'89 Schmidt rubin

[Bruce_in_Oz]

You will note that the Brits decided to keep the ten-round mag system (fed by 5 rd charger clips) to the bitter end. If all your "battle" ammo is delivered in fifty-round bandoliers full of ammo in chargers, it's a lot better than cardboard packets of loose rounds.

Detachable magazine design and technology got a serious boost via LMG development. Even then, if you look at all of the early mag-fed LMGs, The magazines were usually the "weakest link"; think "Chauchat", for starters., Even BAR mags are flimsy compared to what was developed with, say the ZB 26 and 30 series, and then the very robust mags of the German StG family The mag on a G-43 seems to be derived from the MG13 magazine.

Charger clips still haven't gone away. In Australia, particularly in the 1990's, a lot of 5.56 NATO ammo was packaged in nifty FIFTEEN round, plastic chargers (two refills per 30 rd mag) that would work with AUG and M-16 type mags. NOBODY goes outside the wire with loose rounds in their pockets, Multiple pouches packed with filled 30 rounders, with nary a charger clip in sight, except maybe in an air-dropped resupply.

If the Lee Metford had been set up with a magazine built like an AK mag, things might have been different. They certainly learned a few lessons from their contact with stripper recharged, 7mm Mausers in South Africa. Nobody else developed a bolt-action rifle with a standard ten round, double-stack mag system, fed by five-round chargers holding rimmed cartridges.

Charger-loaded Mosin Nagants only hold five. Lots of five and six round, rimmed and rimless en-bloc Mannlicher type systems, but none achieved the slickness of operation of a Lee Enfield