 300 to 900 meters. The scope power equaled the range when zeroed properly. I.e. 6X was 600 meters.

The USMC match armorers developed the Model 700 (possibly using the above rifle) into the M40A1 sniper rifle after VN and used the latest Unertl scopes on them. They were superb scopes and were more traditional in design than the older long Unertls. As I recall, they were 10 power with the USMC mil radian reticle which has finer mil dots than the Army reticle.

My unit had some cross pollinezation with a USMC unit's snipers in the late 80s and we ran a couple of train ups with them. Good fun that was and I actually preferred their M40s to the M24 SWC that we had just adopted.

Stole the below photo off of the Internet. It's a duplicate of the rifle in the OPs post and is from the VN era.
 

Attachments

  • M40_01.jpg
    M40_01.jpg
    139 KB · Views: 283
Last edited:
It's apparent some here are completely unfamiliar with Unertl scopes and have likely never seen one. Per my original post, and I could certainly be wrong, I think the scope depicted in the photo is a Redfield 3x-9x variable. There is no similarity between that scope (with internal adjustments) and a Unertl (with external adjustments) and a scope tube twice as long as the Redfield.

The Carlos Hathcock rifle was a Model 70 Winchester .30-06 with an 8x Unertl. That's from memory; haven't read the book in twenty-five or thirty years, but I've used Unertl scopes for decades and still have five.
 
Here is a similar rifle to what Gunny Hathcock used. It is a Winchester Pre 64 Model 70 in 30/06 with a long Unertle on it.

The USMC long Unertles date back to WWII and were mounted on 1903 Springfields. They were finally declared surplus during and after the VN War.

Later Unertles on the 40A1 and later varients had internal adjustments compared to the long Unertles of the original M40 with the mount adjustments.
 

Attachments

  • Wincheter M70 Match 1-800.jpg
    Wincheter M70 Match 1-800.jpg
    114.9 KB · Views: 245
Last edited:
According to Peter Senich The One Round War page 151 the sniper is L.CPL A Miranda , spotter (C) is L.CPL D Burdwell and the LT is A.Bodenwiser. The rifle is a Model 700 with a Redfield 3-9 with a Redfield jr mount. Thanks for giving me the chance to remove the book from the shelf
 
The original scope pictured isn’t a Unertl and the bolt doesn’t appear to be that of a 700. Pic is likely from late 1965/early 1966 (unless photo really is from KS) and of a Redfield on a .30-06 Model 70.

I believe the correct nam era Model 70 would’ve been a medium HB in a Van Orden stock (which is more like a sporter stock than a varmint type).
 
Last edited:
I blew the photo up and can say this is a Model 70 Winchester rifle and I think the scope is the old 3x9 Redfield. Those redfield scopes has three rings on the eyepiece that were "stippled" or "checkered" and I think I can see that the eyepiece is not smooth, so I vote Redfield for scope
 
I couldn’t ID the rifle because of bolt handle and end of forearm. The scope is not a Unertil. The mount/ base is visible and clearly Redfield. Unertil did make some internal adjustment hunting scopes but this is not one of them.
They had trouble with stocks on Rems warping. I did see a few Win 70s with 3x9 scopes in 308. Looked straight from sporting goods. I was told these rifles came from Special Services. That is the outfit that lends out sports equipment on military posts.
 
Definitely an M40, a modified Remington 700 short action in 7.62 NATO (note the safety and receiver shape). The scope is a Redfield 3X-9X Accu-Range, which were mounted in Redfield Sr one piece bases and Redfield 4-screw rings. The initial Accu-Range scopes had a matte anodized finish and were marked 1” TUBE , but later replacements were standard commercial high gloss.

The scopes allowed ranging out to about 600 yards. There were 2 horizontal stadia wires above the croosshairs that were used to frame the target by adjusting the magnification ring. As you adjusted the power, a small graduated scale projected into the bottom of the field of view. The scope was initially intended for deer hunting and you would frame the deer, back to brisket. The military framed the enemy chin to belt buckle.

The internal graduated scales were plastic and that was a major flaw. If you allowed the objective lens to point at the sun, the flag would start to melt, similar to the way kids fry ants with a magnifying glass.

When Remington released a run of M40 Commemoratives, the 3x9 Accu-Range scopes were bring around $1000. Last I looked, they’re down to around $400-$500. The front lens was constructed of 2 pieces glued together and the adhesive tended to get hazy with time. Iron-Sight scope repair can fix that for about $100, but the lead time is about 12 months. I’ve had a number of them over the years and still have at least one stashed away.

Here's a later commercial version. The graduated scales moves up or down ad you turn the magnification ring, to provide a reasonable estimate of the distance.

attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • 000_0318.jpg
    000_0318.jpg
    111.1 KB · Views: 664
  • 000_0319.jpg
    000_0319.jpg
    122.4 KB · Views: 661
  • 000_0329.jpg
    000_0329.jpg
    18.1 KB · Views: 660
Last edited:
The Marines frequently found different ways to get things done, and my experience was in the Army so may have no bearing on the discussion.

In 1969 the primary "sniper rifle" in US Army inventory was the Model 70 Winchester "target" version, 26" heavy barrel, caliber .30-06. These were processed by the US Army Marksmanship Training Unit gunsmith shop, actions were glass-bedded, barrels free-floated. Scope mounts were two-piece steel (probably Redfield). Unertl scopes were the standard of that time, and I saw these rifles mounted with scopes of 6X, 8X, and 20X with adjustable objective rings (parallax correction).

The marksmanship phase of Army sniper training was conducted on the MTU range. Qualification standards were 100% at 600 yards and 90% at 1000 yards. Those who qualified went on to the field training phase (infiltration, exfiltration, camouflage, field survival) and took the rifle they qualified with along in a heavy aluminum case.

The second rifle was a specially prepared M14 7.62NATO with heavy barrel, glass-bedded fiberglass stock, bipod mounted, National Match tuned trigger, and 6X Unertl scope. If my memory is correct, the rifle was referred to as XM-21. Qualifications were required to 600 yards (I don't remember the minimum score requirement).

The starlight scopes were relatively new at that time (and remained classified). MTU gunsmiths were experimenting with scope mounts for the M14, and rumors indicated that they were engaging man-sized silhouettes up to 500 yards at night.

All MTU weapons were supposed to be returned to the facility at 2000 rounds for servicing in the shop.

In addition to Army personnel at the MTU facility I saw Navy, Air Force, and Marines attending the training.
 
Round knob, hollow bolt handle.
Plus,,
You have enlarge the pic greatly,,, then you can see the 'hitch' or step in the Winchester Mod 70's extractor lying alongside the right side of the bolt. It shows as a shadow line perpendicular to the length of the extractor.

The Remington 700 is not a controlled feed action and does not have a Mauser/03 Springfield style non-rotating extractor lying on the outside of the bolt body.
Just an imbedded coil spring powered claw at the front of the bolt face,,like a lot of .22's actually

I'll go with Win Mod 70 .

I admit to knowing nothing of Sniper rifles and optics (in general).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top