Alternative theory; the Marines heard about the PPsH's trick of dumping a full box mag before the first brass hit the floor, and decided it was easier to do the same by making the magazines much smaller!

My dad had the M55 wire stock Reising on Guadalcanal, when in back line defense of Bloody Ridge and Henderson Field. He only had one malfunction, when the trigger mechanism would not release, and it fired full auto until the mag was empty. He cleaned the firearm and had no other problems. He was PFC Chas W. Lyon 1st Marine Div. , 1st Marine Air Wing, Marine Air Group 14, Service Squadron !4.

They might have only wanted 12 rounds to make counting easier for the Marines.

And the price of Reisings everywhere just went up, and for good reason. Underrated gun. The mag dump at the end demonstrates rather nicely how controllable the gun is. I'd still like to track down one of the aftermarket 30 rounders.

Loved the three round burst slow mo, the 3 cartridges almost spinning in the same tempo, and how nicely you can see the next round being loaded.

5:43 with the three cases spinning in the air is a thing of beauty!

Some of the best slow mo I've ever seen. The dancing group of shells. 5:36 wow

Considering the Marines were stuck with bolt-action Springfields early on in the war, even a semi-auto Reising would be a step up...way up.

Gun Jesus can miss if: -the sights are not zeroed -the gun is not french enough

I love it when Ian does a show about a lesser known WW2 small arm

My grandfather, who was a gun afficanato all his life remembered quite clearly, when he was a Charleston SC police officer the department bought surplus M1 carbines and a few of these in the early 60s. He really liked them as a LE officer.

Love the slo mo of the synchronized spinning brass.

Would be interesting to see this go through a PCC course of fire.

The slow-mo shot with three cases floating through the air was super cool.

Love the slow motion ballet dance of empty cartridge’s in mid air 👍👏!!!!

It's always nice to see someone who knows what they're doing when they fire an automatic weapon. 3-5 round bursts was what I was taught way back when at Parris Island...and today, 39 years later, I still prefer semi-auto... EDIT: This is another rifle I'd love to see someone reproduce as a semi-auto PCC...

When I was first getting into NFA stuff in the mid 90s, several people told me I should get a Reising. I wish I’d listened.

Always appreciated the looks of the Reising when perusing "Small Arms of the World" as a kid, more than sixty years ago. Even modeled one in wood for playing army back then. What a cool gun. Thanks, Ian!

What the construction of the Reising reminds me of, with the simple wood stock and sheet metal bits, is an old Crosman pellet rifle.

Ok, so the slow mo shots of 3 45 cases spinning through the air was a good shot. Love your videos.

I've had a later version Reising since 2001. In the 1942 Marine Corps manual it says: "Note.-- Before moving the selector from "F.A.", retract the action bar about one-fourth inch to allow connector to disengage from the action bar, should it be so engaged." That's probably why you had trouble getting it to "S.A." at the 4:40 mark. They are sweet shooting guns, just fired mine yesterday after watching your first video.

Love the shot at cca. 5:45 with all 3 cases next to each other :)

Definitely love that fun mode. I think if they just had a larger magazine it could've been a real competitor as an SMG.

Quick tip When moving the selector pull back on the charging bar slightly. It will take pressure off of the selector and allow it to move easier

Really impressed with the choreography @5:35 - 5:45 !

That was such consistent ejection and rate of fire, all the empty cases were floating through the air in sync with each other. Very cool firearm.

I had a pile of Christie 30 round mags for mine. 100% reliability and 10 rounds more fun! Mine fed my cast bullet reloads reliably, too.

We had one of these in our armory for some time. It been there so long that no one really knew the story behind how it got there. Got to shot it once before it was finally cut up.😢 We also had a PIAT anti-tank ‘gun’ that some guy turned into the department. That we gave to a company that supplied arms for military movies.

Such a beautiful gun. The bolt and trigger mechanism is so different then others it makes it very unique. Love it.

What a beautiful range. The weather looked perfect as well

The shot with the triple spinning brass was super cool

"A really great semi-auto short-barrelled forty-five carbine" may explain why it was replaced as much by the .30" M1 carbine as other .45" SMGs. On another firearms channel (yes, they do exist) a few years ago, one of these was seen being tried out by several shooters, of various ages. Most of whom obviously wanted it to be a burp-gun, which it clearly wasn't. Then they came to the old guy with a full grey beard (not sure what war he was a veteran of) and he explained that the Reising was _meant_ to be militarily effective in semi-auto and and then he showed what he meant, by scoring more hits, more quickly, than any of the younger men who'd used it in full auto. The reason for the limited magazine capacity and excess friction when feeding double to single stack is simply the diameter of .45" ACP rounds. That's why most SMGs are 9mm (Luger, Mauser, Steyr or Largo) if they are not 7.62mm Tokarev or 7.65mm Longue: you can make a simple 32-rounder that works. The other good point of the Reising is that it has the absolute minimum of sticking out bits which might foul on the undergrowth in any sort of jungle. George McDonald Fraser, author of "Quartered Safe Out Here" absolutely hated being made to carry a Thompson in Burma instead of his No4 Enfield, because when he was carrying the Enfield he always got the _first_ shot off in any encounter and since he tended to hit what he was aiming at, the encounter would end there. He simply couldn't do this in dense undergrowth with the Thompson so when he recaptured an SMLE from Indian deserters he "lost" the Thompson in a river. I think the Reising would actually have suited the way that he and other Black Cat Division soldiers fought, had it been available and if it had proved reliable in the conditions. (Apparently, it took _constant_ cleaning to keep Thompsons working in Burma.)

The slow-mo at 5:33 is awesome!

I need an infinite loop of the shells spinning at 5:42 or so. It's like a loading screen!

tbis is the earliest ive been to one of your videos and i just want to say, ive been watching you for years, i love your content and thank you for teaching us for all these years, keep up the good work :)

I have a late production (1957) Reising M50 and unfortunately mine has required a lot of work to make it run properly. There is an issue where there is no good way to change the barrel and make sure it times correctly and someone must have changed the barrel on mine and it would keep coming loose until I tack welded the barrel to the receiver. The design also has a bunch of parts which wear out or break quickly (the operating rod slams into part of the receiver and eventually the rod cracks). It is also a fairly complex design with multiple levers, springs, and pivot points to implement the semi-auto disconnector as well as the auto-sear. I can definitely see why the military did not like it and also how it can be a great weapon if used in a less demanding environment. I think it could be greatly improved by a few minor design changes.

That look on Ian's face when he hears the truck horn is pure meme material!

Really impressed with how controllable that looks given it’s fire rate seemed pretty considerable. What an interesting weapon.

I see what you mean by the values. This lot (2030; Nov 15-16, 2022) is currently bid to the middle of the $5-6K sale estimate. I somehow think it'll blow past that by the time the auction is finished. Looks like a great "first NFA" gun to buy and shoot.

I love that it's a closed bolt subgun, if used basically in the doctrine of a modern assault rifle with semi auto being prioritized it was a great service weapon for its time. I would just give it a 30 round mag and relocate the charging handle to the side.

12 round magazines for an SMG? USMC’s Procurement Team must have been chewing the good crayons that week.

The gun my grandfather carried in the Army, 82nd Field Artillery in the Battles of Los Negros Island, Leyte Gulf, Manila, and the Flying Column to rescue the POW Camp then on to the Occupation of Japan. Only problem he had was rust so he Shellaced the outside of it. He was smarter than the average military guy making CW4 and being into guns and target competition so maybe thats why he had no trouble

One of the few SMG’s I think would look “normal” with an NFA compliant 16” barrel for easy purchase. Shame there aren’t more and collectors are basically limited to either the M1 Thompson or the M3 Grease gun.

Years ago, I had a choice of buying a Reising or a M10-.45ACP. After shooting both, I bought the Mac. It just had that lethal look to it. Today, I think if I had gotten the Reising, I might shoot it more.

3:11 - lol 5:42 - Wow, the pattern of those cases flying

The Triple Brass Ballet at 5:33 is so freaking satisfying 😌

Enjoy seeing your live fire testing of these various firearms

Thank you , Ian . 🐺

This was (intentional or not for this point) a super good demo of what automatic fire brings to the table. The few rounds fired on semi-auto were some hits, some misses. But there was at least *a* hit with ever burst fired.

When i was in law enforcement in the 80s my dept. had about a dozen of these in the armory, never got to shoot one, sadly they were auctioned off and prices quickly soared out of my range.

I have a model 60 I use in some small comp's. It's semi with a 16" barrel but identical to the M50. The only difference is they cut part of a receiver stud off so a transfer bar can't be mounted. Mine even has the full auto position on the safety/fire lever. They are incredibly accurate and I would sport it for my Tommy or my Valkyrie M3 in terms of accuracy. Also not all marines didn't like them. A lot actually liked them well, they just suffered from things like parts interchangeability. Bolts were typically hand fitted. In fact there are several well published pictures of marines carrying Reising M60's with sawed off barrels in the pacific. Its a very interesting and fun gun to shoot! Mine is the model 60 with US proofs and I have a model 65 .22 trainer with US proofs as well. Haven't shot that yet.

The Code Talker Memorial in Arizona shows a Navajo with a Reising. They were perhaps not front line assault troops, but to issue them Reising fire power indicates the value of these troops to the Marines.

HOLY COW. we have the 22 version, dad grew up shooting groundhogs with it lol! Just got it fixed as our extractor decided to enter orbit.

Let's be honest, we all watched 'til the end for him to do a full mag dump. It was worth it. Great video again.

Always wanted to shoot one of these, kind of looks like what would happen if a Marlin Camp Rifle and a Thompson SMG had offspring🤔

230 grainers at 900-950fps appears to be optimum. About 875rpm. But I’ve found you can significantly adjust the rate of fire by using powders with different burn rates, even without changing the ballistics.

Can we take a minute to appreciate that Ian's videos are always straight to the point. None of the teaser or some "comment, like and subscribe" non-sense.

Camera work has markedly improved over the past few months. Keeping everything centered and focused, and especially the automatic sound adjustment has been better. Gotta pause after shooting before talking. 😂

The 12 rd mag makes sense for the Marines' role for the Reising. In your companion video you note it was for the paramarines, a unit equipped solely with Reisings and Johnson automatic rifles/LMGs. It's likely the riflemen would be issued 12 rd mags and assigned to shoot semi-auto only except in emergency. NCOs would have 20 rd mags. NCOs and Johnsons would fulfill the role of SMGs and BARs. The riflemen would fulfill the role of... rifleman, and 12 rds was more than the Garand's 8 or the 1903's 5. This makes a lot of sense when sustaining a supply of ammo to the unit.

love your detailed descriptions and analyses of these weapons, Ian, not all forgotten 😁 and I especially enjoy the range tests - big difference between talking about it and squeezing the trigger 👊

Mine has never jammed. I usually shoot 230 grain ball. With handloads you can get the rate of fire down to 7-800 vs. 900-1000. Also quite accurate, no problem on semi putting very round on a torso sized target at 200 yards.

Thanks Ian. My Father and I both served as Sentries for a time and it's nice to see you firing the weapon he carried. It seems like not a bad little gun - and - for a lot of things like Base Security and Law Enforcement - it's not that bad. One of the things here - is that a .45 ACP - isn't going to go through a lot of structure and kill people you don't want to kill on the other side. I can well understand how the Marines on Guadalcanal felt though ... Say what you will about the M-14 but it was a good reliable weapon - and I liked it. I served in '70 and '71 and every Marine I knew - and myself - despised the M-16s we were given. I was first acquainted with the M-16 in High School when they brought one in and gave us a class on it. I remember it had the plastic, bipod that worked like a clothes pin to clamp around the barrel. They actually told us that the weapon was "self cleaning" ... if you can believe that .... So - I have some idea how the guys equipped with Reisings on Guadalcanal felt ... though - ironically, with both my Father and I doing Base Security - a Reising would have been fine for us. And - one thing about a 12 round magazine - is - it would hold more than the 1911's I carried on some posts. .

Have you ever heard of or done a video about Carlos Hathcock, the guy that used a M2 Browning (modified) to snipe with? He has the 7th longest confirmed kill shot (2286m) with it. This was during Vietnam.

I will have to say that 12-round of semi-auto and a box mag replacement, in close quarters combat, is a better option than a 5-round longer ranged bolt-action with a clip reload. All it's missing is a bayonet.

no THANK YOU ian for showing us an incredible piece of history, it in action and some target shooting really incredible

Unfortunate as the glossy finish may be, it does look pretty nice.

With the aftermarket 30 round mags this would be fun. Pity they ain't still 300 bucks like in the 70s.

I like it. The wood furniture on a subgun is such a contradiction in terms to modern "tacti-cool" full auto submachine guns that they have their own distinctive beauty to them. Besides that, hearing "God's Caliber" go Full auto is very satisfying.

Ian should take the Reising to a two gun match! The "Maybe the truck disagrees with me". line made me smile.

I know I'm not watch a Cutting Edge Engineering out of Australia video, there'd be a 'F*ck off train!' after the horn 😅

Anyone else experience the optical illusion with that tree where it appears to be a a giant tree growing above the forest into the clouds, but really its a half dead tree that's actually closer?

In the slo mo you can see a little bit of a spark blowing back from the barrel to the ejection port.

I used this gun in Enlisted for my medic squad. Its a decent gun for players and AI. I was surprised where the position of the charging handle was on the M50 Reisings. 😏

Awesome video! Btw, the U.S. Coast Guard also used M50 in WWII.

It's wild that many modern pistols, like the glock 21, have higher capacity than those later marine magazines.

Ian: "It doesn't climb that much" ... Truck: "HOOONK!!! NO, IT CLIMBS!!!" x'DD

The camera work on the slow-motion side-shots is fantastic!

5:42 love how the fired casings seem to all line up in the same orientation there.

"Perhaps the truck disagrees with me" We love you Ian

Ever since that SIG submachine gun (HKPS or something like that?), I've started to expect a full-magazine shooting at the end of automatic gun videos. It's just fun to watch.

The Reising's look, especially with the M50's wood stock, reminds me of a gun you'd see in the game Foxhole. It's got that interwar look about it. Would love to see what Ian thinks of the models of fictional guns from that game ;-)

I just learned the existence of this weapon. Thx Ian!

5:43 synchronicity.

While Wyatt Earp was speaking of revolvers, other handguns, rifles, and other personal weapons in use in the last third of the 19th Century said, "Fast is fine, accuracy is final!". Earp's words are still true today. The need for full Automatic fire in the primary infantry weapon is more in the planner's mind than the soldier carrying the ammo. Had bugs been worked out of the Reising sub-machine gun, it would have seen much more use. I know of no other use of its delay system. The delay system deserves to be explored in higher-powered cartridges. An inexpensive delayed blowback action for 9x19mm, 10mm, 30 Supper-Carry, and possibly 357 Magnum with a fixed would be a valuable firearm.

My uncle Bill was with the 1st Marines on the Canal. Chesty Puller had these in his command dumped in the Ocean...

It still looks quite neat!

The slow motion was really interesting to see the muzzle device influence on the gas leaving the barrel

Ian, the last Mag Dump didn't hit Steel, but it doesn't mean the enemy would've been safe if they were near your point of aim.👍😄😄😄

Ruger makes a modern semi-auto pistol caliber carbine, and now I can see where they got the inspiration. It's a straight blowback design that uses a tungsten weight to increase bolt mass, but it works pretty darned well. Doesn't have a "fun switch", of course, nor the charm of a classic like the Reising, though.

I like how the small magazine that was designed for “better reliability” had the problems.

My dad has the model 60 and it's a very nice shooting rifle. He calls it his burglar gun. 👍

Just look at the slowmo at 5:42 - three ejected cases pirouetting in perfect formation! I think Ian just invented cartridge case ballet. :)

A part of me wonders whether this would've been a better replacement, not for the Thompson, but for the M1 Carbine. Think about it: the Reising has a similar capacity to the carbine, is actually controllable on automatic fire, and doesn't introduce a completely new and exclusive to it caliber the way the Carbine does. .45 ACP will have less effective range than .30 Carbine but the whole point of the M1 Carbine was as a support weapon for auxiliary troops, not as a frontline weapon, so that lowered lethality isn't as big a factor, and with that in mind, simplifying logistics by removing .30 Carbine entirely certainly seems like it would've been a sensible move.

i have lived so close to Morphys and never knew! and youre there often! pretty dang neat

Thanks to Ian for making me appreciate guns that look like this - I assumed all good SMGs looked like Sten's or MP41'...

Hi, I just love your level of research. Many thanks & kind regards.

Hardly any muzzle climb' look's like a sweet little Carbine, and hard hitting heavy slug! Also I like the extended mag well, it would be nice if they did that on the M1 Carbine...

You can almost hear the clicking sound unique to almost every video of Reising firing in full auto

I was waiting the moment you gonna say 'Kachunk' 😄 and I finally said it at the exact same moment as you ! That made my day 🤣

If only parts interchangeability was taken into consideration, but that's war. 12 round semi auto with pistol cartridge is still deadly to a 5 round bolt action rifle cartridge at close range.