What is a carbine?

[Sam1911]

The difference between a rifle and a carbine was fairly clear-cut on up through the Korean war. After that, things started changing.

Rifles, generally, had barrels of 24" or longer. Carbines had barrels of 20" or less.

Right...except for the K98, K-31, etc!

It's truly in the "eye of the beholder" I think.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

My concept of carbine is biased by early exposure to the calvary carbine versions of the .45-70 Springfield and .30-40 Krag infantry rifles from sources like WHB Smith "Small Arms of the World" when I first started studying firearms history.

 

[HoosierQ]

Heck the Germans referred to their standard WW2 8mm service rifle that had, I think, a 22" bbl as a "carbine" because it was quite a bit shorter than their WW1 rifle. It was the "Karabiner 98K" or "short model 98 carbine" translated very roughly to English.

 

[kludge]

Once we all agree on how to say the word we can start to work on defining it.

CAR-bean FTW.

CAR-bine just sounds dumb.