Top Ten Military Rifles

Caleb, over at Call me Ahab, has thrown down the gauntlet of choosing the top ten military rifles.

I am using the definition of "rifled shoulder arm used by a military force." I am also going to use the most widely-used term for any particular rifle. I know, for example, that the AK-47 was soon replaced by a long evolution of the type. Sue me.

1. AK-47. The Kalashnikov is, arguably, the most successful military rifle since the Mauser. The total production of the AK by every nation who made or is making them is probably over 100 million. Unlike a competing rifle I could name, the AK is a rifle that can be dropped into the mud and, as long as the barrel is not plugged, it will work. A lot of variants have been made and the AK action is the design starting point of a host of other rifles. The Galil is a derivative of the AK, as is the Finnish Valmet.

2. MP-44/StG-45. I am lumping these two German rifles together; they are the granddaddies of the modern assault rifle.

3. M-1, the first workable self-loading rifle. There were others, but none went into the level of mass production as did the M-1. If the Army had agreed to a detachable box magazine, as John Garand reportedly wanted, the M-1 would still be widely used. (The Army ordnance folks have a long and storied history of fucking up designs.)

4. FAL. If there is a non-Combloc equivalent to the AK, the FAL is it. Something like 90 countries have used this rifle.

5. Mauser `98. 110 years later and nobody has seriously improved on the Mauser action. The positive feeding and extraction of the Mauser are the gold standard for bolt-action rifles. The classic Remington Model 70 was a Mauser derivative. The Springfield M1903 was such a close copy of the Mauser that the U.S. had to pay royalties to Mauser.

6. Lee-Enfield Short Magazine Rifle, aka the SMLE. The Mauser for the British Empire. A variant of the Enfield, with a non-detachable magazine, was being made by Americans for the British in World War I; revised from .303 to .30-06 for American use, it became the M1917 and was the rifle most widely used by the Americans in World War I. Some say that the M1917 is more closely related to the Mauser, I've put it here. (Complain if you want. See where it gets you.)

7. Mosin-Nagant M1891. Adopted before the `98 and the SMLE, the Mosin-Nagant served the Russians in several wars, large and small. In the wars with Finland in the 1940s, the Mosin was on both sides of the fight. With a PU scope mounted, the Mosin was arguably the most widely used and successful sniper rifle of World War II.

8. Spencer carbine. The Spencer arguably was the first successful repeating rifle. This is the rifle that the Union Army "loaded on Sunday and fired all week." In a universe of muzzle-loading black powder rifles, the Spencer used cased ammunition (.52 rimfire), making it the first military rifle that was reasonably weatherproof. Other designers soon improved on both the Spencer and its ammunition (especially going from rimfire to centerfire cartridges). The use of repeaters by the Turks a decade or so later in their war with the Russians was the direct cause of the adoption of the Mosin-Nagant.

9. Sharps rifle. Arguably the first successful breechloading rifle, a real technical problem in the day of paper-cased black power. From the carbine used by the cavalry in the Civil War to the long-range sniper rifles, the Sharps was the end-point of evolution of the paper-cartridge rifle. This was a toss-up for me, the runner-up was the Martini-Henry.

10. Mannlicher Carcano. It looks like the mating of a Mauser and a Mosin. Used primarily by the Italian Army, it would have been long ago forgotten if one wasn't used by an assassin nearly 45 years ago.

There you have it. Before you start arguing that I left off the M-16, I assure you that was no accident.