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Quoted: The M 16 View Quote |
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The INSAS, and it's not even close. The L85 gets an honorable mention, but it is an AR-15 compared to that piece of shit.
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I thought the magazines were shit in all calibers, what with the cutout in the side so you could see how many rounds remained plus pack it full of mud in the trenches. Did they not all have that "feature"? View Quote the entirely exposed side of the Lewis drum being an issue in the same manner as the Chauchat? The cut outs on the side of the Chauchat magazine served to help load the magazine. If you have ever actually loaded or fired a Chauchat you know you have to pull the spring down as you insert the cartridges. It was common practice to download the mags from 20 to 18 rounds. They insert easily and as long as the feed lips are not deformed feed fine. Were the mags perfect? No, but the gun was much more important than most realize. The French would have been in dire straights without it, and it gave them a much more mobile automatic weapon than any other country had. The main problem the Chauchat had was when fired too long on full automatic. But it was not a LMG it was an automatic rifle. |
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Are you forgetting the Krag Jorgensen? Single load rounds into a side mounted magazine when the rest of the world had already adopted stripper clips, and only one locking lug which limited the power of the ammo.
Even it's inventors were surprised we adopted it. |
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M1941 Johnson, at least that is what my Uncle told me. He carried one as a ParaMarine during WWII. He ditched his as soon as he could steal a M-1 from the Army.
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For US Troops it’s the 30/40 Krag not only does it have the shortest service life for US issued rifles it was obsolete before it ever went into service.
Personal opinions aside historical facts are hard to ignore. |
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Yup, it's problem was it was a battle rifle put into service when everyone was looking at intermediate cartridge stamped steel or lightweight material assault rifles that could be fired F/A with reasonable control and allowed the soldier to carry more ammo.
While it did have development issues, mostly due to the fact that it was complicated to machine and some machines that had made Garand parts didn't work out quite as intended when M14 designed parts were made, it was more reliable weapon then the Garand and was self regulating so ammunition pressures didn't cause breakages like the Garand could. If it had come out 20 years earlier, it would have been hailed as the greatest battle rifle in the world. The other part.........if it had been made in a smaller caliber, it would have been far more useful for more then semi auto fire. It still has some of the best iron sights out there on a military rifle. |
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For US Troops it’s the 30/40 Krag not only does it have the shortest service life for US issued rifles it was obsolete before it ever went into service. Personal opinions aside historical facts are hard to ignore. View Quote of US Army ordnance who were typically behind the times with stupid ideas. US troops are lucky they were not stuck with it in the trenches in 1917. |
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Are you forgetting the Krag Jorgensen? Single load rounds into a side mounted magazine when the rest of the world had already adopted stripper clips, and only one locking lug which limited the power of the ammo. Even it's inventors were surprised we adopted it. View Quote Also the Krag is not single load. It is dump load. Meaning you can dump a handful of rounds into the magazine. |
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I am amused by the hate for the M14 because “7.62 in full auto LOL,” yet nobody mentions the G3 or FAL in the same breath.
I would nominate the original M16 before the A1 mods. |
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This is true if counting special purpose firearms however it was not a “general issue” combat rifle View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Chau-chat automatic rifle. also were awarded a surprising number of decorations for deeds performed on the battlefield. It was issued in a variety of calibers. It was the American issued .30-'06 guns which incorrectly cut chambers which gave them a bad reputation. In 1915 they were actually a decent gun ahead of their time. |
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The Chauchat saw more heavy combat and was fielded far longer than most here realize. Chauchat gunners also were awarded a surprising number of decorations for deeds performed on the battlefield. It was issued in a variety of calibers. It was the American issued .30-'06 guns which incorrectly cut chambers which gave them a bad reputation. In 1915 they were actually a decent gun ahead of their time. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Chau-chat automatic rifle. also were awarded a surprising number of decorations for deeds performed on the battlefield. It was issued in a variety of calibers. It was the American issued .30-'06 guns which incorrectly cut chambers which gave them a bad reputation. In 1915 they were actually a decent gun ahead of their time. |
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Quoted: That rifle has a lot of WTF going on with it. I've seen it a number of times when I've been in India. It looks like the designers copied a lot of random parts of a lot of rifles and made something that didn't look to do anything any better than any of the rifles they copied. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MSBvE372A3I/maxresdefault.jpg View Quote |
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AMD-65
I'm a big fan of AKs but the AMD-65 is a piece of shit. I own two of them and they ran great, the 2-3 times I've fired them in 10 years of ownership, but the actual military version is junk. There's no cheek weld at all and the unmodified gas system doesn't work well with the short barrel and one or two mag dumps in full auto is enough to burn your fingers on the metal handguard. |
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Rifles are debatable with some (dis) honorable mentions already mentioned, but I think we can all agree that the worst service pistol issued to any army in the history of earth will all agree that the Type 94 Nambu is the pistol deserving of that dubious honor.
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I've read the M14 is what the M1 should have been.
I carried a MK14 Mod0 for a while. I wasn't really impressed. Based on training I'd done in my civilian job, I figured it would be better than an M4 against cars, and we were often on foot away from our vehicle-mounted belt-feds. The M-14 was definitely not the worst. It was better than the SA-80, for sure. I fired it a few times. |
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For those saying M14.........your only half right, the rifle itself is not garbage............far from it. It may be the best semi-auto rifle ever built.................using 1930's technology and mindset. However, it WAS obsolete before it ever was issued. And the fiasco that was the testing and procurement process for it was perhaps one of the biggest cluster fucks in US small arms history. The M14 should have been adopted in late WW2, when the then War Dept. had already recognized the Garand needed some "improvements" to keep pace with how rapidly military technology was progressing throughout the war. Why they basically ignored the STG44 concept post war for another decade or more, especially given the combat exp. gained in WW2 is/was border line criminal. BTW....I own an M1A and love it. But I am not such a homer, I can't see the forest for the trees. View Quote |
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I've read the M14 is what the M1 should have been. I carried a MK14 Mod0 for a while. I wasn't really impressed. Based on training I'd done in my civilian job, I figured it would be better than an M4 against cars, and we were often on foot away from our vehicle-mounted belt-feds. The M-14 was definitely not the worst. It was better than the SA-80, for sure. I fired it a few times. View Quote |
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Ian Hogg (RIP) warned that revisionists would claim the Chauchat was actually one of the greatest guns ever.
The M9 seems to be loved by people who use them in a civilian environment, where the round counts aren't high, the mags are made by Beretta, and there's no sand. A Glock or a Makarov make more sense in terms of how easy they are to detail strip. The Makarov actually has the same mechanism as the M9 in terms of the decocker/safety except the design is so simple you can grab a fully assembled gun and within 10 seconds have in your hand the safety, the firing pin, and the extractor. I think the Krag was thrown under the bus to mask the awful tactics used at the Battle of San Juan Hill. "We didn't get shot up because we were dumb, it was because their bolt action rifle was so much better than our bolt action rifle." Yeah right. A soldier in Vietnam was asked to provide feedback on the M14. He said he wanted a less "buxom" rifle. What he really meant was "bucksome." |
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Rifles are debatable with some (dis) honorable mentions already mentioned, but I think we can all agree that the worst service pistol issued to any army in the history of earth will all agree that the Type 94 Nambu is the pistol deserving of that dubious honor. View Quote |
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For those saying M14.........your only half right, the rifle itself is not garbage............far from it. It may be the best semi-auto rifle ever built.................using 1930's technology and mindset. However, it WAS obsolete before it ever was issued. And the fiasco that was the testing and procurement process for it was perhaps one of the biggest cluster fucks in US small arms history. The M14 should have been adopted in late WW2, when the then War Dept. had already recognized the Garand needed some "improvements" to keep pace with how rapidly military technology was progressing throughout the war. Why they basically ignored the STG44 concept post war for another decade or more, especially given the combat exp. gained in WW2 is/was border line criminal. BTW....I own an M1A and love it. But I am not such a homer, I can't see the forest for the trees. View Quote |
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G41 for Wehrmacht were pretty terrible.
Late war Arisaka were ridiculously rough. Terrible battle sight on the M1903 made it suck. L85A1 takes the cake. Cool concept, horrible execution. |
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Chauchat ETA: 1873 Springfield View Quote The trapdoor decision wasn't all that bad when you consider the real threats to the US were wars with foreign countries. At the time, those countries also mainly used single shot rifles. The Native Americans didn't pose that big of a threat to the country in comparison. With that being said, trapdoor was a very poor choice for the Indian wars. Repeaters would've been the much better choice, but I personally feel that Custer still would've lost due to the huge number of natives and the inactions of Reno and Benteen. |
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Are you forgetting the Krag Jorgensen? Single load rounds into a side mounted magazine when the rest of the world had already adopted stripper clips, and only one locking lug which limited the power of the ammo. Even it's inventors were surprised we adopted it. View Quote |
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WW1 Canadian Ross 303 was pretty bad, had a bolt that could be assembled incorrectly and would fire unlocked View Quote One of the documentaries had some footage that made me laugh. During a lull in the fighting a group of Canadian soldiers were making their way through the mud and one of them just throws his rifle away. He tossed it into the mud and kept walking. Other footage showed them struggling to cycle the bolt between shots, but I suspect the mud had a lot to do with that. |
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Quoted: Yup, it's problem was it was a battle rifle put into service when everyone was looking at intermediate cartridge stamped steel or lightweight material assault rifles that could be fired F/A with reasonable control and allowed the soldier to carry more ammo. While it did have development issues, mostly due to the fact that it was complicated to machine and some machines that had made Garand parts didn't work out quite as intended when M14 designed parts were made, it was more reliable weapon then the Garand and was self regulating so ammunition pressures didn't cause breakages like the Garand could. If it had come out 20 years earlier, it would have been hailed as the greatest battle rifle in the world. The other part.........if it had been made in a smaller caliber, it would have been far more useful for more then semi auto fire. It still has some of the best iron sights out there on a military rifle. View Quote |
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Rifles are debatable with some (dis) honorable mentions already mentioned, but I think we can all agree that the worst service pistol issued to any army in the history of earth will all agree that the Type 94 Nambu is the pistol deserving of that dubious honor. View Quote |
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M-14 ties with every bullpup. Slight edge to the M-14 being better because at least from everything I've red it was reliable and didn't have to go through a lot of revisions to work well, unlike a lot of bullpups. Notice how bullpups rose during the relatively peaceful era of the cold war. Yet as soon as the rifles were put to the test in the GWOT, many of the short comings were exposed. You might over it, but the observable evidence is that people who shoot people for a living don't use them if they don't have to, because they're not good at getting the job done. |
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Not even then, Pre ww1 it was known that .30 caliber rounds and such were excessively large and wasteful since most round fired hit dirt, and that lighter, smaller rounds were better. Even the Garand in the 30's wasn't designed as a .30 cal gun.
The M-14 would have been a fine weapon for the 1910's and 20's. |
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I don't think so..... The Krag was comparable to other rifles of the era. Lee Metford, Lebel Model 1886, Model 1889/1891 Mauser, Kropatschek Model 1886, Gewehr 1888, etc... The .30-40 Krag was a very capable load of the period and had no problem putting people down. But at the time period, firearms were advancing at a hugely rapid pace. The entire world adopted modern smokeless repeaters in the 1880s and 1890s and by the first decade of the 1900s they were all outdated and outclassed. But that was because the huge advances occurring with ammunition, powders, and manufacturing. Germany replaced the Gew 1888 with the Gew 1898. The UK replaced the Lee Metford with Lee-Enfields and later the SMLE. France was in the process of replacing the Lebel with the Berthier. The US Army at the time was not an expeditionary force in the modern sense of the word. It was a Frontier Army meant to fight the natives and keep the bandits away. Our entire mindset was around the Cowboy and Wild West. Not the trenches and forests of Europe. The Krag served well in the Span-Am, Boxer Rebellion, and Philippine Insurrection. The M1903 in my opinion was fine except for the damn target sights. That design was on the Krag and later ditched. The M1902 sights are far superior than the M1901 sights and the same sights that went to the M1903. http://www.kragcollectorsassociation.org/kca/Photos/riflesights.JPG View Quote The US Army Model 1892 "Krag" rifle featured an outdated feed mechanism at the time of its adoption. En bloc clips had been in use since the mid 1880s and Mauser introduced his stripper clip in 1891. of the Triple Entente The Russian Mosin 1891 featured rapid reloading by 5-shot clips The French M1890 Berthier featured an en bloc 3-shot clip and later a 5-shot clip, although it was never intended as a replacement for the M1886 R93 Lebel as you suggest. The British M1888 Lee-Metford was upgraded to be rapidly reloaded with 5-shot chargers before being replaced in 1895 by the Lee Enfield Of the Central Powers Germany at this time period had their M1888 8mm rifle which could be quickly reloaded using a 5-shot en bloc clip Austria had the M1888 rifle and M1890 carbine which both fed from en bloc clips The Italians had their 6.5mm M1891 which featured 6-shot en bloc clips. So, of all these rifles adopted at this same period in time only the US Army's pick lacked a way to rapidly reload it. NO other country in this time period fielded a rifle which could not be reloaded rapidly by either stripper clip or en bloc. The two chief complaints by troops fielding them in combat? Slow to reload and poor exterior ballistics. Yes, the .30 US Gov cartridge was effective, but you had to be able to hit them with it. The .30 US Gov cartridge was never improved to any real degree. When it was replaced by the .30-'06 M1906 load, this load proved to have issues of its own such as over 1,000 yards less useful range when fired from MGs then the 8mm Lebel, which was the standard issue to US troops in World War I. The M1906 load was subsequently replaced after the war. The Krag was an improvement over the M1873 rifle, yes. But the writing was clearly on the wall starting in the 1880s that loading by individual rounds was passe. All the rifles adopted at the same time as the M1892 Krag featured modern methods for rapid reloading. US troops paid the price when facing M1893 Mauser rifles. |
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