With all the discussion this week of replacements for the M1, I feel obligated to post this very cool photo of John Cantius Garand and the business end of his rifle.
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Good to see a photograph of the man himself. I’ve noticed that while there are nearly always a lot of available photographs of a given model of firearm and its presence on the battlefield or in the hands of end users, candid photographs of firearms designers — save a small handful — are much less common. How many people know what Dieudonne Saive (FN FAL), Ernest Vervier (FN MAG), Boris Shpitalny and Irinarkh Komaritsky (ShKAS MG’s and automatic cannon), or M.Y. Beresin (BS/UBS/UBK/UBT aircraft MG’s) looked like? The focus is constantly on the gun and its history, but without the human element little of it would exist.
front sight?
Can anyone tell me about the front sight on this one? O sure cannot ID it?
I’ll have to check the scriptures of the First Church of the Immaculate M14 to see if you merit a fatwa for publishing an image of the Prophet. Please stand by.
Nope, it’s cool. Carry on.
While nothing will beat the epicness of Mr. Garand shouldering that Art Deco masterpiece, consider the following:
http://www.herstalgroup.com/img/tradition/saive.jpg
Only a drawing, but hey… It’s Dieudonne.
http://www.littlegun.be/arme%20belge/portraits/browning%20john%20moses-01.jpg
Check out that trigger (un)discipline! Come on, Mr. Browning!
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltzodgKZFa1qfd9kzo1_500.jpg
Kalashnikov and Stoner: Priceless…
Are we looking at the muzzle end of a prototype ‘gas trap’ Garand?
No, that’s a normal gas system. Not sure about the awfully tall looking front sight, though.
This is the guy that flooded his frontroom so he could ice skate!!
I’ll see your picture, and raise you a video with sound: http://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.2569546
Big Al, thanks for providing this excellent archival video — nice to see a brief but important bit of modern history preserved on film, even if it is obviously seen only from the American point of view (given that it was produced by the Department Of The Army) at a time when the world was basically divided into two opposing ideological camps.
The second fade-in scene at the very beginning of the film is really interesting because it shows another long-forgotten weapon in action — the U.S. Army’s 280mm gun-howitzer test firing one of the earliest tactical nuclear devices ever conceived, a miniaturized low-yield nuclear warhead designed specifically for front-line battlefield artillery use.
Al,
you have just reminded me about reference with the translation of Mendeleev’s paper about smokeless powder
here’s a link which works outside the US too(Google scans were blocked outside the US, I had to mess around with us based proxies to download them).
http://archive.org/details/powdersmokelessn00bernrich
Big Al, that was amazing! Thanks!
You are very welcome guys. Always glad to share.
I have never seen a picture of Ernest Vervier, and I have looked. Pictures of Eugene Stoner are pretty uncommon – google search doesn’t turn up much.
There is a picture of Vervier with the MAG58 in one of the “Small Arms of the World”.
Good find — thanks very much! Nevertheless, the point remains that candid photographs and in-depth bibliographies of the real “men behind the machines” are still relatively rare. The history of any firearm is not truly complete without the history of the designers and manufacturers who engendered it.
very interesting video, i knew he was born in canada but i never realized garand had a thick french accent!.