The whole confusion has been that no one had figured out that WRA ALSO had a mount they named Marine. Everyone has assumed a Marine Mount description had to be a Mann Niedner. But this isn't the case.
Also there is further evidence that the Mann Niedner conversion had nothing to do with WRA and was created and produced by the Philly Marine Depot.
This document is from the Handbook of Ordnance Data dated November 15th, 1918. This document has long been shown in books to prove that Winchester had produced the Marine mounting, and that Marine Mounting was the Mann Niedner.
Now that you know Winchester had their own style of Marine mounting, and it was not MAnn Niedner. This document takes on a new meaning and makes a lot more sense.
Also the US Marines and the US Army both had seperate contracts for the same number of 500 rifles, many times these two orders have been confused with each other. Even though it's not detailed, the Army did also have an order for 400 additional MArine Mount A5's on top of the 500. So the Army acquired 900 in total. The 400 order is not as detailed in the WRA and Army docs and that is maybe why it was excluded from this.
Also one more killer document that Andrew found that proves that WRA had nothing to do with the Mann Niedner. Here is the timeline of events prior to this Army document.
- January 15th 1918- The Army orders 500 Marine Mount A5's from WRA
- Febuary 28th 1918- 360 A5 rifles have already been delivered to the US Army, the remaining 140 are done, awaiting shipping orders.
- March 5th 1918- The 79th Infantry receives the first WRA Marine Mount A5's to use
- March 19th 1918- The 500 Marine mount order is complete and all have been received by the US Army.
- April 11th, 1918- The Army orders an additional 400 Marine Mount A5's off WRA.
Then this document happens on April 23rd 1918, the Army had pulled the Mann Patent on his tapered blocks. The same blocks that are on the Mann Niedner. The Army was exploring if they should use his tapered block design for scope mounting. Now if you look above at the dates, why would they need to pull a patent on the Mann Niedner if WRA had provided them the Mann Niedner A5's? There would have not been a need to pull that patent drawing if WRA had provided the Mann Niedner taper blocks. Just a really neat doc and shows why funding trips to the Achives with Andrew yield such amazing results.
By the way when it says it will go with the new WRA sight, they are talking of the WRA Model of 1918 sniper. Which was a sporterized M1917 rifle with a scope based on the Goerz design.
For more document and details on this pleast visit Tim's and Andrew's web pages. Thank you again for taking the time to read my post.
https://usmcweaponry.com/https://archivalresearchgroup.com/
