Your correct in your statement, Vietnam seemed to be pretty diverse when it came to Sniper specific rifles, some were military issue, others civilian models, and you’ll even see 03A3’s, or M1C’s around. Depends on time, place, and unit.

Hi. Served in USN, 1972-1999. The marking should actually be, “REP 3”. Which is “Repair Locker, #3”. Don’t worry about it having an “F” instead of “E”. Most likely, the “E” from the stencil set was broken or lost. Very common occurrence and we would just “Make Do”. Repair 3 was the repair locker that was designated for “Main Spaces”, (Fire/Boiler Rooms and Engine Rooms), although, it could respond to any damage. Yes, Damage Control helmets were painted Red. The helmet would have been kept in the repair locker, and tossed to whoever was standing at the locker door. ALL, Navy helmets are “Built up”, “pieced together”, however you want to phrase it. As they age, old helmets would be  canilbelized  and good parts used to repair other helmets. Ship board helmets were not issued to individuals. They were assigned to battle stations, and just grabbed by whoever got there first. Often though, guys would get a helmet, get it sized to fit, all fixed up with good parts and put their names on them, so they could get the same one each time. This was really determined by the station. I was a Signalman, all our gear was kept in the signal shack, out of the weather. Each man had his own set of gear, that we put our names on. Most stations didn’t do that. People rotated in and out of the stations often, so marking stuff didn’t really work. 

Nice. I didn’t even know these existed. Is the liner married to the pot? Or did it all come like that.

Realizing I had …Matching ascots with 304th Sig embroidery on white and orange ascots from an estate sale I attended years ago

Nice! The wall/fence looks great! How’d you scratch build it?

I'll try to get one.

I never quite figured out who made this patch? Was it 60s-70s? Thx S

Just came upon this site because of these artifacts. My grandfather kept a bunch of railsplitter paraphernalia from his days serving as an artilleryman. Are you still running the historical duties? It's been a few years. 

Beautiful work!!    ..Kat

. Hi mikie,   So pleased that you asked this question as I was able today to give you an example of the reproduction packaging, ( you owe me 13 euros ) ,  so one of the Jeep dealers this morning had original and reproduction parts, an original Purolater filter package containing the filter element in waterproof cosmolin wrapper was 13 euros and the copy was 24.50 euros, the copy carton emulated the original but there are differences in the quality of the cardboard etc.        Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 05   2O25.    ….