We could condense this and just say that they all were pretty accurate in the right hands under the right conditions. Having shot them all one would really be hard pressed to pick a real winner my opinion.
We could condense this and just say that they all were pretty accurate in the right hands under the right conditions. Having shot them all one would really be hard pressed to pick a real winner my opinion.
And spoil a good argument? Are you nuts?
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There are reasons why the Mauser design is still popular and the most copied.
"Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face!" - Mike Tyson
"Don't let my fears become yours." - Me, talking to my children
That look on your face, when you shift into 6th gear, but it's not there.
I would have to put a vote in for 6.5x55 Swedes. Mauser 1896.
having owned and shot most of the rifles. I can say there is not a wits bit of difference between them. it is all in the sights. as far as sights the simpler they are the easier to teach raw recruits to use them. with that the number 4 enfield and the 1917 enfield and 03a3 win out. maybe no as finely adjustable but then too fine can be a curse too.
it was said the americans build a target rifle. the germans build a sporting rifle the british build a fighting rifle.
I'm sure there is more difference between individual rifles of the same type, than there is between different types. That goes double in military service, where a rifle may have gone through a lot of heavy use, excessive rapid, and ben soaked and dried out in less than ideal conditions.
I can't think of any situation which strikes me as making open sights superior to aperture ones, and the P14 and M1917 Enfields were by decades the first to have that in an easily adjusted and well protected form. Windage was by using a screw adjuster on the front sight, and elevation was corrected to the engraved range mark by substituting a different front sight blade. But that should be all the ordinary soldier, using standard ammunition needs. I should think more have gone wrong through unwise twiddling of a windage knob, than from not having one.
je suis charlie
It is better to live one day as a LION than a dozen days as a Sheep.
Thomas Jefferson Quotations:
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
yeah...I was unimpressed by the ability of a bolt action to recover from mud as well...
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my own experiences say you may get a very accurate example of any of them, but the most likely will be an 1896 swede mauser.
I may not have explained clearly enough for everyone that the P14 and M1917 had front sight windage adjustment by a screw accessory, which normally only a unit armourer would have. It was a little clamplike device, which could move the front sight. It is all the ordinary combat rifleman needs.
The WW1 sniper I knew in childhood was smaller, weaker and infinitely less assertive than the female soldiers of today, considered it his Christian duty, for four years, to send Germans home to take their pension whenever he had the choice. He said shooting was the easy end of his business, and zeroing adjustments were for the range. But forty years after he last used a high powered rifle, he could look out of his window, six hundred yards to the railway pier, and say "Twenty-eight inches left today".
None of them work reliably if they are cycled with mud covering the action. In the old photographs of men in vile conditions, the things to note are whether they are still smiling, and whether the rifles are cleaner than the men. The SMLE was easier to get back in working order after being jammed with mud, though, and the oversized chamber so much complained of today was a help too. All the accuracy in the world is no good if the opposition gets to shoot first.
The Swiss believed that a straight-pull action was less likely to work dirt into the bolt way than a turnbolt, and I find that convincing. I very much like the 1895 Austro-Hungarian rifle, which I think compares very well with the modern commercial straight-pull actions, although none of them can be cycled in silence. But I think even that would more easily admit mud between bolt and bolt-head than my Swiss 1889, which isn't quite as modern, strong or compact as the 1911.
I do believe the most accurate military rifle I ever shot was a Martini-Henry, converted to .303 in the 1890s.
Last edited by Ballistics in Scotland; 11-06-2017 at 10:59 AM.
I got the '96 Swede, 1903, M98, and a M39 nagant.
The M39 is my 'go-to' steel gong ringer.
You might look for a copy of Dunlap’s Ordnance Went Up Front. He had a chance to fire almost everything that was used in WWII, and he had some commentary on the relative accuracy and reliability of the designs.
I seem to recall that he said we should quit sneering at the accuracy of the Italian and Japanese rifles once the 03-A3s were issued. Enemy prisoners questioned said that the only danger they were in past 600 yards or so was from extreme bad luck. May have been a “shooter problem,” of course.
Actually the first bolt action rifle to have twin opposed forwards mounted locking lugs was the American Greene Bolt action manufactured during the US Civil War.
The Lebel with twin lugs also predated both the GEW88 and the Mauser rifles.
Most distinctive features of the Mauser actions were not patented by Mauser, the Extractor and magazine along with the stripper clips were Mauser patented designs.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |