From the February, 1952 issue of American Rifleman

Last month, the controversial debate between the United States and the United Kingdom over the adoption of a new lightweight automatic rifle took an interesting twist. Army Ordnance, traditionally tight-lipped about developmental projects, demonstrated its own automatic lightweight rifles and a new shortened .30 caliber cartridge, the T-65. The surprise showing of the rifles and cartridge, which are not ready to go into production, was held at the Ordnance Corps' Aberdeen Proving Ground, thirty miles north of Baltimore, Maryland.

It was a cold day the Army picked to show of its new lightweight rifles. A strong easterly wind whipped across the Proving Ground, spreading dampness and cold from the Chesapeake Bay. GI's shooting the rifles and preparing exhibits were shivering, as were the half-hundred spectators in the reviewing stand. Thoughtfully, the Army provided blankets and hot coffee for the spectators; the GIs were not as lucky.

In the chilly reviewing stand when the show began were many newspaper reporters from the Pentagon, and several prominent rifle experts, including famed Marine combat leader Major General Merritt A. Edson, Executive Director of the National Rifle Association, and Major General Julian S. Hatcher, former Ordnance officer who has headed the NRA's technical section since his retirement.

Leading the show was Colonel René R. Studeler, Chief of the Small Arms Branch, Research and Development Division, U.S. Army Ordnance Corps. While Colonel Studeler is not the inventor of the new rifles, he has carried the responsibility for their development throughout the last six years. A slight, distinguished-looking man with a small mustache, Colonel Studeler is perhaps one of the world's greatest authorities on small arms and small-arms ammunition. When not out in the field testing new rifles and ammunition, Color Studeler is busy with paper work in the Pentagon. He is known by his fellow workers as being an extremely apt diplomat, and more than once he has brought foreign authorities around to the U.S.'s point of view.

The demonstration Studeler conducted was centered around the Army's two newest lightweight automatic rifles. Both rifles are being considered by the Army to replace the M-1 Garand. One is called the T-44 and the other is the T-47. The T-44 and T-47 bear a strong resemblance to the old M-1 Garand. Both rifles are gas operated, have open sights and stocks like that on the M-1. The T-44 has an M-1 type action, or an M-1 type bolt and receiver. The T-47 has a 'tilting block' type action similar to that on the Browning automatic rifle. Both the T-44 and the T-47 rifles have twenty-round magazines, and a lever on the right-hand side above trigger guard which allows the shooter to switch selectively from semiautomatic to automatic fire. Each rifle is fitted with a muzzle brake with recoil reducing effects. The magazine of the T-47 projects straight downward from the rifle, but the magazine of the T-44 tilts forward slightly.

During the exhibition, expert Army riflemen potted away at several targets, called 'kneeling silhouette type' by the Army. This was a simulated combat problem put on for the benefit of the spectators to illustrate rapidity of semiautomatic fire with the M-1 and the two new lightweight rifles, but the weather was in no mood for comparison demonstrations. It was bitter cold (the temperature was below freezing), and a strong 35 miles per hour crosswind hampered firing by numbing ungloved fingers of the shooters and slowing the changing of clips and clearing of jams. The target was at one hundred yards. There was a time limit of one minute imposed on the shooter. All shooting was semiautomatic, aimed fire, prone with a sling. Here are the results:

While these tests were going on before the reviewing stand, a solider was busy firing an accuracy test from a bench rest. He shot ten rounds for group semiautomatically from, first, the M-1 Garand and, then, ten rounds from one of the lightweight rifles at 200 yards with metallic sights. When his targets were measured, the M-1 had placed its ten shots in a group which measured ten inches, extreme spread, and the lightweight rifle had put its ten shots in a group with an extreme spread of eight inches. Discounting one flier in each, the M-1 group measured seven inches and the group of the lightweight rifle measured five and one-half inches.