U.S. Navy Model 81's?

[81police]

Does anyone know about the U.S. Navy Model 81's?

The only information that I know of on these rifles comes from John Henwood's book. He lists a government contract number of "S-23518" for 100 Model 81's priced at $75 each delivered to Springfield Armory.

A forum member, who I can't remember posted this picture originally. Whomever did please let us know, i'd like to figure out which program this was from and the episode. Anybody that knows military uniforms may be able to tell us if these are Navy? The rifles are definitely Model 81's as evident by the forearms and pistol grips. The magazine looks to be a standard 5 round and it looks like they have some sort of tangent rear sights. Possibly a raised front sight too. Could these be the U.S. Navy rifles?

[brian.35]

The picture was posted by 45guy and the show is Extreme Marksmen.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=625&p=1981&hilit=m ... e48c#p1981

[DWalt]

I think there may have been several programs called Extreme Marksmen on the History Channel. I have seen them, and even had them recorded on my DVR, but I wiped them six or so months ago. However, everything comes back around on History Channel sooner or later. They may offer DVDs for sale on their website.

I don't remember seeing that scene, but maybe I just didn't pay any particular attention to it.

These guys don't appear to be in anything recognizable as a uniform, just shooting jackets.

[superc]

Given that Hatcher mentions the Remington autoloaders in his Notebook, they were known to the military.

My other readings over the decades have left me with the understanding that sometime between the World Wars, a few, probably less than 100, were purchased for use by the US Marines (who are Navy, even if they sometimes pretend they aren't) as a jungle survival and hunting rifle. I know something like 10 of them went someplace in the Pacific, but I have no idea of the logic behind that as there wasn't much out there worth shooting with a rifle that big. Maybe wild pigs? Possibly some went to Nicaraugua, but I have never seen a written reference to them being on that continent.

[DWalt]

This morning (Saturday), History Channel had a re-re-re-run of Extreme Marksmen. The pictured frozen scene is about 33 minutes in from the start. There is some old B&W footage showing a sequence of shooters at several rifle different ranges, within which is a very brief (about 4-5 seconds) segment showing the three guys shooting the Model 81s from the prone position. I played this sequence back 5 times from my DVR for closer observation. While it shows a few rounds being fired by the three jacketed shooters, there is nothing said on the voice-over that would identify the location, nor the shooters, nor anything else not shown in the frozen scene posted. So there's nothing more to be learned from viewing the live action than can be seen from looking at the still picture.

I guess that one could contact History Channel and ask them if there is more information available about that segment, but I'd suspect you wouldn't receive an answer.

[imfuncity]

Thanks for the extra effort, indeed there were questions one wondered about. I too have had no results contacting even local stations for info - unless you know someone