Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on Forgotten Weapons.com, I'm Ian McCollum, and THIS is a Benson 1924 Self-loader. It was developed by Benson & Son, a relatively small time company, for the 1924 trials which would EVENTUALLY lead to the adoption of the M1 Garand. The rifle was rejected due to reliability issues. It only used a detatchable 6 round magazine, and it could not be loaded with stripper clips. This was an issue, as the magazines were very fragile and finnicky, and they weren't really interchangeable. They were later sold with one magazine only, and additional magazines would have to be tweaked for each individual rifle. The military trials version had a longer forestock, a bayonet lug, and sights similar to the 03 Springfield. Interestingly, the bayonet lug wasn't compatible with any of the current US military bayonets, and Benson never designed one to work with it.
After being rejected by the military, Benson refused to make any changes to the design, stating it was perfect and the Army could Take it or leave it. Spoiler alert, they didn't take it. The rifle was put on the civilian market, and marketed to Law Enforcement as well. But, being more expensive and more finnicky than a Remington Model 8, it didn't sell very well. The 'Policemodel, which is what this is, was sold as thePolice" model even though only a few small departments bought them.
They were chambered in .30-32 Benson, a proprietary cartridge developed specifically for the rifle. But you could only get it from Benson. They had versions chambered in other cartridges like .30 Remington in their catalog, but none exist. So it's debatable weather or not they actually made any of them.
They ceased production in 1927 since the rifle was a money pit for them. Interestingly enough, a couple Police departments still used them up until the 1960's, when they were replaced with the cheaper and more reliable M1 carbines. Several examples exist that were converted to .308 Winchester, as the supply of .30-32 Benson dwindled after the rifle production stopped.
The rifle was really doomed by design. The fragility and incompatibility of the magazines really meant that it could never be a serious contender for the military. And Benson's refusal to significantly alter the design meant these issues were never addressed. Police departments who bought them had to mark the magazines for specific rifles, and the magazines had to be fiddled with in order to work in THAT specific rifle, you couldn't use one of rifle #1's magazines in Rifle #2. If you get a magazine to work with a rifle, it's actually a fairly reliable, for the time, pleasant-shooting rifle. But not many departments were willing to put in the work to solve those issues.Now, we don't have any .30-32 Benson available, but we DO have one of those original .308 conversions, which will be coming up for sale here at the November 2023 auction. So, let's actually take that one out to the range, aaand, see how it shoots? I'm actually really curious.
Just kidding, that never happened, this is a completely fictional rifle. I was going for somethingkind of in that era, something semi auto, but still classy. I was inspired by the Remington Model 8.
The model is ready to use in any of your projects. All the textures are baked into the Blend file, so no need to import textures.
