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Re the destruction of the Pedersen Devices, as opposed to their being sold through the then DCM, that strikes me as something of a surprise, given that small arms deemed surplus to needs had, for many years, been offered for sale. As for "storage costs", I wonder what they might have amounted to anyhow.
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Purely conjecture on my part here, but maybe destroying them rather than selling them was related to their former classified status as a "secret weapon." The US was moving towards a semi-automatic infantry rifle at the time, but bolt actions were still the rule among all our potential enemies and rivals. Perhaps they destroyed them simply to keep the idea under wraps...though the device performed so poorly in real life that an enemy having it could have made no difference.