As for rifles, Land first scrounged 12 Model 70 sporting rifles that had been procured by Special Services for deer hunting at Camp Pendleton. Through the PX system in Okinwa, Land’s NCOs bought mounts, rings and scopes.

The second lot of rifles used by Land and his teams in Vietnam were also Winchester Model 70 target guns in 30-’06 Sprg. that had been originally purchased as “across-the course” bolt guns for the National Matches. They were mothballed after NRA changed match rules to limit service personnel to shooting service rifles. Among them were arms with heavy barrels and sporter stocks. Some of these rifles were equipped with 20X Unertl scopes and mounts, which were originally procured as long-range match optics.

At the time Land was organizing his first sniper teams, then-Major Cam Hayden (USMC), who was first officer in charge of Marine Marksmanship training, discovered the Model 70s and scopes listed as surplus property. (Like Land, Maj. Hayden made a lifelong career of NRA after leaving the Marine Corps.) Hayden, who calls his find “serendipity,” also searched Marine Corps inventories and came up with 8X Unertl optics. The rifles were worked over by Marine armorers—glass-bedded and wood removed from barrel channels to free-float the target-weight barrels.

Among these was the rifle that Carlos Hathcock used during his first tour in Vietnam, but Land says Carlos’ rifle was anything but a tack-driver:

“Snipers today talk about half-minute of angle. Carlos Hathcock’s rifle barrel looked like it had been sandblasted. On the inspection sheet, you’d say, ‘Slight pits throughout.’ His rifle would hold about two minutes of angle. That’s 20 inches at 1,000 yards and that’s what he had to work with.

“We had M1Cs and M1Ds available that would hold a minute of angle, but they didn’t maintain their zero.

“But Carlos’ rifle maintained its zero day in and day out.”

Land said the Unertl scopes would not have lasted an hour in the hands of regular Marines.

“Carlos had excellent results with that scope, but it was only because he understood it and he knew how to take care of it, and he was very meticulous in doing so. The major problem they had with it was that if you got careless, it would fog up on you. Anytime we came back off of a patrol, the scopes would be put in a hot box to dry them out.”

The other problem was crosshairs blowing out under recoil. Land said one of the armorers, Vic Johnson, kept a box of spiders to spin the filaments for replacement crosshairs as a field expedient.

Before leaving Vietnam in 1966, Land set up the initial testing program for what would become the basis for all Marine Corps sniping rifles for the foreseeable future: the 7.62 NATO (.308 Win.) M40, built by Remington with considerable design input from Marines in the field.

Of the commercial actions available, why not the Model 70? Why Remington? “The new Model 70 (post-’64) had a weak extractor, and if you didn’t clean the chamber after about every 10 shots it would likely break. And in Vietnam, we didn’t have that luxury.”

Land said, “Remington really went out of their way to help put this together. They created the stock with the cheekpiece on it; they never had this heavy a barrel in this stock. We had the scopes sent in from Redfield. Remington mounted them, tested them, and they were put in a specific case and shipped to Vietnam or to Quantico.” This was the rifle used by Carlos Hathcock in his second tour of duty.

The Redfield 3-9X variable scope for those initial M40s were produced in two finishes—green and deep black. Ostensibly they had a built-in rangefinder, which Land said was “worthless,” because it often melted in hot sun.

Land calls the M40 a “Pretty good interim rifle, which saw a lot of use. The main problem was the stock, which swelled and touched the free-floated barrel when it got damp or wet.”

Land said that when he left Vietnam, the M40 was fast replacing all other sniper rifles, from the Special Services rifles to the target-grade Winchester Model 70s to the M1s in various configurations.

The experiences with the M40, led to design of the M40A1—a rifle Land says is the most accurate he ever owned. Made in the Marine Corps’ precision rifle shop, it had a finely- tuned Remington 700 action, McMillan fiberglass stock and custom heavy McMillan or Sinclair barrels. He said that when first issued it was topped with the Redfield 3-9X. But a variation was created for the 2nd Force Reconnaissance Unit that mounted a Weaver T-10. Later, the rifles were re-scoped with special, strictly Marine Corps, 10X Unertls.

There is only one representative rifle missing in Land’s collection—the ’03 Springfield long-range target rifles issued to Marine Corps units for 1,000-yd. competitions. Topped with an 5X Winchester A-5 scope with a Mann-Neider base, the rifle/scope combination was an unofficial natural replacement arm for the failed Warner-Swasey topped ’03s officially tagged as Marine sniper rifles. When they were deployed in World War I, Land said, units took their long-range target guns into battle. The scopes, he said, were extremely fragile in combat.

Between the wars, the Marine Corps made a search for a new sniper rifle which culminated in a 1941 recommendation in a report titled “Equipment for the American Sniper” and bylined simply, “George O. Van Orden and Calvin A. Lloyd.” The egalitarian byline with then-Colonel and, later, General Van Orden is a testament to the respect he held for Warrant Officer Lloyd. Gunner Lloyd, by the way, was a legendary Marine marksmanship coach, whose name now graces a range complex at Quantico.

Referring to the “inherent defects created by mechanical problems which we seem unable to solve…” with “telescopic sights of the type ‘Warner & Swasey Prismatic Sight,’” the report asked a rhetorical question, “What is the most effective Sniper’s Rifle available in America to-day?”

Van Orden and Lloyd concluded: “It is the Winchester Model G7044C Rifle. … a military-target type, bolt action, five shot magazine rifle, chambered for the standard military cartridge … . The high standards of the Model 70 series have produced the most accurate long-range rifle in the world, as have been demonstrated by many years’ success.” Oddly enough, this vision of the perfect sniper rifle comes close to describing the second series of rifles used by Marine Snipers in Vietnam—those Model 70 Target guns gleaned by Hayden—equipped with 8X Unertl scopes.

Although the Van Orden/Lloyd recommendation on the Model 70 was turned down by the Marine Ordnance Board, their strong recommendation for use of the Unertl 8X scope was accepted, and thus was born the scope that bore the inscription, “USMC Sniper.”

Ultimately, the Marine Corps chose to mount the Unertl sniper scopes on superb 1903A1 Springfield rifles with the longer-pull type “C” pistol-grip stock.