The substantial external and internal changes made to the rifle suggest that this was not an attempt to adapt the M1 with a minimal number of component parts changes but rather an effort to generally improve the rifle, making it conducive to fully automatic fire. We cannot rely on patents to tell the whole story of the rifle, however, as many of the elements that make up the weapon appear to have gone unpatented. These changes to the stock also distinguish this rifle from Winchester’s other select-fire M1 adaptations, which retain the standard Garand stock profile.įrom the patents available combined with an examination of the rifle we can learn a lot. If we look closer we’ll notice that the stock has a swell just ahead of the breech, flaring out in an almost triangular bulge. It has a reshaped stock with an added pistol grip, a proprietary box magazine and a combined bipod and conical flash hider. Winchester M1 Select-Fire prototype (Danny Michael/Cody Firearms Museum)Įxternally, the rifle has a number of instantly recognisable distinctions from the standard M1 Garand.
After some archival research and combing Winchester’s patents from the period we can now attempt to shed light on a little more of the rifle’s history. Sefried II with former Cody Firearms Museum curator Herbert Houze crediting Sefried with the rifle, which he described as adaptation of the M1 into a ‘squad automatic rifle’. It is believed to have been developed by Winchester engineer Harry H.
Very little information is available about the rifle and little has been written about it previously. 30 Light Rifle round, which would eventually be adopted as 7.62x51mm. In this article we’re going to examine one of the prototypes, the rifle is believed to date to the late 1940s, and appears to be chambered in one of the earlier iterations of the T65. The Cody Firearms Museum, at the Buffalo Bill Centre of the West, holds a number of interesting select-fire M1 Garand rifles, adapted by Winchester during the 1940s.