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The trapdoor wasn't all that great but it wasn't all that bad either. A study of the Little Bighorn battlefield found that only 2% of the recovered trapdoors had stuck casings. The early M16's were much worse for stuck casings in Vietnam. 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. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Chauchat ETA: 1873 Springfield 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. You mentioned 2% of recovered weapons. Since the Indians owned the field after the battle I assume they took most of the weapons found, whether functioning or not so it may skew things. Also the Winchester, Henry and other lever repeaters fired basically a glorified pistol cartridge with insufficient military range which was probably why they were not adopted at the time. They were fine in close up horse mounted battles, but not for firing from the top of a distant hill into an Indian camp. I hope to find a decent priced repro 1873 Trapdoor carbine someday. It would be awesome to fire one of those. |
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Ian Hogg (RIP) warned that revisionists would claim the Chauchat was actually one of the greatest guns ever. View Quote No one is saying the Chauchat was a GREAT design. If you have ever had "Chauchat face" you know its not great. However, in 1915 it offered something very unique, an easy to manufacture design using modern rather than traditional manufacturing techniques. Its method of manufacture allowed it to be the most mass produced automatic weapon of the war. It was much lighter and handier than a Lewis gun or really anything else out there. It could be used as a 20 shot semi-automatic rifle, which is something largely ignored. Think about having a 20 shot semi-auto rifle in a world of 5-shot bolt guns. It could also be fired on full auto with a low rate of fire of about 450 rpm. The gun did have some bad qualities, such as the truly dreadful bipod which is just wretched, the uncomfortable firing position, the heavy trigger. Plus as expected it would overheat if pushed on full automatic. While not a great design it was the right design for 1915 France... |
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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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Accurate, robust, and reliable. Quality clones are too expensive for many though, hence the criticism. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes |
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All bullpups are shitty, it's why countries that use bullpup service rifles often issue M4's to their special forces and special police. 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. View Quote |
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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 Didn't later versions have a clip loading feature for the magazine? Thought I read that. My pick {because everone has the good ones already} is the G41. Clunky inaccurate gas system couldn't be cleaned easily. Front site on gas block. The bean counter fucked m16 was pretty bad. No chrome, different ammo, no cleaning kits, perception of no cleaning needed. Someone said the m44 or m38 nagants. The things went bang, had a stabby implement on the m44, and were reliable. Best use though was probably as a persuader behind attacking conscripts. Someone said m9 cause they were all worn out. Well by nam the 1911s produced before ww2 and during ww1 were completely shot out. A nam vet related a story to me where he used his bloober tube, to beat in a NVAs head, cause he couldn't hit anything with the 1911 he had and Charlie was close. Dood got quite emotional. I was retreating by then looking for something to hide behind. I didn't ask him again. |
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Ian Hogg (RIP) warned that revisionists would claim the Chauchat was actually one of the greatest guns ever. View Quote Personally my choice for this list is the Insas. With the L85, SA-80, who gives a fudge what you call it, it's a Bullpup British knockoff of the AR-18 in second place. |
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One of the better design combat bolt action rifles. The sights are fantastic on it. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes |
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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. View Quote |
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My dad said they had no problems engaging out to 800yds with 30-06 in Korea. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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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. One of my co-workers was in the 82nd when they RIP'd with the 10th Mountain Div in Afghanistan. His company carried M14s with optical sights and Harris bipods on mounted patrols that the 10th MD left behind and he loved his. Every once in awhile, they'd pull them out of the HMMWVs that they lived out of and test fire them without cleaning and they functioned fine. |
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It worked well for us though. No telling how many Japanese officers were shot in the leg or foot due to the design. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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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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Quoted: There are too many distortions out there regarding the Type 94 pistol. Yes it has an "exposed" sear but it is not easy at all to fire it externally using that sear and with the safety on, not at all. While the grip is oddly shaped for our hands, it fit the smaller Japanese hand much better. They actually were pretty accurate and reliable pistols, although they are difficult to field strip and unknowing GI's probably did much damage to firing pins and firing pin locking blocks due to not knowing how to field strip them properly when they got a hold of them. The round is useless, but it was the standard Japanese service round for semi auto pistols of the time. Overall it was not any worse than the regular full size Type 14 Nambu pistol and maybe a bit better in some ways. Japanese pistol designs sucked in general, but their bolt rifles were simple, reliable and incredibly strong mechanically. View Quote |
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A lot of the inputs here are highly flawed because they measure the efficacy of the design against current (or more recent) standards.
To be accurately assessing many of the aforementioned small arms, one must compare them against the peers, and/or what they replaced. Persons here making statements like "the xxx rifle would have been fine 30 to 50 years earlier" are completely applying inappropriate standards of comparison. |
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M14 is the worst in our hemisphere. On a more positive note it was flanked by two of the best.
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I see you have a fondness for studying the Little Bighorn battle too. I agree about Benteen and Reno, Reno was scared shitless after coming under overwhelming attack early on and had no desire to go help out Custer in his obvious beat down and Benteen had no love for Custer so he wasn't about to help him. I doubt either would believe that Custer could actually be defeated anyway, it would be like Patton being massacred. It just didn't register. You mentioned 2% of recovered weapons. Since the Indians owned the field after the battle I assume they took most of the weapons found, whether functioning or not so it may skew things. Also the Winchester, Henry and other lever repeaters fired basically a glorified pistol cartridge with insufficient military range which was probably why they were not adopted at the time. They were fine in close up horse mounted battles, but not for firing from the top of a distant hill into an Indian camp. I hope to find a decent priced repro 1873 Trapdoor carbine someday. It would be awesome to fire one of those. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Chauchat ETA: 1873 Springfield 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. You mentioned 2% of recovered weapons. Since the Indians owned the field after the battle I assume they took most of the weapons found, whether functioning or not so it may skew things. Also the Winchester, Henry and other lever repeaters fired basically a glorified pistol cartridge with insufficient military range which was probably why they were not adopted at the time. They were fine in close up horse mounted battles, but not for firing from the top of a distant hill into an Indian camp. I hope to find a decent priced repro 1873 Trapdoor carbine someday. It would be awesome to fire one of those. Even though I say all that, the trapdoor was a very poor firearm choice for the tactics used in the Indian wars. It wasn't so much "snipe them from a hillside", as it was, "ride straight into their camp and kill 'em until the rest surrender". I can't imagine riding into an Indian encampment to attack experienced fighters, and having to use a trapdoor on top of it. As an interesting stat, only something like 25% of the native Americans at Little Bighorn had repeaters. The rest had muzzleloaders and bow and arrows. |
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A lot of the inputs here are highly flawed because they measure the efficacy of the design against current (or more recent) standards. To be accurately assessing many of the aforementioned small arms, one must compare them against the peers, and/or what they replaced. Persons here making statements like "the xxx rifle would have been fine 30 to 50 years earlier" are completely applying inappropriate standards of comparison. View Quote |
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Quoted: IMHO, there were 4 main things going against lever actions at that time. First is what I already mentioned, which was "keeping up with the Jones". The British were mainly using a trapdoor design (the Snider conversion), so we were on par if there was a foreign invasion or war. Second was what you said, the relatively weaker rounds of the lever actions. The Calvary wanted (perhaps even needed) a large enough round to reliably quickly stop a horse in combat. The .45-70 happened to work well for bison slaughters too. The third factor was a reluctance to change, and thinking accuracy was better than volume of fire (reality is that each has its place). The fourth factor was a valid concern of the time and that was ammunition supply. I can't remember where I read it but the potential ammo supply issue was discussed back then and it could've been a serious issue if they suddenly needed several times the amount of rounds they already used. Even though I say all that, the trapdoor was a very poor firearm choice for the tactics used in the Indian wars. It wasn't so much "snipe them from a hillside", as it was, "ride straight into their camp and kill 'em until the rest surrender". I can't imagine riding into an Indian encampment to attack experienced fighters, and having to use a trapdoor on top of it. As an interesting stat, only something like 25% of the native Americans at Little Bighorn had repeaters. The rest had muzzleloaders and bow and arrows. View Quote |
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All bullpups are shitty, it's why countries that use bullpup service rifles often issue M4's to their special forces and special police. 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. View Quote My vote is the G36... when you lose accuracy because the receiver is melting, that's a problem. |
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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." View Quote |
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The French version was quite good. It was out shitty 30-06 version that sucked, because we didn't properly modify them to fire a rimless cartridge. View Quote |
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For a short time the M44 carbine was issued to the Soviet Army and that actually gets my vote as the worst one, mostly for the enormous flash, bang, and recoil that are generated. It was literally insane to issue that rifle. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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I don't know about "worst" but the Mosin Nagant is surely the most overrated. The recoil isn't appreciably worse, and the muzzle blast isn't that much of a problem unless you're in an enclosed space at which point the length of the rifle is a bigger disadvantage than the muzzle blast of the carbines. Mosins are mediocre rifles, but the only reason I'd ever be hesitant to trust one is the possibility of "sticky bolt." |
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For the close range emergencies, they did have an outstanding revolver in the 1873 Colt, but how many soldiers were issued them? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted: IMHO, there were 4 main things going against lever actions at that time. First is what I already mentioned, which was "keeping up with the Jones". The British were mainly using a trapdoor design (the Snider conversion), so we were on par if there was a foreign invasion or war. Second was what you said, the relatively weaker rounds of the lever actions. The Calvary wanted (perhaps even needed) a large enough round to reliably quickly stop a horse in combat. The .45-70 happened to work well for bison slaughters too. The third factor was a reluctance to change, and thinking accuracy was better than volume of fire (reality is that each has its place). The fourth factor was a valid concern of the time and that was ammunition supply. I can't remember where I read it but the potential ammo supply issue was discussed back then and it could've been a serious issue if they suddenly needed several times the amount of rounds they already used. Even though I say all that, the trapdoor was a very poor firearm choice for the tactics used in the Indian wars. It wasn't so much "snipe them from a hillside", as it was, "ride straight into their camp and kill 'em until the rest surrender". I can't imagine riding into an Indian encampment to attack experienced fighters, and having to use a trapdoor on top of it. As an interesting stat, only something like 25% of the native Americans at Little Bighorn had repeaters. The rest had muzzleloaders and bow and arrows. Either there wasn't that many SAA's carried by the 7th or they were too valuable to the natives and others that recovered them to ever give them back. I suspect there wasn't as many SAA's in the battle as the books imply. |
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Not a rifle But the M9 is the biggest POS I was ever issued .................Medic go turn in your 1911 for a really cool paper puncher ,,,,,,,,, View Quote It was also superior to almost every military sidearm I can think of that was in use at its time of adoption. It's dated by today's standards, and that's why it's being replaced, but it was awesome for the time. It's also wrong to blame the M9 for the military's decision to purchase shit magazines, the military's inability to perform basic maintenance like replacing recoil springs, and the military's inability to train service members how to use a handgun. |
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Quoted: Come on, nothing about that design was quite good. It just fed and ejected more reliably (read as “sucked less”) when it wasn’t in 30-06. But there’s a lot of ground to cover once you leave “worst ever” territory before you ever arrive at “quite good”. Kinda like the BAR, just because it feeds and fires more reliably than something else doesn’t actually make it “good” at what it was intended for. View Quote Its pretty obvious though whom ITT has or has not watch forgotten weapons / inrangeTV. |
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Springfield Trapdoor-just ask Custard
Perhaps they managed to clear their rifles, but how many cases were cleared with a knife. Better designs were in it there, |
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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 |
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The placement of the bolt handle, and locking lugs was bad and the safety, oh wait, never mind on the safety....... View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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French MAS 1936..... There is NOTHING wrong with lugs in the back of the gun, its just a design tradeoff. Yes it will loose headspace faster but after how many thousand rounds? Rear locker = faster, cheaper, shorter (and thus lighter) action. Remember the MAS 36 was supposed to be the REMF rifle, the front line guys were supposed to get MAS 1940 semi autos (some shared tooling even!), WWII put that idea on hold until 45 they did the MAS 49 and 49/56 semi autos which are also quite excellent, better than an M14. The "safety", yes no safety, its a French doctrine thing. You were supposed to carry in condition 3 until you needed to shoot. In retrospect not the best of ideas but hey it wasnt the only silly idea of the early/mid century. trigger discipline was not at all what it was today, and shooting a handgun meant using one hand (all of which seems stupid today to us modern shooters). |
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Nothing you just stated even remotely qualifies an entire class of firearms, especially the most successful being the AUG, as the worst infantry rifle ever issued. It has lasted far longer than the m14, which many here jerk off over. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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All bullpups are shitty, it's why countries that use bullpup service rifles often issue M4's to their special forces and special police. 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. Just because the AUG is the brightest polished turd of the bunch, doesn't stop it from being a turd. |
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Explain why you say this. Be sure to compare the M14 to WHAT ELSE that was fielded by any other major power AT THE SAME TIME. I am curious as to hear your logic. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Anyone who prefers the M14 has their head in the sand. Even though it's not nearly as well made, and there's a loss in potential range, I think I'd prefer a Kalashnikov over a M14 in most situations. |
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