Post-war
After the war, the semi-automatic concept started to gain currency in the Army. By the late 1920s several experiments with completely different rifles from the Springfield M1903 which were designed from the outset to be semi-automatic were underway, including a Pedersen rifle firing a new .276 (7 mm) rifle cartridge. John C. Garand adapted his rifle, originally developed for .30-06 to the new .276 cartridge. After the .276 Garand rifle was selected over the Pedersen rifle, General Douglas MacArthur came out against changing rifle cartridges since the .30-06 would have to be retained for machine gun use and one cartridge simplified wartime logistics. Garand reverted his design back to the standard .30-06 Springfield cartridge in 1932; the result became the M1 Garand.
The Pedersen device was declared surplus in 1931, five years before the Garand had even started serial production. Mark I rifles were altered to M1903 standard (except for a curious ejection slot that remained in the receiver side wall) and were used alongside standard M1903 and M1903A1 Springfields. Nearly all of the stored devices were destroyed by the Army except for a few Ordnance Department examples, when it was decided they did not want to pay the cost of storing. They were burned in a large bonfire, though some were taken during the process. Following their destruction, noted writer Julian Hatcher wrote an authoritative article for the May 1932 issue of American Rifleman magazine describing the device in detail.
Read more about this topic: Pedersen Device
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