Eight Reasons Selfloading Rifles Had To Wait For John Garand

Ever since the introduction of the centerfire rifle cartridge in 1866, military rifle ammunition has looked essentially the same. A copper-alloy or steel case enclosing the loose propellant is mated to one of a huge variety of bullet styles, with a Boxer or Berdan primer at the base. However, despite this external similarity, the ammunition available by the early 1930s was very, very different than that of the 1870s, or even 1900s. Transformative changes were made to each component of the military rifle round during this period, until the ammunition finally became suitable for use in selfloading weapons: - See more at: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/01/16/eight-reasons-selfloading-rifles-had-to-wait-for-john-garand/#sthash.rm7fd5Bv.dpuf John Hames shared with you:   Eight Reasons Selfloading Rifles Had To Wait For John Garand thefirearmblog.com - With the introduction of the successful metallic cartridge in the 1840s, an explosion of innovation directed towards rapid-firing infantry weapons rocked the world. The culmination of this would be the mass-produced self-loading rifle, realized with the adoption of the Garand in 1933, its standardization in 1936, and eventually its mass production after 1939. However, the Garand was far from the first self-loader ever devised; many know of the Mexican-Swiss Mondragon rifle, but even earlier than that were the Cei-Rigotti of 1898, the STA series of rifles from France beginning in 1896, and the Madsen-Rasmussen of 1888, to name a few. Many of these early rifles worked fairly well, even; the Madsen-Rasmussen, Mondragon, RSC 1917, Mauser Selbstlader, and several other weapons were successful enough to be adopted in some capacity by military forces. Why, then, did the world have to wait for John Garand to finally realize the standard-issue selfloading rifle? Available on the App Store.

John Hames

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