Some of the fun in collecting historical arms is that we’re sometimes confronted with interesting puzzles that appear to contradict what we think we know. Take our example here: a beautiful, supposedly original Springfield M1903 Mark I rifle that just doesn’t look right. Having no taste for eating crow, I learned a long time ago to never say about rifles, “They never made one like that.” Still, the more I examined the breathtakingly pristine rifle, the more I believed that this one, indeed, was never made.

Which of these two Springfields is the fake?

Buried Treasure

The Mark I was a consignment item on the rack of a local gun shop. Its most remarkable feature was its pristine condition, and so the first natural thought was that it must be one of those recent rebuilds being turned out by several makers today to satisfy demand created by Vintage Military Rifle competitions. This one, however, was a Mark I model. What makes the Mark I immediately and obviously different from other M1903s is the cut in the left receiver wall, an ejection port to accommodate the use of the Pederson device (see sidebar). While it is perhaps not unheard-of to rebuild a Mark I for shooting competitions, it certainly seems unusual. But the $2,000 price tag on this baby was more than twice the going price for M1903 rebuilds or typical Mark I’s. Odd.

According to the gun shop owner, the consigned rifle’s owner claimed the rifle to be an absolute original that Springfield Armory had placed in a safe immediately after manufacture to be kept as an unissued, pristine example of the Mark I. That would account for the unblemished metal finish and unmarred stock, and it makes a great buried treasure story, but let’s separate fact—the rifle we see before us—from statements.

Memory, like hope, is a terrible thing to rely upon. What memory served at that moment in the store was that Springfield Armory had turned out something like 100,000 Mark I rifles for the Pederson device up until around 1920; while not especially “rare” or “scarce,” they certainly qualify as “not entirely common.” A bona fide original in like-new, unissued condition might easily be worth two grand to a collector. The barrel date of 1920 seemed right, the receiver markings were right, but pulling the bolt showed the trigger/sear to be standard M1903. And the magazine cutoff and spindle were standard, too. I flipped the rifle over and over again, looking at the details. Was Springfield Armory “Parkerizing” metal in 1920? Is it the right color?

My attention kept going back to the stock; it looked exactly like the stocks on commercially rebuilt M1903A3 and M1903A4 rifles: too nice an oil finish on too nice walnut with too much figure for genuine GI issue wood. What else? Um … No cartouches or stampings of any kind. Not even a “circle P” on the pistol grip to denote proof testing. Other than the condition, what’s not right with the stock? Well, it only has one reinforcing bolt. Don’t all of my Springfields have two? But there’s something else—what is it? Hmm … Time for some research.

By the Numbers

Springfield Armory did not set aside a block of serial numbers for Mark I production; Mark I serial numbers are mixed in with standard production M1903s, the first/lowest being 1,034,502 and the last/highest 1,197,8342. The serial number of our Mark I—1,066,64XX—falls within that range and, according to Springfield Armory records, was made in 1920. So far, so good.

Springfield Armory began applying an iron phosphate “Parkerized” finish in late 1918, followed by dipping the metal parts in oil containing a black dye to give them a dark, non-glare finish. Still OK.

The barrel date, 11-20, however, is iffy. Manufacture dates on Springfield rifle barrels are marked as month-year. According to Brophy, “the latest date observed of what appeared to be an original Mark I rifle barrel has been 5-20.” Mark I barrel dates later into 1920 are apparently unconfirmed by records, and Brophy’s use of passive voice fails to tell us the source of his information. Still, it’s conceivable that this Mark I’s 11-20 dated barrel and receiver may be original mates because assembly of Mark I’s apparently continued into June 1921.

Stock Strikes Out

But the rifle’s stock is the deal killer. Not only does it absolutely disprove the seller’s claim that the rifle was immediately stored as-is upon manufacture, we can also be confident it is not even an original military issue stock. Springfield Armory records show 101,775 Mark I’s made from July 1919 to June 1921; adding the unknown exact number made from December 1918 to July 1919 brings the speculated total to about 145,0002. So, these were not just a handful of experimental rifles quickly bolted to uninspected stocks—Mark I’s were general issue rifles intended for frontline troops that went through the usual armory inspections, and stocks originally bore the usual inspector’s marks.

Springfield Armory stamped their stocks with letters or numbers inside a circle, oval or other shape in front of the trigger guard plate. Also, there should be a “circle P” on the pistol grip and an armory inspector cartouche on the left side. The consignment rifle stock has no visible markings at all. Possible strike one.

Regarding the lone rear stock reinforcing bolt on our Mark I, the Army standardized the addition of front reinforcing bolts on all Springfield stocks beginning in 1917. The consignment rifle, supposedly made three years later, lacks this front stock reinforcing bolt. Possible strike two.

Original stocks for Mark I’s had a portion of the stock relieved to clear the Pederson device ejection port on the receiver. The complex stepped shape of the stock relief on our Mark I does not match that described, diagramed and photographed anywhere. Possible strike three.

But handling the rifle in the gun shop, what was immediately wrong with it was so obvious that I looked right past it. Did you ever walk around the house looking for the keys in your pocket or the sunglasses on top of your head? It was like that.

Springfield Armory issued Mark I’s with Type 2F “S” or “Scant” stocks; the consignment Mark I has a later (1942) Type 8 M1903A3 Remington full pistol grip stock that didn’t exist in 1920. The owner claimed the rifle was stored right after it was manufactured; the Type 8 stock makes that claim patently impossible.

An Armory Rebuild?

OK, discounting the owner’s story, is it possible the rifle got a Type 8 stock as part of an armory rebuild? It could also have received a non-Mark I sear, cutoff and spindle at the same time. When M1903 and M1903A3 rifles went back to armories for refurbishment, because nearly all parts are interchangeable, there was little thought to keeping original parts with their parent rifles. It’s common to see, for example, machined parts from early M1903 rifles on later M1903A3 rifles that originally had stamped parts and vice-versa.

Remington cut Type 8 stock inletting to fit both M1903 and M1903A3 rifles, and it’s a reasonable bet that some Mark I’s came out of arsenal rebuild with a Type 8 stock. Maybe, but not this stock, because it has finger grooves. Cutting finger grooves into new stocks apparently ceased the same year the Type 8 became issue, and I found no photos, drawings or descriptions of genuine GI issue Type 8 stocks wearing finger grooves.

The last bit of damning evidence is the portion of stock relieved to clear the Pederson device ejection port. When armories refurbished rifles, they had no reason to expend the time or effort to relieve Type 8 stocks to accommodate the Pederson device ejection port, as the Army never issued the Pederson device and destroyed all but a few in 1931, a full 11 years before the Type 8 stock existed. So, even if our Mark I might have received a Type 8 stock during armory rework, a genuine Type 8 stock does not have the ejection port relief. Coupled with the finger grooves and total absence of any visible markings, this Type 8 stock is clearly not original.

Baloney

Conclusion: The consignment Mark I Springfield is a fake. Because someone cut the ejection port relief on the aftermarket stock when none was necessary and because of its overinflated price, it’s apparently a deliberate fake. However, there’s no way we can know the intent of the person who built it or the knowledge of the seller, so accusations are pointless.
Still, I wanted to check the stock’s barrel channel for any markings and to see if the barrel-to-receiver witness marks perhaps definitively show the barrel to be a replacement.

“Hey, would it be OK if I pulled the stock off that consignment Mark I Springfield to take a look inside?” I asked the gun shop owner a week or so after he allowed me to photograph it.

“Too late,” he said, “someone bought it off the rack. Why, what’s up?”

“Oh. Well, it doesn’t matter now,” I said. “I just wanted to check it out.”

Should I have told him and suggested he contact the buyer and the seller with my suspicions? My first impulse was to do so, but no one asked my opinion. Capitalism—and especially vintage firearm capitalism—is a caveat emptor world, and the buyer could have and should have done his own research. In the end, perhaps what matters is that everyone is happy, even if they are believing a fiction.

Happy is good. And who doesn’t enjoy a buried treasure story?

Some final notes: The genuine Mark I photographed here is in my collection. In comparing it to the suspect Mark I, I found more discrepancies in other details, but here I wanted to show you how to immediately ID a correct Mark I while standing on a gun shop or gun show floor.

They say it is the morsel of truth that lends believability to the best fiction. Sadly, if not deliberately altered, that suspect Mark I would have been valuable, because the barrel date alone would add to the base of knowledge about Mark I manufacture dates. If the barrel and receiver are original mates, then that is the morsel of truth in this Mark I’s fiction.

Which is the fake?

The rifle on top is the fake. This suspect Mark I stock is the Type 8 pistol grip stock, first used in 1942, more than two decades after Mark I production ceased. Note that it lacks the proper second stock reinforcing bolt standard on issue Springfields since 1917.

The genuine Springfield sports a correct Type 2F “Scant” stock (named for its scant pistol grip) on a Mark I.

The Secret Springfield

In the summer of 1945, an Army intelligence unit logged an interesting footnote in the history of—oftentimes futile—military secrecy, when it discovered a complete M1903 Mark I rifle with a Pederson device in the reference collection of Rheinische Westfallian Sprengstoff in Nuremberg, Germany. It had been in the collection since 1920.

The Pederson device transformed the M1903 Springfield bolt action into a genuine semiautomatic rifle by replacing the bolt with the “U.S. Caliber .30 Automatic Pistol Model of 1918 – Mark I.” A Mark II version was for use in the M1917 (“Enfield”) rifle. Invented by John Pederson at the Remington Arms Company during WW I and first demonstrated to the U.S. Army on October 8, 1917, the U.S. War Department treated it with extreme secrecy and intended to issue it to troops fighting in Europe. An order for 100,000 devices, a million magazines and 800 million rounds of ammunition quickly followed.

Though it worked very well indeed, the Pederson device utilized a pistol cartridge—hence the moniker, “Mark I Pistol”—with about one-tenth the power of the Springfield’s .30-06 cartridge. The Army wanted the device in the hands of troops assaulting enemy trenches, its overwhelming rate of semiautomatic fire—and surprise, the reason for secrecy—being the primary advantage negating concerns about lesser bullet energy when fighting would be at close range. By October of 1918, the Army had ordered 133,450 Mark I and 500,000 Mark II Pistols and 9,686,000 magazines, but the end of the war the following month reduced or suspended orders. The Pederson device never saw combat. In the end, the Army only received 65,000 Mark I Pistols, 1.6 million magazines and 65 million cartridges. On November 4, 1919, 101,775 M1903 Mark I rifles and 65,000 Pederson devices went into storage. In March 1931 the War Department declared the device no longer secret and offered it to the Navy and Marine Corps, who both declined. The next month the government destroyed 64,873 Pederson devices and 60 million rounds of ammunition.

-Information from the Remington Arms Company report prepared by J.D. Pederson and published in The Springfield 1903 Rifles by Lt. Col. William S. Brophy, USAR, Ret.

Welcome to the future

This is not just another story about the latest and greatest pistol ammo—this one begins with a shootout on April 11, 1986 that changed the worlds of law enforcement and pistol combat. On that day in Miami, Florida, a walking dead man murdered two FBI agents after being shot with a 9mm Luger bullet before finally succumbing to his “non-survivable wound.” The incident prompted the FBI to abandon the 9mm cartridge.

A very long story shortened to one sentence, the FBI’s search for a suitable replacement for the 9mm Luger culminated in the introduction of the .40 S&W cartridge, subsequently adopted almost universally by LE agencies all over the U.S. and by many citizens who choose to carry a handgun for self-defense.

So why, after all that effort and the passage of three decades, is the FBI putting the 9mm back into agents’ holsters? Because advancements in bullet and cartridge technology have made the 9mm viable once again. Two striking advancements that you may not know of have fundamentally changed bullet and case performance, and together they are the first to move ammunition out of the 20th Century and into the 21st.

A +P Hole Saw?

L-Tech, an ammunition manufacturer and ballistic test facility in Eubank, KY, has been quietly providing its services to the U.S. military and to LE, as well as manufacturing Sig Sauer’s ammo products since 2013. After following FBI penetration test protocols, L-Tech has now released its unusual-looking, but high-performance, 9mm Full-Stop ammunition to the public.

Full-Stop is not simply an expanding bullet launched at +P velocity—it is an entirely new 9mm Luger cartridge created from mating a remarkable, two-piece case with a bullet that behaves pretty much like a flying hole saw or blades from a food blender. And here’s the kicker: the maker says the cartridge produces, with apparent disregard of physics, +P velocity without producing +P pressures.

Mostly Hollow

The Full-Stop 124-grain bullet doesn’t expand in the traditional sense of forming a “mushroom” pushed by a solid base. Instead, after about 1.5 inches of penetration into a soft target the Full-Stop bullet nose opens up into a three-bladed “propeller,” as the maker calls it, that chews its way through tissue at high velocity to create maximum trauma.

“The Full-Stop creates a wound channel about two and a half times that of a standard hollow point ‘mushrooming’ bullet,” said L-Tech president Larry Henderson.

The bullet has no core. It is instead a homogeneous copper alloy, like a premium lead-free expanding hunting bullet. Disassembly at the loading bench showed that half of the Full-Stop bullet’s length is essentially a hollow point, and its three expanding sections, which are joined at the apex, are clearly evident. A long ogive and small hollow point opening lend the bullet the appearance of a long, tapering nose. The bullet base has a typical slight bevel to facilitate seating.

Because much of the bullet is hollow and it is mid-weight for the caliber, without any (weighty) lead, it must be made longer to achieve 124 grains. Therefore, a good portion of it nestles into the case. An inertia bullet puller required no undue force to remove bullets, indicating a normal crimp, and subsequent examination of the bullet surface showed that factory crimping of the stainless-steel case does not unduly deform the copper bullet.

Wait—did I say, “Stainless steel?”

A Case for Stainless

The cartridge case is the new NAS3 (Nickel Alloy Steel) developed and marketed by Shell Shock Technologies (SST) in Westport, CT, made by mechanically bonding a nickel alloy case head to a stainless-steel cylinder. SST says its NAS3 case is superior to brass, as it is cheaper, stronger and lighter, and as it possesses a greater internal volume, as well as a beveled and enlarged flash hole. The case head can be color anodized for instant ID and you can pick up your fired cases with a magnet. The empty cases are available to handloaders and can be reloaded 40 or more times without trimming, though they require special proprietary dies from SST. Reloading using standard shell holders will weaken the NAS3 case body-to-head bond, possibly resulting in case separation upon firing or extraction. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RELOAD NAS3 CASES USING STANDARD DIES.

FBI Protocol

Full-Stop’s performance is almost identical to that of the FBI’s benchmark Speer 124-grain Gold Dot load. The FBI testing protocol is to shoot through real life barriers at real life distances that law enforcement may encounter, into ballistic gelatin. Bullets are then examined for penetration and expansion. Barriers include clothing, wood, dry wall and sheet steel (simulating a car door).

SAAMI standard maximum pressure for the 9mm Luger is 35,000 psi; for 9mm +P, it’s 38,500 psi, or a 10 percent increase over standard. A perusal of various factory load data shows that, with 124-grain bullets, the velocity for 9mm +P begins at about 1,200 feet per second. Full-Stop gel penetration after passing through some barriers exceeds that of the +P Speer ammo, and yet the L-Tech is not loaded to Speer’s +P pressures, according to company literature. Newton says that less pressure equates to less recoil and, at least theoretically, that implies a faster on-target double-tap. SST, incidentally, has tested its NAS3 cases beyond 65,000 psi, so the upper limits of safety regarding pressures rest with the handgun and not the cartridge case.

At the Bench

Dismantling a few cases for examination revealed bullets weighing about 124.5 grains, seated over a 4.8-grain charge of spherical powder that resembles W231 or Titegroup. The inertia bullet puller caused a slight but visible separation of the case body from the case head. Another note to handloaders: don’t reload NAS3 cases after pulling bullets, discard them.

Frankly, any ballistic testing I might have done to check L-Tech’s claims for Full-Stop’s bullet expansion and penetration would, at best, only be duplicating the FBI protocol testing, and there’s no sense in reinventing that wheel. However, we can objectively test for accuracy, velocity and functioning, and we can form a subjective opinion of recoil. So, let’s take a couple of 9s to the range and see what we get.

Range Test

Since the L-Tech is defensive ammo, it seemed appropriate to shoot it in both full-size and compact carry pistols, the former a Ruger American with a 4-inch barrel and the latter a 3.5-inch barreled S&W M&P Shield. Checking accuracy at handgun combat distance—21 feet—is being realistic, too.

In both handguns, L-tech’s ammo shot essentially to point-of-aim, a six o’clock hold on a black bullseye target, with 10-shot groups hovering just under two inches when utilizing a steadying forearms-on-the-shooting-bench hold. Groups from the Ruger were only an inch wide but tended to string vertically a bit. The S&W made a more amenable match with the ammo, generally grouping shots into a single ragged hole without a propensity for stringing. Most importantly, those long, tapered bullet noses fed reliably, and both guns functioned flawlessly with the L-Tech ammo—an absolute, no compromise “must” in a defensive handgun.

Velocities 10 feet from the muzzle of the Ruger averaged 1,090 feet per second with a low of 1059 feet per second and a high of 1,111 feet per second. As expected from a shorter barrel, velocities in the S&W dropped a bit: the slowest at 973 feet per second and the fastest at 1,031 feet per second, for an average of 1,010 feet per second. Subjectively, recoil seemed ordinary, and of course a bit sharp in the compact Shield with a shortened grip that I could only hold with two fingers.

Because the NAS3 cases weigh half as much as brass cases, a full high-capacity magazine also weighs less, on the belt and in the handgun. I didn’t detect any discernible difference in weight when gun handling, though it is obvious when you hold a few of the NAS3 cases in your hand. Roughly, empty brass 9mm cases weigh 60 grains and NAS3 cases, 30 grains. Multiply that by 15 rounds in a mag and we find one stuffed with the L-tech cartridge weighs 450 grains—about one ounce—less than a mag holding regular brass.

Back from the Grave

So, what’s the takeaway? For handloaders who shoot a lot of 9mm, the new case represents significant cost savings. Forty reloadings are anywhere from three to five times—or more—than what we’d get from brass, especially with maximum loads, and we can add to that a lower initial cost than new brass. The cost of the specialty dies ($100) is amortized over time and the number of reloadings.

For competitors and those of us who practice a lot, picking up cases with a long-handled magnet is a convenience, as is color coding our own cases. Achieving +P velocity without +P pressure means we get the highest performance without sending handguns into early retirement from the battering. And we lighten our range bags when ammo weighs less.

For serious defensive work, we’ve seen a lot of new self-defense pistol bullets hit the market in the past few years, a trend that continues as bullet technology advances. Technology, in fact, has brought the 9mm Luger back from law enforcement’s common grave that it shared with the .38 Special. “A couple of law enforcement agencies here in Kentucky have adopted Full-Stop as their duty ammo,” Henderson said.

Even the .380 ACP has improved beyond a better-than-a-sharp-stick choice. The Holy Grail, of course, is the immediate incapacitation of the One Shot Stop, but like the Arthurian Holy Grail, it is elusive and not attainable via technology alone. There is no substitute for proper bullet placement, and then the bullet has to perform optimally when it gets there. The first step is up to you; if you succeed, it appears L-Tech’s Full-Stop bullet will do the rest.

Art Merrill graduated from the FBI Firearms Instructor Development Course to teach U.S. Navy security force personnel pistol and shotgun combat tactics.