[morpheus]

Hi, I'm in need of a little help.

At my school I have to do a research paper, so the teacher let me pick the subject I wanted. So suprise, suprise it had something to do with the military. The exact subject I picked was The Most Infulential Rifles. What I need help with is if you can help me with just giving me names of rifles that have been important in history. Such as M1 Garand, AK, M-16, ect. For me being most interested in US arms, I don't know that many important arms of Europe and the Far East. So if you can help me it would be much appriciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[muzzleblast]

Well, for the US, M1 was the first semi-auto ever adopted by an army, and you guys had the first small caliber assault rifle with the M16 as far as I know. Browning's 50 cal was very influential...dunno if you can use that one or not.

Internationally, Mauser 98 can't be forgotten...and France had the Lebel rifle, which wasn't too well thought out but it was the first rifle chambered in a cartdridge using smokeless powder, that they invented...Those are pretty influential I guess.

 

[spade]

dont forget the springfield 1903... or the mosin nagant...

if you want the aboslutely most influential rifle period...
it would probably be the henry lever action. The very first cartridge rifle used by the military.

 

[AK]

Anything chambered in 7.62x54R / 7.62x53mm is firing one of the longest-serving military cartridges in the World.

it would probably be the henry lever action. The very first cartridge rifle used by the military

Metal-casing-bullet self-contained single-loaded package, yes. Cartridges being made out of paper bags with powder tied off into a bundle with the lead ball at the top and sealed with wax were first used about 1725.

The rifleman would perform the following drill:
PLATOON! LOAD!
On this command
- Rifleman holds his musket by the barrel and removes cartridge from pouch. Rifle butt is resting on boot.
- Rifleman bites cartridge into two sections. Rifleman then pours powder from the first section down the barrel of his weapon. Rifleman proceeds to pack the cartridge casing as wadding against the powder charge. Rifleman holds the lead ball in his mouth for a while longer.
- Rifleman then removes ramrod from position alongside musket barrel. Ram home the cartridge case, and powder.
- Loads the musket ball.
- Ram a second time, seating the ball against the loaded powder and wadding.

PLATOON! READY!
On this command, the rifleman replaces the ramrod, and places his rifle in the ready position. Opens the flint, loads the charge, cocks the flint

PLATOON! AIM!
Shoulder rifle, point in direction of area target.
PLATOON! FIRE!
Self explanatory.

Repeat process. What's more amazing is that a British rifle platoon could fire three times a minute, as a group.

I would be tempted to agree with Spade. Wasn't the Henry Lever Action also used as a marksman's rifle for a while in the American Civil War?

 

[Kaz]

Wouldn't hurt to talk about the really old stuff, like the Kentucky Rifle, Brown Bess, all those muzzle loader flintlock stuff (and even earlier things). Moving forward, the Henry and Winchester lever actions were influential. The MP38 or MP44 Sturmgewehr (I think that's spelled right) and also the Soviet Federov rifle that I can't remember the proper name for right now. Don't forget Nagants, Mausers, and Enfields though. Thomsons, Stens, and Uzis made some waves as well. Moving to the stuff we still use would be the CETME/G3 or FN FAL. Is this just rifles? If you're doing handguns, be sure to hit the Scholfield, Smith and Wesson, and Colt revolvers. Then the 1911, P35, Luger... Are you doing heavy stuff? Maxim's machine gun, the BREN, and the M1919 come to mind. Hope I didn't overload you or mix something up and give you a bad name or some other mistake. Have fun with this, there's so much to talk about here and everyone on here combined will barely scratch the surface. Even with a windbag like me.

 

[Scopes]

You could probably argue over a number of influential rifle but I think few would argue that the M-1 Garand won WWII for us and nearly did the same thing in Korea.

There is enough history and information out there about the M-1, besides even a few old timers out there who used them. Check your local VFW

 

[spade]

i actually know what your talking about AK, being involved in long range black powder shooting myself.

Yes, the henry rifles were used as sniper rifles for a while during many conflicts .

 

[muzzleblast]

Sharps was the rifle in the civil war...I think the Henry wasn't around yet.

 

[Ballistic_Coefficiency]

Kentucky Rifle... brought us out of the smoothbore age and into the accuracy age. The Krag-Jorgenson rifle and its variants... first bolt action repeater of the US Military... the Springfield M-1903 and its variants... first long range effective bolt action repeating rifle that was mass produced.... the M-1911 and M-1911A1 pistol... been around for over 100 years and it is still one of the best... if not the best all around pistol out there.... you can customize those things to the extreme; or get a WW1 model that is as plane jane as possible. The M-1921 Thompson and M1A1 Thompson... for obvious reasons... The M-1 Garand... first semi automatic rifle to be adopted by any military in the world as standard issue, and the first semi automatic sniper rifle ( M-1C / M-1D).... the mighty M-14 was based directly off the M-1 variant called the T-20... it was basically an M-1 with a detachable 20 round box magazine in 7.62mm light rifle caliber (7.62X51mm / .308 Winchester).... The AR-10 and AR-15 variants... for obvious reasons..... the Mosin Nagant M1891 and its variants... adopted by the Russian Military in 1891 in the 7.62X54R caliber (much larger than the 30-40 krag).... the Mauser M-1898... 7.92X57 caliber helped the spaniards in the Spanish American war hold on a little longer and made the US Military look at designing a new rifle to replace the Krag-Jorgenson 30-40 Krag caliber.... the MP-44 Stumghewer... Germany's Selective fire "assault rifle" that the russians captured the blue prints too when they over ran the factory and slightly modified it... the russians called the new weapon the AK-47. The M-2 .50 Browning Machine Gun... its been around for over 85 years and its still kicking ass world wide.

 

[Ballistic_Coefficiency]

And yes... the Henry Repeater was most deffinitly around in the American Civil War. It came out in 1860. The confederates called it "that damn yankee rifle they load on sunday and shoot all week".

And here is a picture of a Henry M-1860 Repeating Rifle at the Kennesaw Mountain Civil War Battle Site Museum which is at the Kennesaw Mountain Military park.

 

[muzzleblast]

I stand corrected. Turns out Henry rifles ended up in the hands of troops in 1862...Too bad the army didn't stick with em! I love 45-70...but repeaters are nice too. Took some real cojones to beat the spanish mauser armed troops with trapdoors...But those guys were riflemen! One shot one kill.

Ever play with a P-17? not too many people know only 1/3 of WW1 troops had the Springfield, or that mauser took legal action over the Springfield. Not knocking the 03, it ushered in the 30-06 round and had a long and healthy service life....of course, P-17 introduced good old 5 rh rifling by remington

 

[mlammers]

I have to vote for the M-1 Garand, the first general issue Semi-Auto for any major army, so dependable if it froze in cold weather(ie Battle of Bulge) you could piss on it, and it was good to go again. The design was rock solid, and was origianlly chambered in design stages for a .276 round, but the army had tons of 06, so guess what happened. The design was so good that it was later modified by Italy into the BM59, and the USA to the M14, which is still in use in some numbers in Iraq, and Afaganistan, but our troops. I have three, and love to shoot them like nothing else I have. If you need any info on them I would be glad to help.

 

[mele]

Funny you mention the P-17, I have one, built by remingon (marked model 1917). Good old rifle. It'll be posted in the gallery section soon

MEL

 

[muzzleblast]

Awesome, lookin foreward to seeing pics of it!

P-17 is probably my favorite of all the Mauser variants. The sights on them are great considering it was 1917...and lots of the ones made in 303 British were used as sniper rifles I think...We were stuck with the Ross a lot but I'm pretty sure the brits made their P-14s into sniper rifles.

Those things are more accurate than they have any business to be at their age, with the amount of use they saw.

 

[mele]

Not too many sniper variants were made with the P17's but there were a few prototypes made that were tested.

MEL