Okay, now that a few of you have weighed in, it's time for me to come clean with the problems I had with the list.
First off, I felt that the M-14, at number 10, was a bit of an oversight. The M-14 is a fine weapon, it's been in and out of service since it's inseption, but the military in the US never scrapped it. They held on to it for a reason. The damn thing works and it will continue to work, and by that I mean put bad guys in the ground, regardless of the environment, time and again. On those features I felt it should have been higher.
The Sturmgewehr 44 should have been higher as well. The weapon was introduced late in WWII. And Hitler didn't do his troops any favors by first ignoring it's applications and then second, having to "approve" the troops who would be fielding it. It's not the best weapon on the list, but when you factor in the criteria, I personally think this weapon should have been top 6 or 7. The Germans did their homework and found a common range that firefights were taking place in, around 200 meters at the time, and developed a weapon around a cartridge that would provide serious trouble for their opponents out to 300 meters. the 7.92x39mm round was no joke at the time of this implimentation and it has been argued that if Germany had mass produced this weapon earlier, especially before their entanglements with the Soviet Union, their battle lines would have stretched much further across Europe.
I was fine with the Springfield at 8, but I wasn't fine with the ranking below it, so I guess I would move the Springfield. The only thing holding this back, on their criteria I believe, was the handling. There was no question about the ammo, the .30-06 will flat sit your @ss down and read you your Last Rights. Accuracy was not an issue. Massive head wound anyone? It spent over 50 years in active service, but I believe the shear size of the weapon, almost 4 feet in length in an "Assault Rifle category, and the dreaded five round, or eight round, stripper clip. Obviously this is a bolt gun, so you can't compare it heads up with an autoloading assault weapon. As a support weapon, this definitely deserves to be much higher. As a weapon in your hands in Iraq, kicking in doors and clearing rooms, probably not so much...
Steyr at 7?! No. While it's a innovative design, this is not a good weapon. I will give it points for having the interchangable barrel system, but all in all, this doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the top ten with these other fine weapons.
Number 6 was the Mauser 98K. I can agree and disagree with this. Granted, this weapon has been in service around the world since it's inception. That said, it has the same features, and drawbacks, of the Springfield. You can't separate these weapons, they basically hold the exact same position.
Number 5 was the Fn FAL. No, I am sorry this is not a top 5 rifle. While I will agree it had the innovation, and I will agree that it has good accuracy, this weapon is about as maxed out as you can get. There is no platform to build on here. They did everything they could to it just to get it to fire the 7.62 x 51 cartridge. The thing is almost completely uncontrollable on full auto fire. I like the weapon, but this is not a top 5 weapon when you consider the rest of the list.
Number 4 was the M1 Garand, and while this is not going to make RL happy, I am okay with this being at number 4. This is not a modern day assault weapon. It's a hell of a weapon to field, that is for sure, but the first models were not as polished as today's works of art. The initial product put before the Army was in 1920, when it had already been designed the year prior. However, it took until 1936 to be officially in military service. Many things led to the problems, the military waffled on the caliber, the originally loved the .276 version, but then switched to the .30 cal version later on. One production run had problems with the bolt on automatic fire, etc. In any event, it eventually became the work that it is today and it should definitely be at number 4, possibly three...
Lee Enfield at number 3? Boy, that is a big stretch for me. I see their reasons for putting it that high, but are you actually going to tell me that, given this list of impressive firearms, the Lee Enfield is going to be the third rifle you pick off the bench if you are choosing personal firearms? I think the real selling point, for the "researchers" on this one was the length of in service time, over 100 years, but we are talking about England here. They don't have a ton of firearms manufacturing over there folks. I just don't see a bolt gun being a top three battle rifle....
The last two I am actually comfortable with. While I personally feel that the AK is not the best battle rifle ever designed, given the criteria of this test, it does deserve the top spot. The AR, when
properly equipped and maintained, is a much better piece, HOWEVER, the AK has more third world knock offs than any other weapon on the planet and has something like 50 or 60 million productions out there. It hard to argue with it's reliability, even though it's accuracy is autrocious and one of the key selling points is that it has "loose fitting parts" to eliminate sand or other small particles from fouling it's operation.
One weapon that I felt was missing was the BAR. The Browning Automatic Rifle wasn't in service long, but it sure was a neat piece of engineering and design. I would have liked to see it on the list somewhere.
JD
