What was the crappiest bolt action rifle during WWII?

Old Ranger said:
I own and shoot most of the rifles being discussed here. I too would not bad mouth the MAS 36. Mine is in very good condition and I shoot it once in a while. Good accuracy with both cast and jacketed bullet reloads. I've never shot (or seen) issue ammo for these rifles. Windage adjustments are a pain as replacement apertures are used to make the change. Got mine dialed in now thanks to my nephew who was able to locate the one I needed (Thanks Frank).
Rifle has no safety which is not an issue for range plinking. Wouldn't be my first choice as a WWII bolt battle rifle but certainly wouldn't be my last either.
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Well if you DO come upon some issue ammo for the 36 and it's marked in Arabic, here' s what you do: ask the guy if he ever had a table at a Montreal gun show. If he says yes; punch im in da mouth real hard, go home and bill me... I will gladly pay.

If he says no; Run away with your money.

Tried 6 rnds out of 50 a few weeks ago and all the primers malfunctionned.
 
Have you ever handled a Carcano carbine? They are actually nifty little carbines...carbines.
Do they really need a rear sight adjustable to 800 m? I've handled sporting rifles that didn't have adjustable sights as well.
I'm not putting forth an opinion as to which is best or worst because I don't consider myself to by knowledgeable enough to put forth a intelligent veiwpoint.
Are you...?
 
vandoo66 said:
Well if you DO come upon some issue ammo for the 36 and it's marked in Arabic, here' s what you do: ask the guy if he ever had a table at a Montreal gun show. If he says yes; punch im in da mouth real hard, go home and bill me... I will gladly pay.

If he says no; Run away with your money.

Tried 6 rnds out of 50 a few weeks ago and all the primers malfunctionned.
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Myself, I would not ever consider buying WWII Lebanese/Syrian ammunition that was most likely made by Arabic laborers for their "lovely" colonial masters and expect it to go bang.

But hey...............that's just me. lol

Edit: Probably the last person to be disappointed in a misfire with this lot number, most likely died in a hail of Axis gunfire in the battle for Damascus. So you got off easy friend. ;)
 
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live4therut said:
I would be hard pressed to call a WW battle rifle crappy, soldiers depended on their rifles for their lives, which most under the Terrible condition's worked. Hence being adopted as the country's rifle. I have limited experience firing all the WWII battle rifle's but have & own the German, US, Canadian/Brit offerings and would trust my life to either if I had too. Start a thread and ask which is my favorite.... Well it would end up in the LE #1 Springfield in a close second and k98 in an even closer third.
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I think the one exception to this is the Ross. While the Ross proved to be a very capable sniper rifle it could not cope with life as an infantry rifle and was very prone to problems. Pretty good if kept clean but no so good in mud and dirt, wonder why it didn't work in the trenches. It was pulled from infantry service as soon as the LE was available.
 
Coyote Ugly said:
Thus againsolution: whethe quieturns that under insolence dother there's turn awry, and the wish'd. There's deat that merit off trave, ther beary life; and, but thousand, by a consummative shocks the quieturn no mortune, or in that undispriz'd long, the shuffles coil, and the sleep to die, that is nobles of ther 'tis not that undisprises the in the wills bear, that that sling a coil, and arrows of the with a sea of the name with when he who would fardelay, to take cast of retural shocks that sleep;
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...Sorry, What!?
 
the end result of facing the hordes with the antique weapons of which you speak was actually fairly successful. Korea proved the effectiveness of the trained , volunteer soldier with a bolt action rifle as compared to a seemingly relatively untrained conscript carrying a SKS. all you need to do is compare casualty rates from one side to the other. tactics played a very important role there as well. that being said, i think many commonwealth troops would have preferred a more modern semi automatic, but all the vets I have spoken to, they all said that there was always a shortage of ammo anyway, especially during major communist offensives. a semi auto would have been disastrous with the ammo supply issues during those times…..
Brutus said:
^I get it that some people really have a sentimental attachment to the LE rifle. British special forces were not so type cast though. During the Korean War British Royal Marines issued M1 Garands to their raiding parties that mined North Korean railroads along the coast. The SAS were often seen using M1 carbines during WWII. The whole ping argument is kind of hard to believe though. In effect the rifle has literally unloaded itself and the action is automatically open, waiting for the operator to merely push another en bloc clip into the empty space. We are literally talking about mere seconds here to reload. Then it's game on once again. If the Allied forces had to invade mainland Japan the Americans insisted that they use their rifles instead of the old timey bolt actions that were modern for the year 1919.

Sorry, Lawerence that's hard to believe........I suspect the real reason they would not adopt another rifle was the feasibility and cost of rearming to a better battle rifle during a world war.
But they had no excuse for the Korean War! No British/Commonwealth troops should have faced the Chinese hordes with ancient WW1 designed rifles.

Cheers!
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Brutus said:
Myself, I would not ever consider buying WWII Lebanese/Syrian ammunition that was most likely made by Arabic laborers for their "lovely" colonial masters and expect it to go bang.

But hey...............that's just me. lol

Edit: Probably the last person to be disappointed in a misfire with this lot number, most likely died in a hail of Axis gunfire in the battle for Damascus. So you got off easy friend. ;)
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Must admit that seeing it from an Infantryman's perspective is much different than from that of an old "sorta" has been;)

Still a bummer as this stuff is hard to find:(
 
5THBATT said:
That may be so but its a Swiss rifle & they were neutral so the K31 was not a WW2 battle rifle.
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And there's an argument to be made that the prospect of invading a mountain range populated by a nation of marksmen armed with K31s made the Nazis turn their attention elsewhere, which brings a certain Sun Tzu quote about supreme excellence to mind...
 
infideleggwelder said:
the end result of facing the hordes with the antique weapons of which you speak was actually fairly successful. Korea proved the effectiveness of the trained , volunteer soldier with a bolt action rifle as compared to a seemingly relatively untrained conscript carrying a SKS. all you need to do is compare casualty rates from one side to the other. tactics played a very important role there as well. that being said, i think many commonwealth troops would have preferred a more modern semi automatic, but all the vets I have spoken to, they all said that there was always a shortage of ammo anyway, especially during major communist offensives. a semi auto would have been disastrous with the ammo supply issues during those times…..
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The North Koreans had Mosins and Russian burp guns. They did not have any SKS or AK-47.
 
davemccarthy707 said:
The North Koreans had Mosins and Russian burp guns. They did not have any SKS or AK-47.
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Everything I've read concurs with this. I've never seen anything beyond anecdotes about the SKS in the Korean war - I do not believe they were used there. The North Koreans themselves didn't start making the things until ten years after the war ended and the Russians didn't like giving out their brand new kit to just anybody.

They had a lot of Mosin Nagants, PPSh's and Chinese clones of PPSh's (Type 50). DP-28's were also popular.
 
While I lack the experience to comment on the Carcano, I would say in defense of the Mosin, it was a rifle that could be produced quickly, but unskilled laborers, and put into the hands of generally untrained soldiers. Granted, when your suicidal frontals had more men than the Germans did bullets in their belts, it didn't really matter what your troops were armed with.

Where WW1 was a learning period as the world adjusted to automatic weapons in warfare, WW2 was a learning period in which the world learned to fight in close quarters, often the width of a city street or even inside of a building, tasks where a PPSh, Thompson, MP-40 or Sten gun were all incredibly well suited, but weren't good for engagements pass 100m, whereas bolt action rifles were good past 200m, up to 800m in some cases. Bolt actions are great for accuracy, but if you're going into a room and there's a German waiting for you and you miss your first shot, I'd gladly have a M1 Garand over a 1903A3 any day.
 
5THBATT said:
Touching on the Lee Enfield vs K98/Springfield debate
If you were to ask me which is the better bolt action rifle, i would say the K98 & Springfield over the LE but if you asked me which was the better bolt action battle rifle I would say the LE over the K98 & Springfield.
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That's the key to the question - are we talking , best in terms of gunsmithing attributes, or best in terms of reliability. Kind of like the whole AK vs. M16 debates. Can't speak for some of the other bolt guns, but I know that the LE will fire, and keep firing even when caked with mud and sand, which no Mauser I have ever seen will do, but if I'm building a superb hunting rifle, the Mausers will be the action of choice.
 
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