The .45 Reising submachine gun was manufactured by Harrington & Richardson (H&R) Arms Company in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, and was designed and patented by Eugene Reising in 1940. The three versions of the weapon were the Model 50, the folding stock Model 55, and the semiautomatic Model 60 rifle.Robert C. Ankony, "The US .45 Model 50 and 55 Reising submachine gun and Model 60 Semiautomatic Rifle," Small Arms Review, Jul.2008. Over 100,000 Reisings were ordered during World War II, and were initially used by the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and the United States Coast Guard, though some were shipped to Canadian, Soviet, and other allied forces to fight the Axis powers.Thomas B. Nelson, The World's Submachine Guns, TBN Enterprises, 1963
History
Reising was an assistant to firearm inventor John M. Browning. In this role, Reising contributed to the final design of the US .45 ACP M1911 pistol. Reising then designed a number of commercial rifles and pistols on his own, when in 1938, he turned his attention to designing a submachine gun as threats of war rapidly grew in Europe.
Two years later he submitted his completed design to the Harrington & Richardson Arms Company (H&R) in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was accepted, and in March 1941, H&R started manufacturing the Model 50 submachine gun. Months later, production began on the Model 55, which was identical to the Model 50 other than having a folding wire buttstock, no compensator, and a barrel; and the Model 60 semiautomatic rifle that also resembled a Model 50, but had an barrel without cooling fins or a compensator.
H&R promoted the submachine guns for police and military use, and the Model 60 for security guards. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 the US was suddenly in desperate need of thousands of modern automatic weapons. Reising's only competitor was the .45 ACP Thompson submachine gun.
The US Army first tested the Reising in November 1941 at Fort Benning, Georgia. During this test, several parts failed due to poor construction. Once this was corrected, a second test was made in 1942 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. In that test, 3,500 rounds were fired, resulting in two malfunctions: one from the ammunition, the other from a bolt malfunction. As a result, the Army did not adopt the Reising, but the Navy and Marines did, due to insufficient supply of Thompsons.
The Reising submachine gun was innovative for its time. In comparison to its main rival, the famous Thompson, it possessed similar firepower, better accuracy, excellent balance, a lighter weight, a much lower cost, and greater ease of manufacture. Despite these achievements, the poor combat performance of the Reising—contrasted with favorable combat and law enforcement use of the Thompson—mired the weapon in controversy.
Design
The Reising was far less costly ($62) compared to the Thompson ($200). It was much lighter (seven vs. eleven pounds). The Model 55 was also more compact (about twenty-two vs. thirty-three inches in length).
The Reising cost less than the Thompson because its metal components were mostly stampings instead of machined parts. This also allowed it to be lighter, as did its firing mechanism. Like the 1928A1 Thompson, its operating principle was delayed blowback, but the Thompson's Blish lock system was far less mechanically effective and so, like a simple blowback weapon, the Thompson was dependent on high bolt mass or more specifically bolt inertia to provide an acceptably low rate of fire. That is, a lighter bolt, as used in earlier models of the Thompson, would have reciprocated faster and produced too great a firing speed. This in turn meant that the Thompson could not be radically lightened without a deterioration in its controllability, as a heavy gun was necessary in automatic fire, to counteract and stabilize the effects on control and accuracy of its heavy bolt moving back and forwards. The Reising's bolt is much lighter due to its delayed blowback mechanism being the main determinant of the automatic rate of fire; and consequently the whole gun could be correspondingly light without detracting from accuracy and controllability.
The M50 Reising's delayed blowback operation, often classified as hesitation lock,Delayed Blowback Operation Firearms in the Small Arms Classification works as follows: as the cartridge is chambered, the rear end of the bolt is pushed up into a recess, in a manner similar to tilting-bolt locked breech guns; but whereas such weapons rely on an additional mechanism to unlock them, in the case of the Reising the end of the bolt that pushes against the back wall of this recess, is subtly rounded, while the wall is correspondingly curved. On firing, the extreme pressure from the propellant gases is thereby able to force the bolt-end down, back to the horizontal. From here the bolt can move to the rear removing the cartridge from the chamber; but the combination of mechanical disadvantage and friction the force of the gases must overcome to push the end of the bolt down has achieved a delay of a fraction of a second, allowing pressure in the barrel to drop to a level sufficiently low for safe and efficient cartridge extraction.
The Reising fired from a closed bolt with its return spring as part of its cocking handle underneath the barrel. It notably used a linear hammer in the main receiver.
The Reising was more balanced than the Thompson because the barrel-and-receiver-group rested concentrically within the stock. It had smoother lines in that the stock was of conventional shape, and because the cocking handle (action bar) was placed inside the forearm. In addition, it was more accurate both in semi-auto and at the onset of automatic fire, because due to it being a closed bolt gun, only the linear hammer and firing pin moved at the moment the trigger was squeezed, whereas the Thompson slammed home a heavy bolt and actuator.
The Reising was made in selective fire versions that could be switched between semi-automatic or full-automatic fire as needed and in semi-auto only versions to be used for marksmanship training and police and guard use. The Reising had a designed full-auto cyclic rate of 450–600 rounds per minute but it was reported that the true full-auto rate was closer to 750–850 rounds per minute. At those rates, the twenty round magazine could be emptied in less than two seconds. In 1941, the Reising was priced at approximately $50 per weapon as opposed to $225 for the standard military issue Thompson submachine gun.
Variants
There were four versions of the Reising, two selective fire models: the M50 and M55, and two semi-automatic only variants: the M60, a .45 ACP carbine, and the M65, chambered for the .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridge designed for training purposes.
There were two differences between the M50 and the M55, those being the elimination of the compensator and the addition of a folding wire buttstock making the M55 lighter and shorter. M55 was originally issued to Marine parachute infantry and armored vehicle crews.
The M60 was a long-barreled, semi-automatic carbine model designed primarily for military training and police use. However, few of these were ever sold. The Marines used M60s for training, guard duty, and other non-combat roles. Some M60s were believed to have been issued to Marine officers at Guadalcanal.Frank Iannamico, The Reising Submachine Gun Story, Moose Lake Publishing Co., statement of R.G. Rosenquist, Curator, U.S. Marine Raider Museum, at p.132. The remaining guns were passed on to State Guards and civilian law enforcement agencies. The M65 was developed as a sub-caliber training rifle version of the M60, produced only from 1944 to 1946. H&R later made updates to the M65 and sold them on the civilian market (and to the Marines in small numbers) as the MC-58 and M150/151/165 Leatherneck.
H&R Reising light rifle From the submachine gun the .30 carbine light rifle prototype was developed, it was competing to become the M1 carbine but lost to Winchester. While sharing many parts with the submachine gun the light rifle uses a gas piston, it was built in semi-automatic and fully automatic versions and issued with a 12-round magazine.Reisings .30 Caliber: Almost an M1 CarbineHarrington & Richardson Light Rifle. Forgotten Weapons
USMC deployment
The Reising entered military service primarily because of uncertainty of supply of sufficient quantities of the Thompson submachine gun. In the testing stage, it won out over some other competing designs. It was very light and quite accurate in aimed fire, and "capable of intensive fire against personnel within a range of 300 yards."S. Schmidt, Manual for the Reising Submachine Gun: Caliber .45 Models 50, 55, and 60, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. (1942): p.2 This was attributed to its better stock fit and intricate closed bolt, delayed blowback design. Most submachine guns fire from the open bolt position, meaning the full mass of the bolt slams forward when the trigger is pulled; with the closed-bolt system employed by the Reising there is much less movement involving far lighter components, and the resulting improved control in the moment before shooting gives better accuracy, both for semi-automatic and at the onset of full automatic fire. Less advantageously though, this more accurate firepower was somewhat limited due to the 20-round capacity of its largest magazine.Lt. Col. John George, Shots Fired in Anger, Samworth Press, 1948Roy F. Dunlap, Ordnance Went Up Front, Samworth Press, 1948
The U.S. Marines adopted the Reising in 1941 with 4,200 authorized per division with approximately 500 authorized per each infantry regiment.p.14 Rottman Gordon & Chappell, Mike US Marine Corps 1941–1945 1995 Osprey PublishingFrank Iannamico, The Reising Submachine Gun Story, Moose Lake Publishing, 1999. Pages 136–7 show Unit Tables of Equipment, 1st Raider Battalion 24 Sep 42 and 1st Parachute Battalion 1 Jul 42. Most Reisings were originally issued to Marine officers and NCOs in lieu of a compact and light carbine, since the newly introduced M1 carbine was not yet being issued to the Marines. Although the Thompson submachine gun was available, this weapon frequently proved too heavy and bulky for jungle patrols, and initially it, too, was in short supply.
During World War II, the Reising first saw action on August 7, 1942, exactly eight months to the day after Pearl Harbor, when 11,000 men from the 1st Marine Division stormed the beaches of Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands. The same date of Guadalcanal's invasion, the Model 50 and 55 saw action with the 1st Marine Raiders on the small outlying islands of Tulagi and Tanambogo to the north. Two companies of Marine paratroopers also used Model 55s, to attack the island of Gavutu, between Tulagi and Tanambogo. Paramarines and armored crewmen were issued the folding stock M55, and this version included a notable flaw: its wire-frame stock was poorly designed, crude and flimsy, and had a tendency to fold while firing. Moreover, other serious shortcomings in both guns were becoming apparent. The reality was that the Reising was designed as a civilian police weapon and was not suited to the stresses of harsh battle conditions encountered in the Solomon Islands—namely, sand, saltwater that easily rusted the commercial blued finish, and the difficulty in keeping the weapon clean enough to function properly. Tests at Aberdeen Proving Ground and at Fort Benning, Georgia, had found difficulties in blindfold reassembly of the Reising, indicating the design was complicated and difficult to maintain.