OK, yes, there may be a drawback with the capacity of the M-1 compared to others. Bear in mind that in a tactical situation the large capacity magazines of some nazi semi-auto rifles would lead to wasteful expenditures of ammunition...a disaster in a short ammunition supply condition. The so called limited capacity of the M-1 lends itself to accurate shooting, due to limited ammp capacity...meaning more dead nazis and japs...reality gentlemen, that is what the M-1 was built for. Oh, I almost forgot what a lot of guys bring up about the Garand...the infamous...PING!!!! Ok realistically, on a battlefield with a whole bunch of shooting going on do you really seriuosly beleive some nazi or jap would charge an American line after almost faintly hearing a PING...knowing that one soldier out of 100 has an empty Garand...not an issue in my estimation.
Reliability is also critical...the M-1 has the advantage here. Once agaion...bear in mind that it appears the Russians did not document failures of their primary S/A rifle; the same could be assumed with the nazis. On the other hand the US documented everything relating to the rifle and these documents are readily available. With this in mind is it logical to say the M-1 had severe problems...NO. Would it be safe to say the nazi and Russian SA rifles had problems...who knows, there is nothing that has been stated/written/produced by either regime to support.
All we have to go by is individual private usage of certain firearms in a non-life threatening situations (ie, TARGET PRACTICE opposed to WAR).
Not only did the M-1 rule the battlefields, but it has ruled the rifle ranges to this day
So...back to the question...what is the second place Semi-auto rifle of WW2?
Knowing fully well that the first place rifle is, the M-1 Garand.
The second place rifle IMHO would be...the Russian SVT-40.
A full power semi-auto rifle, with it's own set of deficiencies.
Cheers
