best bolt action military rifle of the 20th century

[salt&battery]

I have hardly ever seen pictures British troops carrying spare Enfield magazines.


Hardly any, if any at all, No 4's were produced with the magazine cut-off. Production SMLEs (No 1s) stopped having the cut-off in 1916, with the Mk III*.

If you put one charger in an Enfield, you get 5 rounds. It takes the same amount of time to load and you get just as many rounds and any other charger loading magazined rifle. If you put in two chargers, it takes the same amount of time to load two chargers for either rifle. There is no difference -

load one charger, shoot 5 rounds, reload shoot 5 rounds: ten rounds fired, two chargers loaded.

-or-

load one charger, load another charger, shoot ten rounds: ten rounds fired, two chargers loaded

Just because to can load an Enfield with 10 rounds, does not mean you have to load 10 rounds before you can shoot it.... With the Enfield, you have a choice, load one or two chargers, as the situation demands.


The only problem with the chrome plated Ariska barrel is that it was used because they did not have the proper alloying metals (manganese and molybdenum) to make decent high alloy barrels others did. Heavy use destroyed Japanese chrome plated barrels just as fast and Western (good alloy) barrels, i.e., they don't last any longer by rounds count.

It does provide better corrosion protection, that is a plus. But, given the accuracy requirements of a standard service rifle, you'd be surprised how ugly a bore you can have before it fails for accuracy. You should see some of the bores in old Nagants that still hold under 5 inches groups at 100 yards.

all you wrote about the charging the enfield sounds good on paper but when 1000's of rounds going off artillery shells landing being up 48 hours because being bombarded before the attack while a human wave assault is coming at you I doubt guys would know if they put 5 or 10 in without a bolt stop showing rifle was empty like the mauser and many would be firing an empty rifle without knowing it. on civil war battlefield they found muskets loaded to the ends of the barrels where the guys forgot to put a cap on and thought they fired and kept loading

 

[mjsdwash]

Im not sure what the criteria is here? Are we talking about designed, or implemented in the 20th century? I assumed we were talking about designed.

 

[Dog Soldier]

The American arms engineers were likely the first to patent chrome rifle bore plating. The Japanese may have used chrome plating to speed production. The lapping of machine marks was labor consuming. This Type 38 and Papa Nambu was brought home by a family member in 1944. I inherited them and the Luger in 1973.

http://www.google.com/patents/US1886218

 

[lysanderxiii]

all you wrote about the charging the enfield sounds good on paper but when 1000's of rounds going off artillery shells landing being up 48 hours because being bombarded before the attack while a human wave assault is coming at you I doubt guys would know if they put 5 or 10 in without a bolt stop showing rifle was empty like the mauser and many would be firing an empty rifle without knowing it. on civil war battlefield they found muskets loaded to the ends of the barrels where the guys forgot to put a cap on and thought they fired and kept loading

It should be noted that the British removed the magazine bolt stop function on the L1A1....

 

[salt&battery]

The American arms engineers were likely the first to patent chrome rifle bore plating. The Japanese may have used chrome plating to speed production. The lapping of machine marks was labor consuming. This Type 38 and Papa Nambu was brought home by a family member in 1944. I inherited them and the Luger in 1973.

http://www.google.com/patents/US1886218

real nice weapons. was the type 38 the takedown version

 

[salt&battery]

It should be noted that the British removed the magazine bolt stop function on the L1A1....

I wonder why they would do that.

 

[Dog Soldier]

real nice weapons. was the type 38 the takedown version

No, It is not a take down. My cousin disarmed a Japanese Marine officer in the South Pacific. The surrender papers for these guns were lost over the years. The 6.5 is very mild to shoot. These carbines were sighted for very optimistic ranges. They hit very high at 100 yards. Thanks for asking.

 

[salt&battery]

No, It is not a take down. My cousin disarmed a Japanese Marine officer in the South Pacific. The surrender papers for these guns were lost over the years. The 6.5 is very mild to shoot. These carbines were sighted for very optimistic ranges. They hit very high at 100 yards. Thanks for asking.

You can file the bottom of the rear site just a little at a time to get them to shoot maybe 1 1/2 high at 100 unless you think it might alter the value. I have done it to a few Mosins but they are fairly cheap guns but got them to shoot at 100 yds without resorting to putting soda straws over the front site to increase height lol

 

[Robert]

Weak bolt stop.

Anything can break when a man ape uses it. Your people over built the Mauser because they were your people... And thanks for breaking my rifle

 

[Dog Soldier]

You can file the bottom of the rear site just a little at a time to get them to shoot maybe 1 1/2 high at 100 unless you think it might alter the value. I have done it to a few Mosins but they are fairly cheap guns but got them to shoot at 100 yds without resorting to putting soda straws over the front site to increase height lol

The Carbine shoots about 18" high at 100 yds. with its lowest setting. The Point Blank sights were popular in the past. A soldier was taught to aim at the belt buckle. This allowed a point blank out to maybe 300 yards. At 100 yds it hit the upper body and longer ranges it hit the lower body.

 

[ilbob]

Are any of the Bolt rifles used during the first and second World War actually 20th century designs? Seems to me they're pretty much all 19th century designs.

I am a fan of military bolt-action rifles but I don't think that I am in a position to claim enough expertise to decide which one is the "best".

The reality is that bolt action rifles didn't make all that much difference in those wars. If the US had Enfield style rifles instead of Springfields, or the Germans had Enfields instead of K98s, it just wouldn't have mattered much. They were all good enough for what they were needed for.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Anything can break when a man ape uses it. Your people over built the Mauser because they were your people... And thanks for breaking my rifle

If you didn't want it broke you shouldn't have handed it to me.

 

[H&Hhunter]

All the very finest British bolt action sporting rifles were/ are built on Mauser actions. If they were good enough for Holland & Holland, Rigby, Cogswell ETC ETC, they are the finest bolt actions ever designed and built. Like all great British designs it was actually the Germans who designed it. The Brits just rebrand it and knock the ugly off it so that non Germanics can stand to own it.

 

[tark]

Hardly any, if any at all, No 4's were produced with the magazine cut-off. Production SMLEs (No 1s) stopped having the cut-off in 1916, with the Mk III*.

#4s were never produced with the mag cut-off, to the best of my knowledge. And every single #1 MkIII I have ever seen that originally had the cutoff, was missing that part. I think the Brits told the soldiers to remove them and throw them away.

you'd be surprised how ugly a bore you can have before it fails for accuracy.

AMEN to that one! I have a 98 Krag with a bore that would make a buzzard puke. It shoots 3' groups at a hundred. All day long.

 

[H&Hhunter]

#4s were never produced with the mag cut-off, to the best of my knowledge. And every single #1 MkIII I have ever seen that originally had the cutoff, was missing that part. I think the Brits told the soldiers to remove them and throw them away.


AMEN to that one! I have a 98 Krag with a bore that would make a buzzard puke. It shoots 3' groups at a hundred. All day long.

I'm not sure a 3 foot group at 100 yards is acceptable accuracy!

 

[boom boom]

FYI on Enfields, 1916 was the date that the No. 1 mk 3, aka old SMLE became the No. 1, mk3* without the cutoff. Different makers of the rifle ended it at different times in 1916 and given the demand for rifles, odd variants show up such as stocks cut for the cutoff but none on the receiver and so on.

 

[BrocLuno]

I think the best 20th century design is Accuracy International

 

[jdh]

M24SWS/M40

 

[salt&battery]

I think the best 20th century design is Accuracy International

I bought a new quad with a plow on it for less then one of those AI rifles lol

 

[Dog Soldier]

The French Brevex 400 Magnum Mauser was a choice action and system. You can scroll through most Mauser actions on this link.

http://www.dorleac-dorleac.com/projet/systemes-actions/?lang=en

 

[lysanderxiii]

#4s were never produced with the mag cut-off, to the best of my knowledge. And every single #1 MkIII I have ever seen that originally had the cutoff, was missing that part. I think the Brits told the soldiers to remove them and throw them away.


AMEN to that one! I have a 98 Krag with a bore that would make a buzzard puke. It shoots 3' groups at a hundred. All day long.

There are the Mk IIIs ("Mark Three") and there are the Mk III*s (Mark Three-Star). The only "official" difference between the two is the presences or absences of the cut-off.

When the Mk III* came through for FTR between the wars the cut-off was added and the star struck through, because it was still required (it omission was only a wartime concession to economy). During WW2 the SMLE, when reworked, had the cut-off added or removed, depending on the condition of the parts, the availability of replacements, and who was doing the work. After the war the No. 1 (SMLE) was declared obsolete and much of the spare parts were liquidated, but there continued to be reworks done through the 1950s (foreign aid, I suppose).

It's a mixed bag, apparently the Army in India (and later the Indian Army) required cut-offs, until very late....

With the two examples I have with the cut-off still installed, a long Magazine, Lee-Enfield, Mk II and a Lee-Enfield Carbine, Mk I, engaging the cut-off is actually quite difficult to accomplish, especially if the magazine is loaded.

The cut-off feature is of dubious value, why it was a feature on the M1903, is a mystery to me.

 

[salt&battery]

There are the Mk IIIs ("Mark Three") and there are the Mk III*s (Mark Three-Star). The only "official" difference between the two is the presences or absences of the cut-off.

When the Mk III* came through for FTR between the wars the cut-off was added and the star struck through, because it was still required (it omission was only a wartime concession to economy). During WW2 the SMLE, when reworked, had the cut-off added or removed, depending on the condition of the parts, the availability of replacements, and who was doing the work. After the war the No. 1 (SMLE) was declared obsolete and much of the spare parts were liquidated, but there continued to be reworks done through the 1950s (foreign aid, I suppose).

It's a mixed bag, apparently the Army in India (and later the Indian Army) required cut-offs, until very late....

With the two examples I have with the cut-off still installed, a long Magazine, Lee-Enfield, Mk II and a Lee-Enfield Carbine, Mk I, engaging the cut-off is actually quite difficult to accomplish, especially if the magazine is loaded.

The cut-off feature is of dubious value, why it was a feature on the M1903, is a mystery to me.

well the thinking at the time was when firing at the massed assaults in WWI they would be sometimes 2500-3000 yds away so the cut off was used to fire one shell at a time keeping the mag full for when they got close. I guess being that the Europeans were fighting for 3 years the Americans figured to copy the enfield

 

[boom boom]

Logistics and natural conservatism in the brass was the reason. Ammo had to be be brought out to the front by horses when the lee enfield, krag, and 1903 were designed. This, the rationale was troops would waste ammo that could not be easily replaced without a cutoff. The 1903 retained it after wwi probably because of parade maneuvers through the 03a3.

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

I would pick the lee enfield due to it's speed, mag. capacity, sights, ease of cleaning, accuracy. If I were going into battle and were limited to a bolt gun of the era I would pick the enfield hands down.

 

[lysanderxiii]

well the thinking at the time was when firing at the massed assaults in WWI they would be sometimes 2500-3000 yds away so the cut off was used to fire one shell at a time keeping the mag full for when they got close. I guess being that the Europeans were fighting for 3 years the Americans figured to copy the enfield

Logistics and natural conservatism in the brass was the reason. Ammo had to be be brought out to the front by horses when the lee enfield, krag, and 1903 were designed. This, the rationale was troops would waste ammo that could not be easily replaced without a cutoff. The 1903 retained it after wwi probably because of parade maneuvers through the 03a3.

Having a magazine cut-off on the Krag made sense, on the M1903, it did not. THe Germans came to this conclusion when they adopted stripper-clip loading in the Mauser, which do not have this feature.

With the Krag, each round of ammunition was stored in a individual loop on the cartridge belt, and had to be individually removed from the cartridge belt and placed in the magazine, so the average time required to load and fire 5 rounds was the same whether you fire single shot (one round, chamber, fire, repeat four more times), or fired five rounds from the magazine (one round in the magazine, repeat four times, then shoot five times). But, if you used the cut-off in the "OFF" position, you could maintain a constant rate of fire equal to how long it took to pull one round from the belt, load and fire, but you got to keep the five rounds in the magazine as reserve in case you needed a quick burst of five rounds.

Once you adopted the stripper clip, the magazine cut-off becomes pointless. Now, all ammunition is going to be issued and stored in the cartridge belt in stripper clips. So, if you were going to shoot one round at a time, keeping the five rounds in the magazine "in reserve", you would have to remove a stripper clip from the belt, remove one round from the stripper clip, load it into the rifle, do something with the partially loaded stripper clip (put it in your pocket, or replace it in the cartridge belt, place it on the trench parapet, etc), then shoot. Now, you also have a partially loaded stripper clip, that can be potentially lost.

With a the speed that a stripper clip can be loaded into a magazine, and the fact that all ammunition is pre-packaged in stripper clips, it just make no sense to have a cut-off. The stripper clip actually makes loading single rounds more difficult, and increases the chances of lost or wasted ammunition if ammunition is removed from the stripper clip.

The M1903A3 kept the cut-off because it easier to keep it on than to remove it.

Similarly, the magazine cut-off in the MLE and LEC made sense, on the SMLEs and CLMLEs it should have been removed, it was pointless.