By 1944, U.S. troops had been adequately armed with the M1 Garand, which had proven to be an excellent and reliable combat rifle. Efforts were then turned to transforming some of these rifles into sniper rifles - and the M1C was born. Since the Garand is a top eject semi-auto rifle, a mount was devised that off-set a scope enough to the left side of the receiver to allow empty cartridge cases to clear without hitting the scope. There were two versions of M1C scopes - the M82 with a tapered post reticle, and the M81 with a cross-wire reticle.