#conarc

The Springfield SCHV Infantry Rifle

In 1957 Willard G. Wyman, Commanding General of Continental Army Command (CONARC), began a programme exploring the small calibre, high velocity (SCHV) rifle concept. Wyman invited both ArmaLite and Winchester to develop SCHV rifles in .22 calibre. The result of these efforts was the ArmaLite’s AR-15 won out over Winchester’s Light Weight Military Rifle. While the CONARC effort didn’t directly lead to the adoption of the AR-15 it aided its later adoption.

ArmaLite and Winchester, however, weren’t the only organisations working on a SCHV rifle. The Ordnance Corps’ own Springfield Armory also developed a short-lived SCHV design, the ‘Caliber .224 Springfield Infantry Rifle’. Springfield’s rifle was based on a .22 calibre cartridge designed by Earle Harvey in early 1957. Harvey, the designer of the T25/T47 series of rifles, based his round (just as Eugene Stoner based his) on the commercial .222 Remington round but developed a cartridge with a 47mm long case and used a 55-grain FMJ projectile. The rifle itself took cues from other Springfield designed weapons but Albert J. Lizza and his team went with rotating bolt but used a gas system similar to the M14s. Lizza was subsequently granted two patents for work on the rifle, one for the rotating bolt and another for its disassembly system.

Springfield Armory photograph of the Springfield Infantry Rifle disassembled, published in Black Rifle - Ezell & Stevens 

Only one prototype was completed by mid-1957 and the project was cancelled by the Ordnance Corps, who favoured the M14 and the 7.62x51mm cartridge, feared that a SCHV rifle developed by a government agency would add legitimacy to General Wyman and CONARC’s burgeoning .22 calibre project. While the rifle was subsequently abandoned Remington asked Harvey if they could put the round into commercial production, the result was .222 Remington Magnum.

Sources:

The Black Rifle: M16 Retrospective, E.C. Ezell & R. Blake Stevens (1987)

US Patents #2920538 (1958) & #2912781 (1957),  Albert J. Lizza. 

Springfield Armory Database Entry on ‘T25 .224′ (source)