Sunday Gun Day Vol. III Ep. XXXV - Teddy Roosevelt's Maxim-Silenced Rifles

So, it’s a trifle surprising to learn that, with some of his favorite rifles, he preferred to walk on the quiet side.

The Suppressors

Now, Teddy was a guy who liked to hunt; some modern outdoorsmen have been known to state that they love nature in a cool Teddy Roosevelt way, not a liberal, Subaru-driving kind of way. And hunting often requires a measure of stealth; also, in those wonderful years before the 1934 National Firearms Act, suppressors were easily available, as they are in places like Europe even today, and they were often sold for the same reason they are often used across the Atlantic – to avoid annoying the neighbors with gunshots.

In the days Teddy was around, there was really only one name in firearms suppressors, and it’s a name better known for machine guns: Hiram Maxim. But this isn’t the Hiram Stevens Maxim of the machine gun that we are dealing with now, but his son,  Hiram Percy Maxim. The good people at Forgotten Weapons have already described the Maxim suppressor as well as I could possibly do:

The Maxim Silencer was the first commercially successful firearm sound suppressor. Developed by Hiram Percy Maxim (son of Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, who invented the Maxim machine gun) in tandem with the automobile muffler in the early 1900s, it was patented in 1909. The Maxim design was different than modern suppressors, as it used curved vanes to force muzzle gasses to spin in little vortices inside the device while they cooled, thus reducing their pressure. This design is expensive to manufacture and causes the silencer to heat up quickly. Modern designs use baffles to slow down gasses without absorbing too much heat.

Another feature of Maxim’s silencer was it’s off-center attachment to a rifle barrel. By placing the centerline of the suppressor below the muzzle of the firearm, stock iron sights on the weapon could still be used (concentric suppressors typically block the view through the sights).

This was the device that came to the attention of the great Teddy.

The Guns

It appears that Teddy’s first suppressed rifle was a takedown Model 1894 Winchester in .30 WCF, which Teddy used for pest control around his Sagamore Hill estate. His neighbors were people like the Vanderbilts, so to avoid annoying them, in a display of good manners, Teddy affixed a Maxim suppressor (Maxim and Teddy both apparently used the term “silencer,” but I will continue to use the modern appellation) to the rifle. The website rarewinchesters.com documents Teddy’s fondness for the rifle, for Winchesters in general, and for the Maxim suppressor:

Whenever Winchester introduced a new model, Roosevelt was quick to put it through its paces. He acquired an 1894 similar to all his other rifles in extras and embellishments and used it on an antelope hunt. His "little .30" as he called it, was able to knock down a good sized antelope at a distance of more than 180 yds. After witnessing the fantastic shot and the irrefutable and immediate results, his guide said that the gun was just "aces" in his book. He also used a Model 94 outfitted with a Maxim silencer at his Long Island home "Sagamore Hill" so as not to disturb neighbors when varmints were in need of culling

Later, on an African safari in 1910, Teddy took along two other weapons with Maxim suppressors: the manifest for Teddy’s rather extensive luggage lists the two:

• 1 U.S. Magazine rifle, 1 1908 (sic), #352379, fitted with illuminated sights.
• 1 Telescopic sight for above.
• 1 Maxim silencer.

And the other:

• 1 M’95 405 rifle, fitted with illuminated sights.
• A Maxim silencer for above.

The U.S. Magazine rifle, which was listed along with 200 “.30 Govt. Cartridges, 1906,” may have been a typo; it was, presumably, a 1903 Springfield rifle, as Teddy was known to have at least one example of this arm.

Later, one of Teddy’s aides, William Loeb, described Roosevelt’s rifles:

“And so on the 27th of February Loeb let Winchester know they would be receiving “from General Crozier [US. Army Ordnance] a Springfield rifle and a 405 Winchester rifle, both fitted with Maxim’s silencers, and one of them with an arrangement for shooting at night, together with 200 Springfield cartridges. Please add to these 100 cartridges for the 405 Winchester and the cleaning apparatus, with oil, and have them put in a case that will enable the President to use them on the steamer…”

Teddy, again demonstrating uncommonly good manners, clearly didn’t want to disturb the other passengers on the ship to Africa. But going that long without shooting guns just clearly wasn’t going to do, so the Maxim devices were put into play.

It’s unclear what effect the Maxim devices had on these rifles. A rifle firing a round at over the speed of sound, which is about 1,125 feet per second, will still make quite a loud crack when fired, due to the supersonic shock wave from the bullet. The standard, original .30-06, 150-grain load was launching its pills at about 2,700 feet per second, while the .405 Winchester in Teddy’s famous “Big Medicine” launched a 400-grain slug at a respectable 1,900 feet per second. And the .30-30 in Teddy’s Sagamore Hill pest control rifle even managed a 2,200 feet per second with the usual 170-grain load. But the Maxims are reported to have been effective, and even in a rifle with a full-up, high-velocity round, the sound is still considerably dampened; I recently had occasion to fire a .308 Winchester AR-10 with a modern suppressor fitted, and it made a considerable difference in both sound and, amazingly, recoil.

President Teddy Roosevelt was a remarkable guy. Modern conservatives might have some differences with him on politics, as the Republican Party then was somewhat different than now, but none of us would question his fortitude, his guts, his courage, determination, or any of his other manly qualities. His use of the Maxim suppressors may be the only instance in which the Hurricane Who Walked Like a Man chose to dampen his robust presence back, even a little bit.