Stirring the pot with the butt of an SVT 40

FraserJ20

FraserJ20

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General patton once wrote that the M1 garand best the best battle implement ever devised. Would he have still said that if he handled an.........SVT 40?

The bell has been struck, I will throw the first punch for the SVT 40 side (which I think will definitely be the underdog in this debate).

SVT 40 benifits

1)lightweight (compared to garand)
2)Detechable mags with stripper clip loading
3)technical inovation (fluted chamber, muzzle brake, adjustable gas system)
4)Powerful round
5) Looks freakin mean!!
6) higher capacity = more firepower
7) No ping
8) Good enough for the germans
9) Unlike the garand, not ammo sensitive. Round not extracting? Crank up the gas. No need to worry about bent op rods, etc. if rounds are too hot, turn down gas.

I know I know, the sights aren't that great however, because the gun is so long, the sight radius is not at all unreasonable.

Your swing garandaphiles
 
To cut-down weight, the strenght of the rifle was compromised and it was more easily damaged than the Garand or Mosin.
 
I think that the SVT-40 was an abomination, just somewhat better than the AG-42B, but far inferior to the M1.

The Russians didn't even think it was the best weapon they had ever made. After WWII, SVTs were mostly taken out of service and stored, being quickly replaced by the SKS and AK-47.
 
the sks was a doctrine change, not the fault of the weapon (smaller round). The sks and svt 40 have very similar mechanisms.

Garands op rods do bend, show me case where through normal combat use the svt's have been shown fragile.
 
Stocks were easily damaged, I have handle many with numerous repairs. Also the AVT-40 in automatic fire had a tendency to sake itself to pieces, they were rebuilt into semi-autos after the war.
 
FraserJ20 said:
the sks was a doctrine change, not the fault of the weapon (smaller round). The sks and svt 40 have very similar mechanisms.

Garands op rods do bend, show me case where through normal combat use the svt's have been shown fragile.
Click to expand...

Provide same for the M-1 garand.
Can you de-cipher Russian? If any russian soldier complained about his/her equipment they would have been dealt with severely and/or transferred to Siberia...as a result no such reports will ver be found.
The Springfield Armory kept ultra accurate records of any deficiencies of their rifles in order to improve them. We have no idea what kind of records the Russians kept if any...so your rrequest for proof is irrelevant.
I have seen the SVT in use and would not want to stake my life on one...give me a Garand any time.
Cheers
 
1)lightweight (compared to garand)>>>>15oz difference....thats a small steak
2)Detechable mags with stripper clip loading>>>>> good point, if they were issued with extra mags, mute since strippers would be slower then enblocs
3)technical inovation (fluted chamber, muzzle brake, adjustable gas system)>>>>fluted chamber was to correct a design flaw, muzzle break is not that effective and certianly no innovation, AGS adds unnecessary fragility to a battlerifle
4)Powerful round>>>>doesn't match 30'06 balistics, rimmed design, corrosive, nothing else to be said.
5) Looks freakin mean!! >>>>looks don't win wars
6) higher capacity = more firepower >>>>2 rounds higher cap with slower reloading
7) No ping >>>> if you are close enough to hear the ping you shoudn't be using a rifle anyways
8) Good enough for the germans >>>>germans didn't have enough GEW43's to arm their soldiers, lucky for them, they were able to kill enough russians with SVT's (what's that tell you) to supplement their k98's which were obviously inferior to the autoloader.
9) Unlike the garand, not ammo sensitive. Round not extracting? Crank up the gas. No need to worry about bent op rods, etc. if rounds are too hot, turn down gas. >>>> garand is not very ammo sensitive, i've run mild reloads at 2200fps without a hiccup. M1 has no gas vent in the cylinder, it takes the full gas pressure in the barrel, that's why the gas hole is 1/2 from the muzzle. Once the bullet leaves the muzzle, pressure returns to 0 and the action can close to finish up the cycle. It's not wise to run super hot rounds through it, but it was designed around a 150g bullet at 2750fps which is no slouch. SVT would suffer damage as well if too hot a round was to be run though it continuously.
And there is no comparision when you throw accuracy into the equation, M1 hands down is definately the most accurate autoloaded of WWII.
 
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Were Soviet troops issued a quantity of extra magazines, or did they reload using chargers? Unless there is a large sackful of magazines for every SVT, the M-1 has a much greater capacity for sustained rapid fire. SVT had to have the fluted chamber to facilitate extraction. Powerful cartridge? 7.62x54R vs .30-06? Was the adjustable gas system needed because of variable ammunition quality? The M-1 is ammunition sensitive? With US issue ammuntion? Really?
 
Isn't the soviet load 7.62x54 about the same a m2 ball? Someting like 2900fps with the 150gr load. All being said though, as much as I love my soviet hardware I would have to say the Garand is the better rifle. the svt is just too fragile. Now if they would have gone with Siminov's design we might have something to talk about. Has anybody actually seen a non norinco pinned barrel sks fall apart?
Edit, just checked 7.62x54r's ammo evaluation page & it cronyed at 2800 fps 150 grn load. Still not exacly anemic, eh?
 
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desporterizer said:
Isn't the soviet load 7.62x54 about the same a m2 ball? Someting like 2900fps with the 150gr load. All being said though, as much as I love my soviet hardware I would have to say the Garand is the better rifle. the svt is just too fragile. Now if they would have gone with Siminov's design we might have something to talk about. Has anybody actually seen a non norinco pinned barrel sks fall apart?
Edit, just checked 7.62x54r's ammo evaluation page & it cronyed at 2800 fps 150 grn load. Still not exacly anemic, eh?
Click to expand...

The AVS 36 was no success but when it came to Simonov's improved rifles the choice may well have been a personal one by Stalin. He knew F. Tokarev well but apparently had never even met SG Simonov
 
Neither the M1 nor the SVT were the great weapons their proponents make them out to be IMHO.

The SVT's biggest faults are the overly slender stock wrist and the difficult to clean (in the field) gas system combined with very corrosive ammo. That being said the 10 round detachable mag that can be topped up with chargers is a much better system than the M1's en-bloc. In fact the Americans agreed and basically copied that feature of the SVT in the M14.

The M1 had a more robust stock and a rimless round, but the operating rod design was less than ideal, a fluted chamber would have improved the design and the fire control group was FAR over-designed, overly complicated and prone to breakage.

FWIW, I honestly have to side with the SVT if I had to chose one to fight with. Stock breakages aren't THAt common and the volume of fire and operating dependability are superior to the M1. FWIW, the German agreed with me and routinely re-issed the coveted SVT40 captures, while M1's were virtually never re-issued to the Wehrmacht, though the Nazis did LOVE their captured M1 carbines.

Now if we introduce option (C), I will take an stg44 if you don't mind too much...
 
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I have to say that I think the Lee-Enfield rifle is, bar none, the finest battle implement ever devised.

That said, Id probably take the SVT-40 over the Garand. I love mine.
 
You got to love that sloppy scope arrangement on the SVT-40 Sniper, duh...I guess that's why it didn't last too long.

Patton knew what he was talking about, M1 Garand wins again.
 
SVT-40.

Don't get me wrong. I love my Garand, but, having shot many, many rounds out of both, if I was in a combat situation with a limited choice (choices being those two) you'd be hard pressed to get the Tokarev out of my hands.
 
I don't know if I'd call either rifle "the greatest battle implement designed"

BTW technically he called a U.S. soldier with a M1 Garand the greatest battle implement, not just the rifle

In this aspect it's a hands down K.O. for the garand. The yanks had much better training in the use of their rifles when compared to the ruskies. This was the biggest flaw in the SVT 40 design. It was too complicated of a weapon to issue to ill educated peasants.

There are articles on some well trained russian units that had good luck with the rifle. But generally the average conscript wouldn't have either the knowledge or training to use the SVT40 effectively.

Also when compared head to head personally I found:

The Garand may weigh slightly more but it's much more controllable in rapid fire. Even with the muzzle brake I've found the SVT is hard to keep the muzzle down and virtually impossible to fire all ten without having to slow to reaquire the target. Not so much with the garand. The better sights on the garand helps a lot as well.

The detachable mag is almost a non issue. It's much faster to load from the top with strippers. It's even faster still to load enblocs (well for me anyway).

There is one flaw in the enblocs in that it's pretty much impossible to top them up without unloading the rifle. The SVT has the advantage of removing the mag to refill with a round still in the chamber.

I'm not going to get into a pissing match about the 7.62X54R and the 30-06. They both are fairly similar in ballistics. The ammo sensitivity of the garand in battle is bunk. Any 30-06 issued to the yanks would work fine out of the rifle.

Good enough for the germans? I'm sure if the germans had as much access to garands and more importantly 30-06 rounds as compared to the large amount of captured russian equipment they might have been more apt to use garands against their opponents.

Honestly in terms of sucess for the russian army. The mosin nagant was far more effective as it was much more reliable, simpler to operate, and was produced in larger numbers.
 
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