Two weekends ago the gun club I'm a member at had their very small annual gun show, and I was able to set up 2 tables to display some of my vintage and modern US sniper rifles. By small gun show, I mean like 4 people with displays and an FFL seling some pistols, lol. Besides the sniper rifles I also included some archaic firearms to show the lineage from 6 centuries ago and I brought in a few other items that tied everything together. I know that DMR’s aren't a true sniper rifle (literally a designated marksman rifle), but I wanted my USMC black stock M14 DMR there because I was just extremely proud of this build and I wanted people to see it! It felt right to include it in the display and I'm glad I brought it!
This is the first time I've ever done a display like this and this is the first public appearance for almost all of these firearms (I had a USMC display last year that included 3 or 4 of the guns that I brought again this year, everything else is new to display). This is a small portion of my collection, but these are some of my most important pieces of history. I talked to tons of people and I let everyone handle these rifles, look though the scopes, dry fire them and have their photos taken with their favorite ones! It's not everyday that someone can see these original rifles, especially being able to touch them and hold them! Normally guns like these are seen in museums behind a wall of glass and you're still standing a few feet away. Some of my rifles may have gotten a few new scratches or wear, but I didn't want them to gather dust sitting in a gunsafe forever, I wanted to share them with my community and educate people who were interested about our military's sniper history. This was a truly unique opportunity for everyone who attended the gun show!
I brought all sorts of amazing original sniper rifles, some of which are extremely historically significant like my Krag sniper rifle that was used in the Army tests in 1900 that paved the way for all of our military's sniper rifles (link to the article on my rifle at the end of this post, that's my rifle in the article)! Other items on display included an original handgonne from the 1370's, an original musket from the 1570's, 2 original USMC M40's, 2 original USMC Winchester M70's, an original IBA XM3 that my sniper platoon had in Fallujah, Iraq (I'm holding this rifle in the photos below), and other amazing firearms. So, tons of great stuff for people to enjoy! And of course people always want to know what guns like these are worth, some guy almost dropped one of my M40's due to shock when he asked me what that specific rifle was worth and I gave him a number, lol.
Even though I had all of these astonishing guns on display, there was one rifle that everyone kept asking me about..... it was the USMC black DMR! I couldn't believe it, it was almost like everyone who stopped by my tables had been given the same script, they all wanted to know more about the DMR! That rifle was everyone's favorite and I'm really happy I brought it with. Just about everyone asked me if this was an original military rifle. Even after holding it and examining it up close, people still couldn't tell that it was a clone built from a collection of parts! To me, that was the ultimate test of how good a clone rifle is. If someone is holding it in their hands and they think it'd the real deal and want to know which unit it came from and what battles it was used in, then you know that you have the perfect rifle! I have to give all of that credit to Terry Golgin (forceman on the M14 Forum), that was all his hard work!
I wish I could show this stuff to you guys in person, photos don't do any of these guns justice. Maybe someday we'll have a Sniper's Hide Vintage Section "Show & Shoot" event that we can all attend! Bring a bunch of cool guns, discuss them and shoot them!
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And here's an article to the Krag sniper rifle I also brought with me and put on display. Only 2 are still known to exist, my rifle and the one im the Springfield museum! It's a great article, please take a look if you're interested in early US sniping history!
https://www.americanrifleman.org/co...-rifle-the-telescopic-sighted-krag-jorgensen/