Semi Auto WWII "Long Rifle" Who really had it figured out?

SKScanuck

SKScanuck

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I have often wondered, excluding the Garand, (IMHO was an original design - 8rd mag and all with a "ping") when you look at the operation of the other WWII semi, (SVT38-40, G/K43) aren't they all very frighteningly similar in design?
It makes me think, someone started the whole thought process that resulted in the perfection of the design. Someone started the ball rolling in the right direction.

So milsurp gurus, who was that?
 
Well gas-operated semis, John Garand's design was the first mass produced I believe...

And simply semi-auto, no matter the type, wasn't it Manlicher?
 
Developement of a military semi-auto started, Stateside, in 1916. They tried to convert some 1903's with little success. The Brits tried it with a Lee-Enfield too.
J.M. Browning had designed the Remington Model 8 with production starting in 1906. J.C. Garand's first design had a 20 round detachable mag. U.S. military didn't want a 20 round mag.
Buy a copy of Hatcher's Notebook. The history of the military semi-auto is covered at length. Hatcher's Book of the Garand covers a lot of the early semi-auto's too. Your local gun shop or Amazon. About $30 each and worth every cent.
 
Good points,

But assuming the K/G43, SVT40 and Garand were the principle WWII semi auto long guns why are the k?G43 and SVT40 so similar?

Maybe I have watched too many conspiracy shows...
 
That's a tough question.....everything modern uses a rotating bolt to lock up, which kind of goes back to the M1. All the dropping block design types like SVT/SKS/AG42 have been discarded. Direct gas impingement seems to be going the way of the dodo as well, and short stroke pistons being used almost exlusively.
I'd say it was the M1 that started the ball rolling in WWII for the perfected full length battle rifle cartridge design, as the M14 is still being used sucessfully today.
That or the STG44...which wasnt a battle rifle, but led to the AK and eventually the SVD, which is also still in use today.
 
Amazingly, the French almost adopted the Meunier A6 rifle chambered for a 7x59mm cartridge, but the outbreak of WWI caused them to decide not to go ahead with adopting it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meunier_rifle

As to the similarity between the G43 and SVT-40, two things may account for it:

-The Germans might have based the G43's gas system on that of the Tokarev when they redesigned it from the G41(W)
-There are only so many ways of making a self-loading rifle. The FN-49 (and its successor, the FAL) is also similar in function to an SVT-40, despite being developed independently. The MAS 49 has a similar action, but with a direct impingement gas system.
 
The long length probably has more to do with using a full size cartridge than anything else. The powder has to have a long to burn fully, otherwise it would be wasted in a huge muzzle flash.
The various armies all used fairly long infantry rifles, so a long semi would be natural.
 
The then thirty four year old John Browning, inventede the gas operated gun in 1889, in semi and full auto mode.

From the book "John M. Browning, American Gun Maker" by his son John Browning and Curt Gentry, page 143:

"The bending of weed and foliage before a muzzle blast was, of course, commonplace as the report of a shot and powder smoke. It had been commonplace to John.

This was such a moment-as John noticed the swaying of weeds there occurred one of those brilliant, intutive flashes which cut across time, effort, and preconceptions. He saw utilzable energy go to waste. And while the black-powder smoke was still curling the air, his mind was considering methods of applying that energy."

World first gas operated, automatic firing gun was soon invented from that day in 1889, utilizing a Winchester model 73 with a "flapper", a system that also was used in Browning's first succesfully machine gun, the Colt "potato digger".

Today, any automatic gun using any form for gun gas operations to function, owe this to the gun genious, John Moses Browning, inventions of the gas operated gun in 1889.
 
The SVT-40 and G43 were so similar because German engineers were forced to copy the SVTs gas system when their muzzle system proved prone to fouling and dirt.

I agree with Jean, look at the Mondragon if you want to see a nice early semi-auto. The semi-autos of WWII were mostly developed in the first world war as flyers rifles.
 
Hiram Maxim patented every method of operating a self loading arm including gas operation c1886.
The operating rod on the M1 is heavily influenced by the French M1917.
 
The Polish had a semi auto that was accepted in 1938, and were tooling up for full production and working out bugs when war broke out. I wish there were blueprints around. I always wondered if the Germans or Russians "borrowed" any design elements, or if the Poles "borrowed" the design from anyone else - the action looks similar to the Model 8.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kbsp_wz._1938M

It is interesting how many major armies never went semi auto during WWI or even inter war considering what was availible at the time.
 
Forty4Forty said:
Don't forget the Swedish AG-42 rifle a good rifle just did not see much action, but used for other designs. Use blow back before the AR16.
Click to expand...

Actually I've always thought the bolt lockup (though not the gas system) of the Ljungmann is remarkably similar to the Tokarev rifles. Interestingly the Finns got alot of Swedish aid right around the same time they captured a fair number of SVT-38s, and the Swedes were deciding they wanted a semi-auto. I've always suspected the Finns sent the Swedes an example or two that was studied carefully while designing the Ljungmann.
 
Ljungmann: obviously patterned after the Tokarev..... which likely was stolen from the original Saive patents in the early 1930s.

Green: thank you. Yes, Maxim is THE MAN when it comes to automatic ANYTHING.

Also, lest we forget, he invented the entire concept of modular constriction when working on his machine-guns. I have actually had my hands inside the very first one he built, and it is a LONG way from the production models. The man was one of the greatest geniuses of the entire history of technology, yet he is almost forgotten.
BTW, his book, "My Life" is back in print. I got a copy from our local bookstore, $25 in paperback and worth every penny a hundred times over. One of the funniest books I have ever read. Not bad for a guy with most of Grade 4.
And then he flew an airplane almost the size of a Lancaster.... 7 years before the Wrights.

Sometimes the American propaganda machine does get a little bit tiring.... but not as tiring as the Russian!
But we all know that John Freakin' Moses Browning was the neatest thing since sliced bread (even if he did make everything on a shaper).... same as we all know (having just been told in a popular US magazine) that the wear-practically-forever rifling now called '5r' was invented for the American Model of 1917 rifle (it is Enfield, introduced into the USA with the P.-'14) et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.....

Arrrrrrgh! I'm getting old an' mizzabul!
 
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