Second-best semi-auto rifle

Just for fun, I thought it might be interesting to see which WW2 semi-auto rifle you think was second best. We all know that the Garand was the best but what came the closest to matching it? Johnson? K43? Tokarov? Other?

 

Certainly not the Johnson! The reciprocating barrel design made it less accurate than other rifles of the era.

I think you'd have to judge between the SVT40 and the G43.

 

I've never fired the Johnson-the only one of the lot I haven't. I had the chance to buy one once but opted instead for a Browning Hi-Power in 30 Luger.

 

I actually shot my first deer with a 1941 Johnson. They used to sell sporterized Johnsons in big box stores and my Dad bought it for me because it was cheap. I wish I'd kept it, but they were considered junk back then.

The problem is that the barrel moves back and forth as the action cycles. As you can imagine, there's a slight variation with each subsequent shot. It wasn't important in the woods of Michigan, but at long range the accuracy is not very good.

 

How dependable was it?

 

It always shot, but then it was a civilian deer rifle. I wasn't firing hundreds of rounds or crawling through swamps.

 

What was it's accuracy level anyway? I've always found that most rifles of that era can keep their shots into the chest area of a man at 200yds. How did that Johnson of yours compare?

 

I'm sure I never shot it beyond 100 yards, and that once a year at the range to check the sights. If I ever measured the group size at 100 yards I've long since forgotten what it was, but I do recall it wasn't very accurate. It didn't really need to be because deer hunting in Michigan woods is pretty much a 50 yard affair. Zeroing in to me was keeping the shots in a 6" bull, and it would do that.

Even in war, most shots are well within your 200 yard range. It's just that if you needed to make that long shot, I don't think the Johnson could do it consistently. Most ordnance boards demanded only about a 4" group at 100 yards, but in fact most military rifles will do about 2" which is pretty damned good. I suspect the Johnson was closer to that 4" mark, which according to the ordnance board was "good enough."

And since you've shot both the G43 and the SVT, what is your take on those rifles?

 

I have some old Guns & Ammo special issues from the 80's, giving comprehensive shooting reviews of the many surplus guns then hitting the market. Robert Shimek, the G&A reviewer, reported that the G43 was reliable, had good handling and balance and relatively gentle recoil, but the iron sights were poor and extraction and ejection were so violent as to mangle the cases. Short-range shooting (100 yards or less) was accurate, but accuracy fell off with distance very rapidly. Groups shot at 150 yards were 4 inches or less, but all groups shot at 200 yards range were 12 inches or more. Shimek reported that the Johnson had very good shooting characteristics, with a remarkably light trigger pull and very gentle recoil. Firing too fast resulted in 'strung' groups because of the moving barrel. Accuracy over all was 'adequate', with 3 3/8 to 4 1/8 inch groups at 100 yards. Fieldstripping was quick and easy (as on the G43) and Shimek encountered none of the unreliability alleged against the Johnson during WWII. Shimek also tested the SAFN 49, which was under development in Britain during WWII. This rifle had better sights and consequently better accuracy than the G43 (3 1/2 inch groups at 100 yards), but Shimek felt that the stripper-clip fed magazine was inferior in speed of reloading to the G43's ten-round detachable box. Jon Bensinger, who tested the M1 for Guns & Ammo, reported that the rifle was an easy shooter which inflicted little ache on the shoulder despite shooting many rounds. Groups at under 100 yards were typically under 4 inches, sometimes as low as 1 1/2 inches. Military issue ammo fed smoothly, with no jams. Some early war rifles tested suffered from the "seventh round" feed failure, a common one on early Garands, but a later example was fine. Harris Bierman of Guns and Ammo looked at the French MAS 44 and found it to be "sensibly designed." Field stripping was simple, and recoil as mild as the M1 Garand. The sights were inferior, but even so Bierman kept his groups within the 9 and 10 rings of the target at 100 yards. Guns & Ammo did not report on the Tokarev.

 

One thing the Germans didn't "get" with the G43 is that box magazine. From what I've read over the years, the rifle was typically issued with only one magazine which negated the advantage. You've have to pull the mag, reload it, then reinsert it. I don't know if that was due to wartime shortages or bad policy.

 

I owned a K43 many years ago and if I remember correctly, one loaded it with Mauser stripper clips from the top of the action. My example was very late war, but almost pristine. However, it's accuracy left a lot to be desired. I only had it for a relatively short time so only shot it with some Winchester and Remington ammo, plus a batch of Spanish ball. I felt my SKS was a lot better shooter. Some of the early models I've seen had a lot better finish so perhaps shot better.

 

I own a Garand, Johnson and SVT40. A G43 (as well as both a Walther and Mauser G41...) are on my "want" list.

I'm a big fan of the Johnson, but I'm not sure how it would hold up in combat. It seems a bit "flimsy" due to the exposed barrel. The safety is excellent, and I think that's an improvement of the Garand, and the Johnson can be "topped up" with individual rounds without emptying the chamber. The Garand has superior sights (although both have peep sights, the Garand is adjustable for windage whereas the Johnson is not). That being said the Johnson has excellent balance and is a pleasure to shoot. I can't speak about its accuracy because the barrel on mine is quite worn (mine made it to the Dutch East Indies before the Japanese invasion and is far from "mint"). The bottom line is that I think the Garand is a better "battle rifle". As much as I like the Johnson, I have serious concerns about how it would have held up in combat so let's leave it out of the contest.

That leaves the SVT40 and the G43. The G43 had two issues -- overgassing and complexity. The former led to increased wear -- indeed, today many shooters install kits to reduce the overgassing. The G43 was a complex design, and this translated to added difficulty in field maintence and increased production time. The SVT-40 was a brutally simple design (built tough to do a tough job) and did not suffer from overgassing. I'd imagine that the G43 is more pleasent to shoot. The SVT-40 has a narrow buttplate which tends to dig into your shoulder after about 20 rounds. The choice between these is tough, but I'd go with the SVT-40 on the grounds of robustness. That being said, given more time and more favourable conditions I feel that the G43 could have easily had its 'kinks' worked out and would have emerged as the better rifle.

If you want to make things interesting, lets get into some of the other designs. Remember that the design of the FN-49 was basically finalized in 1940 and is by most accounts an excellent rifle (I have a Venezuelan contract model).

 

One poster here said, and I don't remember the source cited, that one magazine in the gun, on spare and some clips in the belt was the norm for units issued with it. Of more interest to me was which divisions actually received those weapons? Per the German tables a Volksgrenadier Division was supposed to have one G-43 to every two StG-44's. Most divisions seemed have received a mix of Kar-98k's and MP-40's instead.

 

GP: I don't remember the G/K 43 as being overly complex. Could you elaborate. To me, the Garand, with its loading system was complex.

I had a friend in college who had a FN 49 (30-06 IIRC) and it seemed to be a good weapon. I liked its balance and "feel". I only had one complaint re. the rifle and that was the very small aperture in the rear sight. It would have been hard to acquire a target in dim light.

As far as the SVT 40 goes, the Soviets thought it wasn't robust enough and ditched it. The German soldiers liked it and thought it was quite accurate! However, they were more likely to give their weapons more TLC.

Triple C: I've never heard who got these weapons but I suspect they went to the more politically correct units like the Waffen SS and VG divisions. They probably went to the East as that was seen as the biggest threat.

 

That was very poorly phrased. I was referring to field stripping in comparison to the M1 Garand. The SVT-40 had a similarly complex takedown, so I can't fault the G43 for this exclusively. Likewise, I shouldn't have faulted the G43 for being complicated to produce. The Garand, G43 and SVT-40 were all "complicated" to produce (the Johnson was the simplest of these 4 rifles). Let's strike the "complex" point from the record. However, I stand by what I said about overgassing. This was very rough on the rifle and reduced its service life.

This is not entirely true. The Soviets phased it out of production due to cost. Due to the number of weapons lost in Barbarossa the Soviet Union needed to increase its arms production. The SVT-40 was more difficult to manufacture in comparison to the M91/30 (I recall reading that 5 M91/30s could be made for every 1 SVT-40), so its production was drastically scaled back in favor of increased Mosin Nagant production. In 1942 SVT production was only 25% of what it was in 1941.

The commonly-assigned "fault" of the SVT-40 was its flimsy receiver (there's a slow-motion video of one on YouTube that's worth looking at), but I have never heard of one failing. That isn't to say that it didn't happen but you would figure that if this was a common as its made out to be there would be some stories floating around. Another commonly-quoted "fault" is that the rifle was unreliable. I'm inclined to believe that this originated due to the training given to Soviet infantrymen that resulted in the rifle not being maintained properly. I have heard very few stories about the SVT-40 being unreliable when in both Finnish and German hands (most of these deal with the rifle seizing up in very cold temperatures and having to function as a straight-pull bolt action). The "unreliable" and "not robust" angles may have been contributing factors in the decision to dump the SVT-40 but from all sources I've read the overriding reason was its cost. Indeed, the fully-automatic AVT-40 was produced from the summer of 1942 through the summer of 1943. Although the AVT-40 was an incredibly poorly thought-out design and was uncontrollable, you'd figure that if the SVT-40 was "not robust enough" for semi-automatic fire or fundamentally unreliable no attempt would be made to turn it into a fully-automatic rifle.

There's also the issue of vertical shot dispersion, but this doesn't seem to universally effect these rifles. I haven't seen it on my '42 SVT-40 Sniper.

 

A friend of mine, let's call him Sock Monkey, has a SVT. The first time he shot it he hated it, the weapon kicked like a mule and heat built up so rapidly that the furniture was smoking. He was dismayed and took it home. The second time his buddy wanted to shoot it, and after receiving fair warning, went shooting with the rifle. Sock Monkey's friend was puzzled; the weapon shot well with no issues whatsoever. So Sock Monkey went on the gun and a shot it. The difference was night and day; the recoil was light, overheating nonexistent, groups quite tight.

Sock Monkey speculates that one of the recoil springs "needed stretching out." But he really has no idea. Here's said friend's youtube vids of both times he shot the SVT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-lW8JcfWCM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpcytKuVIog

 

Dad used a G41 M for a deer rifle for most of his life. I remember it having very little kick when fired and he was quite accurate with it. On the otherhand it was pretty heavy.

 

A G41M? Are you lucky enough to still have it? I'd do a heck of a lot to get my hands on one

 

A G41M? Are you lucky enough to still have it? I'd do a heck of a lot to get my hands on one

EDIT: Looks like I was so excited I posted twice!

 

are you considering only battle or assault rifles? how come no one's mentioning the M-1 carbine?