Greatest bolt action battle rifle in history...

[Aragorn243]

Did not see that one coming but you make a good case.

Uh, no. You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig. I have 10 Carcanos and would set all 10 aside to get to something, anything, that was behind them if I had need to go into a battle. I like them or I wouldn't have 10 of them but they are the hardest to operate and least accurate of all the rifles in my collection and that includes several black powder rifles.

[Ced1942]

Action was simple, strong, smooth, and probably the easiest to manufacture of them all.

Carcano smooth? Got 3 of them and they are many thing but smooth is not one of them for sure. If you want something smooth, get yourself a Portugese Vergueiro. Even the Enfield feels crude compared to those.

[WarPig1976]

M1917 rifle for me. Rugged, front locking, cock on close, aperture sights, long sight radius. 6 rounds of 30.06 or seven with one in the pipe.

[3006guns]

New member, as of today.......so be gentle..........

The #4 rifle is, in my opinion, the pinnacle when it comes to a bolt action battle rifle. It's no target piece, despite being made into such by dedicated shooters in the "Commonwealth", but it was never meant to be. It was designed to be rugged, fast and accurate enough to take out the enemy which it did with abandon. There's an old saying......"The Germans designed their rifle based on a sporting gun. The Americans designed their rifle based on a target gun. The British designed their rifle to kill people". Very true.

Having collected military rifles for many years, ALL of them are my favorites. However if I were placed in a situation with harsh conditions, few repair parts and long spells between servicing (a real end of the world scenario) I'd pick.........brace yourself.........a Japanese type 99 with the chrome bore. I don't base this opinion on "favorite" types of rifles, really cool sights, etc. No, the type 99 is simple and rugged. Parts breakage is not unknown, but is very rare. The bolt has fewer pieces than any other military rifle I can think of and disassembles in a heart beat for cleaning. The chrome bore scoffs at dirt or corrosive ammunition. On top of all this, it's light and handy making it easy to pack around. If the caliber (7.7 mm) bothers you, set the barrel back and rechamber it for something like .30-06 or .300 Savage.

The type 99 has one feature that no other bolt gun possesses. To the uninitiated, that big 'ol "oriental" looking safety knob at the back of the bolt is weird. That knob performs three functions:
1. It serves as a spindle to keep the parts together.
2. It serves as a very positive safety.....it's either on or off, no mistaking it for anything else.
3. It serves as an effective gas shield. If you examine the rear of the knob it's concave, so any gasses from a punctured primer are directed AWAY from the shooter's face. Now look at a Mauser, Springfield or Enfield and you'll see that gas can easily travel along the striker. I bring this up because I've actually had it happen years ago. A defective primer let go and the gas was released through the normal escape hole in the receiver ring, while the rest blasted sideways and away from me. I had glasses on at the time of course, but if not I would have survived unscathed. I changed ammunition and kept shooting.

The Japanese rifles are not "modified Mausers", they are IMPROVED Mausers. A lot of engineering went into providing the Emporer's troops with a good rifle.

I have a sporter in my collection, left to me by a departed friend, built on a type 99 action. He discovered that by machining the barrel collar and breech so that the barrel would screw in one more turn, it would now chamber the 7.65 Mauser (Argentine) round without any chamber work at all. Since he had three surplus CASES of that ammo on hand, it gave him a rifle that would laugh at the corrosive priming. By simply pulling the bullets and seating a soft point, he had a deer rifle.

I "prefer" one of my 1903's, a 1917 or P-14, an Enfield #4, a '98 Mauser, even an SKS.........they're all wonderful. But for down and out conditions and possible abuse, an Arisaka.

[Ovidio]

Though I love my K31, as an Italian I sometimes ask myself how such a great and fine rifle would have performed in the sands of the Sahara or the freezing plains of Russia, where no real maintenance was possible and our soldiers were mostly in desperate situations.
Our Carcanos, rough as they were, never let our guys down.
They certainly are not the best rifles, but I’m pretty sure they were more “real world” rifles as the K31.
1903, Mausers, Arisakas and Enfields would be my choice, although I would have trouble choosing one.
Certainly not the K31.
Mosins would also be ok, but they are so rough and with such a coarse bolt that the others would have won.
Just my humble opinion...

---------- Post added at 02:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:06 PM ----------

This will be the least popular and most easily laughed-at of them all, but I submit to you ............ The Carcano 38 SR!
Reasoning behind this apparent off-the-wall nominee is as follows:
Light weight and light weight cartridge, so less fatigue when carrying and can carry more rounds for an equal weight of ammo. You will notice that all of the world’s armies have gone that route since the war ended, except of corse for being semi auto nowadays.
Effective cartridge out to about 200-300 meters which is all that realistically is needed, especially in jungles, hedgerows, and towns. The days of massed infantry shooting at each other from opposing trenches were long gone by then.
Accuracy is vastly overrated, the average soldier didn’t even aim, just pointed. Maybe the members of this forum aimed, back in the day, but hardly anyone else did. Anyway, that’s what snipers are for. But even then, it was accurate enough. And the simplest sights of any rifle.
Modern doctrine, as used then, was to let the machine guns do the bulk of the killing. Rifle Fire was very much secondary.
Low recoil, so that the average grunt would actually be more apt to aim his rifle, wouldn’t be as afraid of it. Say what you will, battle rifles of the day kicked like mules, which had to lead to flinch-and-miss shooting.
One more round than every other rifle, except the Enfield, of course.
Action was simple, strong, smooth, and probably the easiest to manufacture of them all.
Short barrel, very handy in confined spaces, like towns, forests and the like.
So what more could you ask for? Maybe better leadership and tactics, maybe then the bad reputation would not have happened. But the rifle itself should not be faulted.

People may lough at this statement, but I agree to a certain point.
The 38 was rugged, simple and reliable. Accuracy well within the capabilities of soldiers.
Not as refined as a Mauser, but a great “real world” bolt action rifle. Both my grandfathers used them in WWII, one also in WWI (the 91, not the 91/38). They never said anything negative. Actually, they loved them.

[Gil Boyd]

So in short.........the Lee Enfield in wahtever guise is the BEST of the BEST!!

[Eaglelord17]

Personally the Lee Enfield suffers from two major flaws. 1) requires more maintenance and fitting than most bolt action rifles 2) that horrible rimmed cartridge, if they had left that out of the equation things would have been much better.

Now in terms of the greatest bolt action, I would argue pretty much any issued bolt action had its own pros and cons and realistically didn't make that much of a difference as most weren't trained enough to have the equipment make a massive difference (notable exemptions existing in the form of the British in early WWI, and the Americans showing up late in WWI). I would also argue that magazine capacity only matters for the most part in semi-autos. 10rds makes no difference when you are feeding with a 5rd stripper clip (part of the reason the Swiss dropped the 12rd magazine and went to the 6rd magazine, there was no real speed difference found between them and only left the magazine more exposed and open to damage).

So to these ends I would submit the following rifles for different reasons:
1) K31- simple, effective, accurate, quick to use, good sights, easy to reload with a excellent reloading system that avoids dirt, however it was expensive to manufacture.
2) US Model 1917- simple, reliable, excellent sights, good reloading system however it was worsened by those crappy cheap American .30-06 stripper clips. Cons are it is heavy for its size and the 6th round is a example of its quick modification from .303 to .30-06 instead of a actual proper redesign.
3) Arisaka Type 99- extremely simple, chromelined bore, excellent cartridge, decent sights, exceptionally strong action. Cons are that it had some dumb features at first and that's really all I can think of for the Arisaka
4) Greek Mannlicher-Schroeders- excellent rifles, realistically the best anyone could ask for, great low recoiling cartridge, exceptionally smooth reloading system, fast smooth action, high quality of manufacture, even with massive amounts of neglect they keep functioning (look at any of the rough examples that made it though the Greek Civil War and are still going). Cons- so expensive that it was only really adopted by Greece.

And my final vote for the best is:
The French MAS 36. Excellent sights, excellent round, good reloading system, rear locking fast action, a self contained package with the bayonet built into the rifle. Overall nothing to really complain about unless you consider a lack of a safety a problem, however I don't.

[Daan Kemp]

It fascinates me when the 303 cartridge is maligned because of its rim, but all other rimmed cartridges used in service rifles are OK. Not sure about that more maintenance either. It didn't seem to bother its users for over 70 years. However, that is just my conviction.

[3006guns]

About that "horrible" rim on the .303.........we're talking about a cartridge that's served since before 1900 all the way into the Korean war, not to mention all the game animals it's taken over the years from Africa to the U.S.

Pretty decent performance I'd say!

As for the Italian rifles, let's be fair about this. The Carcano series was designed before the turn of the last century and was no better or worse than any other rifle of the period. It was 6.5mm, like everyone else. It was a magazine rifle, like everyone else. In short, it was right in line with the rest of arms development at the time and its performance is equal. It's only fault was that it quickly became obsolete as the other nations adopted improvements or complete change overs in their armament. So, judging the Italian rifles in comparison to others is really a bit unfair.

Personally, I LIKE the "little" Carcanos when viewed in the proper perspective.

[Ovidio]

Me too
I’d hate to be shot by one of them!