The Best Rifle Never Made

In the waning days of WWII, the US army was looking for an upgrade to the M1 Garand. They were working on a rifle called the T20,which was simply a Garand capable of full auto fire and sporting a box magazine - really, just the later M14, using 30.06 ammunition instead of the shorter 7.62x51 which came along a few years later.

The war ended before it went into production.

During those post-war years, they began work on something called the T-25, which had some similarities to the Garand, but used the inline stock of the FG-42 to tame muzzle rise in full auto, which was always the issue with the M14 which was eventually adopted. Why this rifle wasn't adopted is an interesting story.



http://www.forgottenweapons.com/earle-harveys-t25-replacement-for-the-garand/

 

My first thought was that it reminded me of the FG-42. Similar design.

 

I saw the title & thought this might be a thread on the EM-2, as it often generates such terminology.
http://www.forgottenweapons.com/rifles/british-em-2/

I'm surprised by that T31 mentioned in the Garand article. Early for a Bullpup
http://www.forgottenweapons.com/t31-john-garands-bullpup/

The doomed designs are always so interesting, aren't they.
Off to Leeds Armouries in a few weeks, where there's a decent little collection of 'project cancelled' stuff.

 

For me also, my first thought was a FG-42 scared by a an M-14. Sights and butt stock look to be straight off the German rifle.

 

When I saw the heading on this thread I thought immediately of the original 10 shot .276 Garand. MacArthur put the kibosh on that in favor of the 30:06.

 

I was expecting the T1E3 Pedersen .276.

Leave it to Forgotten Weapons to come up with something different. But, it has always been an excellent and informative website.

 

It's a shame it wasn't developed. Most of NATO (and the free world) went with the FAL (L1A1) and yet this rifle would likely have been superior to either the FAL or the US' M14 in full auto. Few mortal men could tame either of those otherwise great rifles in full auto because of muzzle climb, but this inline stock would have made a tremendous difference.

 

I always wondered why the Garand had a clip instead of say a 10 or more shot magazine. The magazine would have cost a bit more, been slightly harder to carry in a bandoleer, protrude from the rifle and the idea of still stressing accurate shooting may have deemed 8 shots as sufficient. and the en bloc clip may have been a vestige of the stripper clip but the merits seem, to me, worth while. I guess the Army came to that conclusion with the M 14..
Funny the Revolution was fought primarily with the .79 caliber, the Civil War with the .58, the Indian Wars with the .45, the WW1 and 2 with .30 with a few Lee Navy 6mm's thrown in, then the .22 and now the .17 being experimented with.....are not the Brit's using a .17? .

I guess ray guns and phasers will have zero caliber !

I guess , KB, that the T 20 might have better control than the M 14 on full auto if both had 7.62 X 51 chambers . Looks like they learned something from the Germans then promptly forget it.

Gaines

 

in some instances, full auto is a waste of ammo..did it have single mode also?

 

Yes. it could fire either in automatic or semiautomatic.

 

gt,

From what I've read, Garand actually wanted a detachable magazine but the army in its specifications said no. Thus, the Garand came out a lot more mechanically complicated than it needed to be.

 

Not necessarily For some reason, most Americans have a blind spot for....THIS!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_G3

 

I did say "Most of...".

 

It's actually a quite close split, closer than you'd think at 74 vs. 90....because a lot of the 90 FAL (or variant) users, when you look at a list of them, are police users - and it has quite a lot of, um, "temporary" users on it - like anti-Gaddafi forces (when supplied by various other nations), the Croatians - but only during the civil war - Katangas, an unreocgnized satate that disappeared in 1963, things like that!

The count is also confused by a lot of "military" users using both BOTH, or variants of the FAL for ambush or covert operations compared to other battle rifles, when those others like the G3 or Steyr equip their regular forces.

If we were to similarly add the number of unrecognized/irregular/insurgent forces into the G3 mix along the lines of what's in the FN/FAL list, it might look VERY different; for at least two decades the G3 was the weapon of choice in the bush wars in Africa

 

I always thought of the G3 as a cheap stamped version of the FAL. I know that's not fair but when you examine a FAL or an M14 against a G3, it doesn't inspire the same love.

 

Oh I dunno - remember all those "boy soldiers" grinning on the front of magazines in the 1970s and 1980s, dwarfed by their G3s!!!

 

Well I grew up thinking milled meant good and stamped meant bad. Still have trouble with that idea. But the MG 42 had to be strong to hold up under it's cycle rate but then I never read any reliability data on them. I almost did not buy my Sig 228 because it's slide is stamped over a mandrel, then welded of all things (! ) then milled. After 25 years I think it will now out last me !!!

But I will die liking milled, hand polished and fire blue guns....except for military pieces. . Still prefer milled but that is probably a obsolete idea.

The FAL remains my idea of what a battle rifle should be and while I appreciate the qualities of the G3 I cannot warm up to one. And , KB, absolutely cannot love one !

Gaines

 

Ah, professor, close your eyes and listen to the precise 'snick' and 'clack' of a milled steel weapon as you work the action. Then the cacophony of tin can sounds from a stamped weapon. You'll soon confirm your admiration for milled steel.

That has nothing to do with function, but I will say that a man who admires and respects his weapon will probably take better care of it and that may be the difference between life and death in some future fight.

 

I think I must just be from a different generation Coming from a two-wheeled background, and with the garage swimming in threaded thingies...I was always told that "milled" meant material being taken away, whereas stamping/forging meant the same "form" achieved without compromising the structural integrity of the piece

 

You and KodiakBeer left out the third component. Milled, Blued and Wooden Stock