Quote:
Originally Posted by RPKESQ
Ripoff is not too strong of a word. We did ripoff the Mauser design and the US courts agreed. Mauser sued the US and won a patent infringement case in our own court system. The US government was forced to pay "rights" for every 1903 Springfield they made. Expensive to make because of "improvements" which were really not suitable for the battlefield, but worked great on the range.
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Absolutely; the Springfield"s "improvements" over the M98 were suspect at best, at least for a service rifle. It was said (of the various WWI service rifles) that the U.S. went to war with a target rifle, the Germans went to war with a hunting rifle, and only the Brits went to war with a battle rifle.