Cool Guns/Rifles: Difference between revisions

Any [[World War II]] movie featuring Americans will feature this rifle. One of the first semi-automatic weapons fielded by a major army, it fired 8 rounds of .30-06 from its internal clip-fed magazine<ref>The original design had a 10-round clip, weighed a pound less, and fired a 7mm cartridge called .276 Pedersen. But Douglas MacArthur, at the time the Army Chief of Staff, decided that replacing the literally ''billions'' of .30-06 rounds already in the inventory would be too expensive (given that it was the middle of [[The Great Depression]], he had a point) and ordered that the Garand be redesigned to fire the existing ammo.</ref>, and continues to be a sticking point among people trying to explain the difference between a clip and a magazine, as one of the few examples of a clip being physically inserted into a weapon. Legendary durability was a plus, too, though the gun had a nasty snap to it's action that lead to a common complaint known as "rifleman's thumb" or more simply "M1 thumb." CommonlyModern said to have the "disadvantage" that the ejecting en-bloc clip made a distinctive ping when it hit the ground; in practice this was not nearly as large a problem as is often believed, since the ping was usually drowned out by gunfire, only occurred on hard surfaces,shooters and thethose riflemanwho with a Garand reloaded more quickly and fired faster than any opponentdealt with a Mauser-derivative could hope to. Not to mention the factscoped thatvariant war is not fought as a one-on-one duel, and it's generally unlikely for the entire squad to run out of ammo at the same time. In fact, some riflemen took advantage of this quirk, whereby they would intentionally make the pinging noise to tempt enemies out of cover. Some Italian versions (the Beretta [[BM 59]]) with detachable box magazines were produced after World War II, and for a time were the standard rifle of the Italian Army. With the advent of automatic rifles, the American military tried to convertnote the M1 intois intoquite thean M14 battleinaccurate rifle. Even by changing the ammo from .30-06 to .308 Winchester / 7.62x51 NATO, it turned out to be too much dakka. This was noted, sadly, after it was instituted as a standard rifle round. Italy had the same problem with their full-auto [[BM 59]] models, meaning that in practice only semi-auto was actually used. The M1 itself stayed in service through Korea and was still in limited use in Vietnam, especially the M1D sniper variant with a fitted scope. Garands served with other military elements well into the 70s, and are still used by military drill teams even today.

The SKS was designed and fielded in the last days of [[World War 2]]. Firing the intermediate 7.62x39mm round (which is known for being the same caliber used by the AK-47), it was soon replaced by AK pattern weapons and ultimately forgotten in the Soviet Union. It went on to have quite a long career in the People's Republic of China, the Democratic Peoples' Republic of North Korea, the Democratic (later Socialist) Republic of Vietnam and numerous other former Soviet client states, and it is still quite a popular gun around the world today. Visually, it is very similar to the SVT-40, although not quite as pretty, a good bit lighter, and 8 inches shorter. The SKS features a fixed magazine with a capacity of 10 rounds which can be filled either by clips, or one at a time. The SKS is slightly more powerful and accurate than the AK because it features a longer barrel and better sights. Most have bayonets that fold underneath the barrel, or at least originally did; some (especially from China) had the bayonet removed prior to import. [[The Great Politics Mess-Up|When the Communist Bloc fell]], all of a sudden, it was suddenly available for very cheap with crates of Soviet and Chinese ammunition (Soviet variants qualified for "Curio and Relic" status, as do Yugoslavian ones (most of which have an attachment for firing rifle grenades via blank ammo, which is mostly useless since grenades are illegal but which has spawned a popular golf ball launcher attachment), along with the ultra-rare East German<ref>Most of which are reputed to currently be in a warehouse in Croatia, of all places.</ref>, North Korean and Vietnamese versions, which bypassed some restrictions, and the fixed magazine meant that they were not at all affected under the [[American Gun Politics|Clinton Assault Weapons Ban of 1994),]] and a large number of people found that the ballistics matched up nicely with those of the .30-30 Winchester 1894 (the "poor man's deer rifle" of the previous century). Frequently susceptible to being "bubba'd" with optical sights (The rifles are accurate out to 400M, although putting scopes on them is rather pointless), "tactical" accessories (or "tacticool", as some disparagingly call them; these include jam-happy aftermarket detachable magazines) and camo paint. Now it's a favorite of both hunters, as well as mall ninjas on too low a budget for an AR-15. It is also a moderately popular choice of Home Defense weapon, being easy to use, easy to bring to bear, and firing a relatively more powerful round than handguns, shotgun pellets, and the AR-15. It has significant popularity in Canada as it is not a variant of a restricted firearm and lack of import restrictions render Chinese examples extremely cheap.