Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “MalcolmMacPherson”
Here are the links to the 26 parts of this very detailed paper written by Malcolm MacPherson. I split his paper into 26 articles in 2012. The information is very interesting and you can see that we still use some versions. Mr. MacPherson’s paper goes over US, British, and Japanese training rifles. Part 1, Non-Firing Drill and Training Rifles Part …
CURRENT PRODUCTION, CONTINUED “Plastic-Rubber” Training Models Wellington Surplus Stores in Perth Australia sell a series of black training rifles. At this time it is unknown who actually manufactures these training rifles. They are made of a plastic material but are sold under the name of “Plastic-Rubber”. These rifles have no moving parts. They are currently selling the following training rifle …
CURRENT PRODUCTION There are a variety of drill and training rifles being produced today. Most of them have very high detail due to modern production techniques relating to the injection molding of plastic materials. There is a category called Airsoft Guns. The sport of Airsoft started in Japan in the 1980’s. In Japan it was illegal to own firearms but …
JAPANESE TRAINING RIFLES Starting in the 1920’s, the Japanese government required all junior and senior high school boys to have two hours a week of military training. Several companies started producing the necessary training rifles for this purpose. Unfortunately most training rifles did not bear markings that identified their origin. These training rifles had no standard design and were often …
U.S. PORTABLE BUILDING CORP. No specimen found to date. The photograph is of an accurate replica that was developed from the advertisement. From the paper, Non-Firing Drill and Training Rifles, by By Malcolm MacPherson
BRITISH DRILL RIFLES The British modified several models of the SMLE as well as the Pattern 14 to make drill rifles. There were different approaches to these conversions but the illustrations shown below are typical. All of these rifles are marked with a prominent DP (drill practice) somewhere on the rifle. It is uncertain how many of these drill rifles …
LONG BRANCH TRAINING RIFLE The Long Branch Training Rifle was produced at the Long Branch Arsenal near Toronto, Canada in 1943 and 1944. There is no evidence that these training rifles were used anywhere other than in Canada. They were used for preliminary rifle training of all forces requiring ground defense training. There was only one model but they were …
SWIFT TRAINING RIFLE The Swift Training Rifle system was developed in Great Britain in 1941. At the start of WWII there was a severe shortage of usable firearms both by the military and the general population. This was due to the policy of disarming the population following World War I. American hunters and shooters contributed sporting rifles to arm the …
BAYONET FENCING RIFLES The following are examples of fencing rifles that were used by the United States and Great Britain. The first two illustrations show examples that are the same length and weight as the 1903 Springfield. The second illustration is a close replica of the SMLE used by Great Britain. This bayonet drill rifle has no markings but is …
Steyr M. 95 Drill Rifle The Steyr rifles were the primary rifle of Austrian-Hungary during WWI and they were also used by Bulgaria and Greece. Rifles surrendered to Italy after WWI were used by Italy during WWII. The work done on this drill rifle appears to have been an arsenal conversion. There is a large well finished slot in chamber …