Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why didn't the US adopt the 7 x 57 in '03 ?

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Why didn't the US military adopt the 7 x 57 Mauser in 1903 instead of developing the 30-03, and then the 30-06 ?

In 1903, the thirty caliber was not that entrenched in the American psyche as the 30-30 had been around less than ten years and the 30 Krag not much different. By the time the 7mm was revisited prior to and after World War II, the 30 caliber was entrenched in the American shooter's mind.

The US Navy was already playing with the metric system with its 6mm at the time

The 03 Springfield rifle wasn't that different from the 98 Mauser.

The 7 x 57 had already shown its battlefield capabilities to Americans in the recent Spanish-American War.

For man size targets on battlefields using spitzer bullets, is the 30-06 significantly superior to the 7 x 57 ?

If the 7 x 57 with a spitzer bullet had been adopted in '03, would the 30-06 and the later 308 Winchester ever have come about ?




Note: I own 30-06, 30-03, 308 Win, and 7 x 57 rifles and ain't anti any of them.


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My guess is NIH--Not Invented Here. Also it was used by the losing side. Why use a round used by losers? We ended up with what is arguably the most powerful cartridge designed for use in a main battle rifle, the 30-06.

Well the Army back then wanted reach with there rifles. With the way powders were at the time, they came up with the 30-03 cartridge, things were moving quickly with smokeless powers so they modified it a little and it became final 30 cal cartridge 1906. They also when with a 150 gr bullet. Not invented here well, that dose not really hold water, since the Feds had to pay Mauser for the right to make the Springfield. By accident they ended up with what many consider to be the greatest hunting cartridge of all time. Never mind the cartridges that were cooked up based on that case. I shoot a 7 x 57 and wondered for years why it was not adopted. It was not, just as the Luger was not adopted but the 1911 was. And in my view the 1911 is a better pistol. Its a hard thing to go into the minds of men who made the choice 100+ years ago. There were many and had there reasons. Gee The chief of Staff of the Army ordered Springfield Armory to chamber the Garand for the 30-06 when it was designed for a 7mm cartridge similar to the 7 x 57. The reason, Stock piles of ammo from the Fist World War, and it would be wasteful and cost effective. It was tough economic times and well maybe Douglas didn't like 7mm's. I think you could spend a life time going thru the records to find out why and still not have all the answers to it, they been asking that question for 100+ years. We hunters just lucked out, they gotten it right.

I would bet that at least a part of it was that those making the decision still were expecting the issue round to be able to drop a horse in a cavalry charge. Heck, there are plenty of folks at the 'fire that still think the .45-70 should be our military cartridge.

Also, the .276 was the prototype Garand round between the wars!

Because we wanted a better, non-metric, democratic, non-fascist, non-European home-grown elk cartridge... worked out well.

snicker...

When I referred to NIH--Not Invented Here, I'm referring to a mindset and not the literal meaning of not invented here. It was quite prevalent in the military. If it wasn't American, they won't be using it. The Springfield is an Americanized Mauser, not a German M98 rifle. The 276 Pederson had a ballistic profile quite similar to the 7x57, but it's not a 7x57. We like American stuff. This mindset ruffled a few feathers with some our allies with adoption of the 7.62x51 and forcing them to use that round (ie. the Brits and their .280). Too bad they didn't have an off the shelf procurement program back then. It would have been pretty cool to see a prototype Garand in a round like the 250-3000 Savage.

The US used the 30-40 Krag in the Spanish American War (along with a lot of 45-75 black powder Springfield 1873's. The performance of the 7X57mm with smokeless powder impressed the Army who started on a replacement for the 30-40. At the time the Army considered 30 caliber to be a small bore and did not want to go below this.

The first experiments were with a rimless 30-40 cartridge that was then lengthened to accommodate more powder (30-01 cartridge, also called the thick rim, but still rimless). This was lengthened slightly again and this became the 30-03 with a 220 grain bullet (same as used in the 30-40). When the Germans "S" or spitzer bullet of 150 grains was introduced, the Army then developed a 30 caliber 150 grain bullet and loaded it in the 30-03. They decided that the case neck could be shortened about 1/10to of an inch (IIRC) and this became the 30-06.

Let me see, the first world war was from 1914 to 1918. The 30-03 and then the 30-06 were created in 1903 and 1906 respectively. I think you are confused.

The 7X57 was arguably the premier martial cartridge at the turn of the last century and the Mauser was arguably the premier martial rifle. There's a good reason they were copied and the US did have to pay royalties to Pauser for a while because the 1903 action was essentially a direct copy of the Mauser 98 action. I think the paint was different.

FTR,

I believe he's referring to the Spanish-American War of 1898. Even though the Spanish lost, their Mausers impressed the U.S. enough to create our own imitation Mauser.

We went with .30 rather than 7mm mostly because we were already producing .30 caliber barrels and 220-grain bullets for the Krag. We had the tooling to make those, and it would be expensive to change over to a new caliber.

Plus, most countries don't want to use a cartridge that an enemy has already adopted, because then any of our captured rifles can be too easily used by that enemy.

When we adopted the .30-06 a war in Europe was already a distinct possibility, and who knew what countries we end up fighting? Many Latin American countries had already adopted the 7x57 as their military round, including Mexico. We were already having trouble along the Mexican border, and we might well have to deal with some South American countries. In fact, we did have some skirmishes with Columbia during the U.S. acquisition of the Panama Canal zone. So developing our own distinct "Mauser-type" cartridge was a strategic decision as well as economic.

The Mauser loading system is what impressed the Americans mor so than the round.

I think we didn't adopt the 7 x 57 because it was metric, and the 06 was a more powerful round.

Concidently, I don't think a war has ever been won by an army armed with 7mm Mausers. And this is purely a coincidence. It's a fine round.

Later on, the US more or less agreed to adopt the FN Fal if FN chambered it in 7.62mm Nato...It was a sop to get the rest of NATO to accept the 7.62mm...

Of course when everybody agreed to do that, the US decided to trial the FN against the M14, and strangely enough the M14 won and was adopted..I think the US was about the only country in NATO (or anywhere else for that matter) that chose the M14....

Indeed, weapons procurment makes prostitution look like a virtuous and respectible profession by comparison...

Pete E:

"Indeed, weapons procurement makes prostitution look like a virtuous and respectable profession by comparison..."

One of the best extended examples of your generalization is the weapons procurement history of the US Federal government during the US Civil War. The very existence of the United States was at stake, but egos had to be stroked and pockets had to be lavishly filled!

That ignoble tradition continues right up to the present day and will continue long after all of are dead and gone!

On a happier note, thanks for the link to the choral performance of "Men of Harlech."

Not too far from where I live is the remains of a very early iron foundry that made canon and canon balls which were exported to the US during the Civil War...Not sure which side was supplied; in fact I would be surprised if they supplied both sides!

the ability to reliably drop a horse was a part of the test criteria...
at the time the springfield was introduced the horse mounted cavalry was a large part of our military might, not to mention that of other nations as well....

I've always wondered why the U.S. didn't pick the 7.65x53. It had been in use since 1889, was a proven design, and is about the same, performance wise, as the 7.62x51 that was adopted in the 1950s.

I have understood that Douglas MacArthur, when he was the COS of the U.S. Army, vetoed the 276 Pederson because of all the 30-06 firearms and ammunition still in inventory. Remember that this was during the Great Depression and the U.S. Federal Government didn't go easily into debt like they do today.

JEff

And .... the US paid Mauser & Co. money for patent infringement for the 1903 rifle design ($1/per rifle) , the clip ($200,000) and the spitzer bullet ($300,00 paid following WW1).

Yeah, the 7.65 seems to have many good things going for it and few negatives
for use in evolving military weapons 1900-1950.

Instead we had the .303 British, two versions of 7.7 Jap , 7MM Mauser , 8MM Mauser , 7.62 Russian, the 8 MM Lebel, .30/40 Krag, Schmidt-Ruben, Various 8 MM Mannlichers, the Terni, and Samese Mauser!

Sure that I forgot a few.

A few years back a guy told me that Springfield made a few
prototype 1903 rifles in .300 Savage.