BARREL LENGTH – 27.9 cm (11 in), 35.2 cm (13.88 in) with compensator
RIFLING (TYPE & TWIST) – 6 Groove, Right hand twist, 1 turn in 41 cm (16 in)
BULLET DIAMETER – 11.46 mm (0.451 in)
BULLET WEIGHT – 15 g (230 gr)
MUZZLE VELOCITY – 280.4 m/s (920 fps)
MUZZLE ENERGY – 586 j (432 ft/lbs)
WEIGHT (EMPTY) – 3.27 kg (7 lbs 3.5 oz)
WEIGHT (LOADED) – 3.91 kg (8 lbs 10 oz) with 20 round magazine
SIGHTS – Front sight – blade, Rear sight Tangent aperture, adjustable from 50 to 300 yds in 50 (50 t0 100) and then 100 yd increments
EFFECTIVE RANGE – 183 m (200 yds)
OPERATION – Retarded blowback, fires on closed bolt
TYPE OF FIRE – Selective fire, Semi and Full automatic.
RATE OF FIRE – 40 rpm (Semi), 80 rpm (Full)
CYCLIC ROF – 500 rpm
FEED DEVICE – 20 round box magazine, double column, single feed, 12 round box magazine, single column, single feed
FEED DEVICE WEIGHT (EMPTY) – 12 round 0.17 kg (6 oz), 20 round 0.21 kg (7.4 oz)
FEED DEVICE WEIGHT (LOADED) – 12 round 0.43 kg (15.2 oz), 20 round 0.64 kg (1 lb 6.4 oz)
BASIC LOAD – 5 – 20 round magazines (100 rounds)
LOAD WT – 3.2 kg (7 lbs 0.9 oz)
MANUFACTURER – Harrington and Richardson (H&R) Arms Co., Worchester, Mass.
STATUS – Obsolescent
SERVICE – Limited military service with US Marines, then Navy and Coast Guard, Small number purchased by British Government, issue to Canadians and Soviet Lend-lease. some law enforcement use
Eugene Reising had considerable experience with the .45 ACP round, having been an assistant to John Browning in the early 1900s and helped design the pistol that would be adopted as the M1911. In 1938, his interest turned to submachineguns and worked on designing a weapon that would be accurate as well as inexpensive to produce. Having received a patent on his design in 1940, Reising took his prototype to the Harrington and Richardson Arms Company and they bought the rights to the weapon. In March, 1941 the first of what would be thousands of Reising Model 50s was produced.
The weapon was tested by the Army at Fort Benning, Georgia in July, 1941 and a number of weaknesses were noted. After modifications, the weapon was again tested in November, 1941, just a month before Pearl Harbor was attached and the U.S. entered into World War II. The weapon was found to be lighter that the weapon is was being compared to, the M1928A1 Thompson. The recoil was light and the Reising accurate, more so that the Thompson, when fired on semiautomatic. The weight of the weapon, as well as the layout of the stock, went against it on automatic fire. In bursts of four rounds or more, the Reising was found to rise up and off target very easily.
The basic action of the Reising was a retarded blowback. There was a curved notch in the upper inside of the receiver that the rear of the bolt would rise up into when it went into battery. The “locking” shoulder of the bolt also had a radius machined into it that matched the curved notch in the receiver. This notch and shoulder arrangement retarded the opening of the bolt when the weapon was fired. When the bolt overcame the resistance, it operated in a straight blowback manner.
Additionally, the bolt fired from the closed position, one of the first submachineguns to operated as such. This is what helped give the Reising such accuracy when fired on semiautomatic. The weapon fired from a sliding hammer that was released when the trigger was pulled. The operating handle to cock the weapon was in an unusual position, being up under the forestock. The cocking handle would be pulled back by finger pressure from the operator, though it was found the sling could get in the way of quick operation. The Reising was fairly complex and difficult to field strip, a number of small parts being susceptible to loss in the field. But it was inexpensive, costing less than a third of what a Thompson M1928A1 did. And it could be made in numbers.
With the United States at war within a month of the testing, weapons were in high demand. Production of the Thompson submachinegun were taken up by the Army. The Reising answered the needs of the Navy and especially the Marine Corps who purchased the weapon in quantity. It was when the weapon entered combat at Guadalcanal along with use by the Marine Raiders and Paramarines on reconnaissance missions that real weaknesses in the design stood out. The Reising had to be kept clean, very clean, something extremely hard to do on the beaches and in the jungles of Pacific islands. The weapon developed a terrible reputation for dependability. Kept clean, the weapon was fine. In combat, it failed very badly. Issue of the Reising was quickly relegated to shipboard use in the Navy and shore use by the Coast Guard in maintaining watch on US beaches.
The basic accuracy of the weapon made it appealing to Law Enforcement in the United States. The weapon remained in police inventories for decades following World War II.
