https://www.amazon.com/13-Cent-Killers-Snipers-Vietnam/dp/0345459148

It looks like a remington with a fluted barrel did they have fluted barrels back then never seen a military rifle with flutted barrel.

Snowman357

I believe that's a picture of Carlos Hathcock. It should be a Winchester model 70 heavy barrel. It's not a flute, but the reflection of the scope against the barrel.

Isn't that Carlos hathcock.

Didn't he use a win 70 rifle?

I do not know who it is maybe the author , hathcocks name is only mention once in the book (only read half so far) they mention getting new remingtons never mention winchester.  I think hathcock was not in the 5th marines.

That might not be Hathcock. I remember a thread where one of the pictures that is commonly attributed to him is not him but I can't remember if it's that one. I would post this in either GD or Precision Rifles.

This!

I didn't think it was Gunny Hathcock either so l went looking and found this;

https://www.reddit.com/r/Colorization/comments/bjhp9o/marine_lance_corporal_dalton_gunderson_checking/

Crap! Beat by a minute!  But l got a link to a colorized pic.  

Ah, good to know. Still appears to be a Winchester Model 70 with a heavy (non-fluted) barrel.

That is one odd scope setup.

Were there model 70s with mounts on the barrel or is that a custom job?

ok found a better picture

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/389561436524926214/


I think on the cover it looked fluted because of the reflection of the scope on the barrel.

Snowman357

Likley my next build will be converting a 1937 dated Win 70 into a USMC spec M70 with Douglas barrel

Far too common to see photos mis-named to the wrong bloke.
One of the biggest offenders is the alleged photo of Simo Hayha lying in the snow - even though the soldier in the photo is wearing Swedish uniform and armed with a Mauser M96

Read some of the reference books by Peter Senich, then slap yourself

Could be they just removed the rear sight & used that dovetail?

That is the way they did it back in the day. The reason for the external adjustments is that is a much more robust way of adjusting the sights and all the competitive shooters used them for long range shooting. The people that set up the sniper programs tended to be competitive shooters, and they chose what they knew. Honestly at the time (40s & 50s), it was probably not the best choice, but for extreme long range it was probably better than a 4X Weaver because of the precise adjustments. For practical purposes the Weaver was probably a better choice.

Those Unertl scopes were just a steel tube and glass and not sealed to the elements. In a field environment there are a lot of downsides.  You still see smallbore competitors use these externally adjusted sights, although they are difficult to obtain these days since Unertl went away in the early 80s.

Google Van Orden Sniper Rifle.

B

The redfield was considered a huge improvement. Back in the 90s Norman Chandler used to host BBQs for young S/S Marines. He always had a bunch of rifles around that depicted different eras of the job. A lot of them were built buy the same guys that built the originals back in the 60s. I remember playing with one set up exactly like the one in the famous picture. I remember thinking that protecting it in the field must have been a bitch.

A close friend of mine that I met after he came back in the Corps after a 10yr break in service told me about going to Desert Storm and his gunny built a rifle rack and demanded everyone use it on the range. The very first day on the range in Saudi Arabia they broke for chow, racked the rifles and went into the shade to eat. When they came back the the sun had melted all the pigment out of the etched reticles. Now the S/S platoon had no rifles. They had 2 useable out of 12. Unertl turned them around in a week and they had them back in time to step off the LOD.

Another good story of his while Im at it:  they had the then new Barrets shipped to them in SA. No training, no scopes, no ammo, no training, they received a bullshit TM that was a xerox of some ones notes. Some pages were hand written and xeroxed. They bought shit scopes and he took his into kuwait with irons, they shot delinked M2 ammo.

Edited to add: this same friend was in swoffords platoon and said the book and movie are all lies.they never had any alcohol. There was no branding. Swofford was the only one that hadnt been to division school when they deployed. I believe him.