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Title:	RIFLE, MILITARY -  U.S. RIFLE MODEL 1903 .30 SN# 615981
Maker/Manufacturer:	SPRINGFIELD ARMORY/GUIBERSON
Date of Manufacture:	1916
Eminent Figure:
Catalog Number:	SPAR 1071
Measurements:	OL:112.3CM 44 1/4" BL: 60.9CM 24"

Object Description:

U.S. RIFLE MODEL 1903 .30 SN# 615981
Manufactured by Springfield Armory, Springfield, Ma. - Modified. Weapon fitted with experimental Guiberson trench periscope in stock. Weapon has a collapsible hinged stock and mirror periscope built into the stock. When not opened to the firing configuration, the rifle appears much like a conventional '03. M1898 rifle sight. Blued finish with checkered buttplate with well for cleaning rod, etc. Modified straight grip stock with finger grooves. Weapon enabled a rifleman to fire over the top of a parapet without rising over the parpapet himself. Tested, but never put into production because it proved to be incapable of rapid fire due to limited field of view. Missing mirrors.

Markings:
Receiver: U.S. SPRINGFIELD ARMORY/MODEL 1903/615981.
Barrel: SA/ordnance/11-15.
Sear: S.
Bayonet stud: H.
Stock: JSA in rectangle. JSA = J. Sumner Adams.

Weapon transferred to the Museum on 17 June 1938. At that time weapon was appraised at $20.68.

Army# 5371 - Weapon loaned to the Sahara Antique Gun Show, Hotel Sahara, Las Vegas, Nev. from 20 January 1969 to 2 February 1969. At that time weapon was appraised at $10,000.

Notes: "Another experimental Periscope Trench Rifle was the Guiberson rifle that had a collapsible hinged stock and mirror periscope built into the stock. When not opened to the firing configuration, the rifle appears much like a conventional '03.
In his Arms and the Man article of April 17, 1917, Captain E.C. Crossman describes the rifles as follows: 'Cometh now a Los Angeles man with a combined rifle and periscope that is, in its infantry rifle moments, merely on pressing a button, so contorts itself as to make a good and strong periscope rifle ready for a shot at the gent out beyond. The pictures tell the story better than can any typewriter, have a look. It may seem unusual, but it works.
The vertical portion which looks like a prop between stock and tang of receiver, is hollow, acts as grip for the right hand, and carries the lower mirror in its lower end. The upper mirror is carried by a detachable but still out of the way steel bar which slides into a slot cut in the receiver on the left side. The stock is hinged at the lower band to the barrel, hand guard, and forward part of the stock. The portion shown as vertical when the gun is opened, normally is part of the grip, and is made of steel and wood. When you press a lock button on the left side of the receiver, the stock drops down at an angle of some 35 degrees to the barrel and receiver, which the grip portion, hinged at its front end, slides forward along guides down in the stock, at the rear end until it stands vertical between stock and tang, as shown. Then it locks into position. So arranged, the firer looks into the lower mirror, holding the right hand around the vertical portion and the butt to his shoulder. This puts his head with the top two inches or more below the line of the top of the parapet and so safe with a properly built trench.
Upper mirror picks up the image, and sends it down through the hollow grip-tube to the lower mirror, set permanently in the end of the tube on the level with the eye when the butt is at the shoulder. With this particular rifle one could see about a thirty-foot field at 200 yards.
The curious ones present at the trials had not trouble in swatting regularly the silhouette at 200 yards, although the too-narrow service sight is still worse with this form of sighting apparatus.
Queerly enough there is little kick to the new form of rifle, which had been submitted to the Ordnance Department and partly approved. The shape of the grip portion is not quite right, and several of us got nice raised and purple spots on the forehead from contact with this, but it is merely a matter of detail. Avoiding this, the rifle seemed to kick but little; less than the direct drive of the regular arm.
When the stock is closed, the rifle differs only in weight and a steel plate here and there in the stock, from the regular rifle. The upper mirror and rod and instantly removable wheThe difference in weight is said to be around 1 1/2 pounds. The rifle is as strong as ever, but is instantly convertible to a periscope arm or vice-versa.
The Guiberson rifle is of course not going to revolutionize the rules of warfare as one wild-eyed newspaper scribe put it, because trench shooting with the periscope rifle is but one phase of the fortress sort of warfare now going on in Europe. Yet an issue of such rifles in the proportion of about 5 percent of say 10 percent, to be carried either with the infantry or in the combat wagons, would prove very useful, because instantly an entrenched force could go to work potting those on the other side without the risk of heing hit in the process.
The arm in its present state is entirely practical, strong, and fool-proof, and the inventor claims to have received financial air from the War Department to perfect it to its present stage.'
The Springfield Armory Museum has an example of the Guiberson Periscope Rifle. The serial number is 5." - Brophy

"The 'periscope attachment', with its hinged stock could be locked-up into a close approximation of the standard service stock for normal use, was presumably intended by its inventor to be the standard issue rifle, rather than an 'extra' rifle as was the 'skeleton rifle' as used by the British.
To prepare the 'periscope attachment' rifle for use over a parapet one pushed-in release button under the cutoff and 'broke' the stock about its pivot at the lower band. The comb portion of the stock was pivoted at its front end to the filler between the receiver and guard. The rear end of this comb portion slid into a channel of the buttstock to a locked position which 'propped' the action above the buttstock. It also carried the two polished steel mirrors which it positioned, as in a periscope, so that the sights could be aligned. The rear sight was the ramp-type M1903 sight.
Both 'attachments' were incapable of rapid-fire because of the limited field of view they offered, because of recoil with the centerfire of the bore so high above the shoulder, and because of the difficulty of refilling the magazine. They could not be used, therefore, in repelling an attack, and their only possible use would have been for sniping across the distance between the trenches. And sniping, as Capt. McBride so ably demonstrated, was much better accompanied by standard sniping rifles from concealed positions to the rear of the trenches. The U.S., at any rate, did nothing more with these 'attachments' than to test them sufficiently to be sure they were not worth bothering with." - Campbell

"Making the Springfield Shoot Around the Corner - by Edward C. Crossman. It seems that in every fighting force there be gents who object to being shot through the head. Those with brains don't stick their heads up above the trench parapet, so there can be no fear of injury to the brain by those who so expose their domes of thought. The fact remains of the finicky disposition of some people.
From the first of the progamme of digging in and in, and still farther in on the west front of the present European battle lines, there came into popularity various devices for letting the Tommy pot Hans without affording Hans of his side-kicker Fritz, a chance for reciprocation. Those devices were known generally as periscopes, and were of fearful and wonderful construction. Tommy used to make them out of bits of boxes, and pocket mirrors and hitch them anywise to the Lee or to the Ross, while the plain ordinary periscopes for merely observing and not necessarily potting the gents in the other sets of trenches, grew and grew in popularity. Scores of different designs of rifle and plain trench periscopes are made commercially in England and brought and sent over to Tommy by his loving friends.
A periscope, is to give us a fair basis for argument in this screed, is according to the dictionary, merely a device for allowing one to see around the intervening object. Said object may be a trench pIn its simplest and most-used form it is merely two mirrors. One of them is set up in the line of sights on the rifle - or on a level with the top of the parapet in the ordinary observing sort - the other is set down at the level of the eye, snugly below the top of the trench, and so out of the bullet's way. The first mirror picks up the image of mark, a bit of country around it, and the two sights, front and rear, and sends it down to the second mirror because of the angle of the first. The second one takes the image and sends it out to the eye. Gazing in the bottom mirror of the rifle periscope, you see merely the two sights, the target, and say 30 feet of field at 200 yards.
British inventors take out a new patent on new forms of periscope every morning before breakfast. They can equip a considerable portion of the British army with the 'scope' form the models on file at the patent office. All of them, however are makeshifts - attachable and detachable collections of wooden and steel bars and mirrors and things that hitch to the stock and unhitch when occasion offers, or needs.
Cometh now a Los Angles man with a combined rifle and periscope that is, in its infantry rifle moments, merely the old service rifle in outline and accessories, but which on pressing a button, so contorts itself as to make a good and strong periscope rifle ready for a shot at the gent out beyond. The pictures tell the story better than can any typewriter, have a look. It may seem unusual, but it works.
The vertical portion, which looks lie a prop between stock and tang of receiver, is hollow, acts as grips for the right hand and carries the lower mirror in its lower end. The upper mirror is carried by a detachable but still out of the way steel bar, which slides into a slot cut in the receiver on the left side.
The stock is hinged at the lower band to the barrel, handguard and forward part of the stock. The portion shown as vertical when the gun is opened, normally is part of the grip, and is made of steel and wood. When you press a lock button on the left side of the receiver, the stock drops down at an angle of some 35 degrees to the barrel and receiver, while the grip portion, hinged at its front end, slides forward along guides down in the stock, at the rear end until it stands vertical between stock and tang as shown. Then it locks into position. So arranged, the firer looks into the lower mirror, holding the right hand around the vertical portion and the butt to his shoulder. This puts his head with the top of the parapet and so safe with a properly built trench.
Upper mirror picks up the image, and sends it down through the hollow grip-tube to the lower mirror, set permanently in the end of the tube on the level with the eye when the butt is at the shoulder. With this particular rifle one could see about a thirty-foot field at 200 yards.
The curious ones present at the trials, had no trouble in swatting regularly the silhouette at 200 yards, although the too-narrow service sight is still worse with this form of sighting apparatus.
Queerly enough there is little kick to the new form of rifle, which has been submitted to the Ordnance Department and partly approved. The shape of the grip portion is not quite right, and several of us got nice raised and purple spots on the forehead from contact with this, but it is merely a matter of detail. Avoiding this, the rifle seemed to kick but little; less than the direct drive of the regular arm.
When the stock is closed, the rifle differs only in weight and a steel plate here and there in the stock; from the regular rifle. The upper mirror and rod and instantly removable when the rifle is open, but are not in the way when it is in normal position. The difference in weight is said to be around one and a half pounds. The rifle is as strong as ever, but is instantly converted to a periscope arm or vice-versa.
The Guiberson rifle is of course not going to revolutionize the rules of warfare as one wild-eyed The arm in its present state is entirely practical, strong, and fool-proof, and the inventor claims to have received financial aid from the War Department to perfect it to its present stage." - Edward C. Crossman, "Arms And The Man," April 7, 1917

LOAN HISTORY:
Army# 5371 - Weapon loaned to Marine Corps Museum, Quantico, Va. and returned on 8 May 1962.
Army# 5371 - Weapon loaned to the Sahara Antique Gun Show, Hotel Sahara, Las Vegas, Nev. from 20 January 1969 to 2 February 1969. At that time weapon was appraised at $10,000.

References:
Brophy, William S. THE SPRINGFIELD 1903 RIFLES. Stackpole Books. Harrisburg, Pa. 1985.
Campbell, Clark S. THE '03 SPRINGFIELD. Fadco Publishing Co. Beverly Hills, Ca. 1957.
Campbell, Clark S. THE '03 ERA: WHEN SMOKELESS POWDER REVOLUTIONIZED U.S. RIFLERY.
Collector Grade Publications Inc. Cobourg, Ontario, Canada. 1994.
Canfield, Bruce. A COLLECTOR'S GUIDE TO THE '03 SPRINGFIELD. Andrew Mowbray. Lincoln, R.I. 1989.
Clark, David S. ARMS FOR THE NATION. Scott A. Duff. Export, Pa. 1992.
Harrison, Jesse C. COLLECTING THE '03 SPRINGFIELD. The Arms Chest. Oklahoma City, Ok. 1993.