Greatest Rifle Designers of all time?

B

Badger Arms

New member
Here goes. Please limit your responses to Rifles and their designers. Put them in order of gratness. Here's my choices:

1) John Moses Browning
2) Mauser (both)
3) John Garand
4) James Paris Lee
 
I'll second G Hill's list. Does anyone know who was responsible for the BrEn/ZB-38 design? Those crazy Czechs made a lot of interesting and important weapons, but can they be attributed to a single individual?
 
Mauser
Kalashnikov
Browning

Kalishnikov and Browning might need to be arranged, but Mauser on top with out a doubt. I think Mauser paved the way for the others to follow.
 
Eugene Stoner
the AR10 Series of Rifles the AR15 M16 Series Rifles and the AR18 Series of Rifles :D :D :D

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Technical Sergeant Andrew Robert Smith
CO LRRP Team
of the Second Ranger Battalion Charlie Company in WW2 Online.
 
Honerable Mention: Ole Krag, Charles Ross, Ariska (yeah, but they're strong), Dieudonne' Saive (SAFN, FN-49, FAL). Also Siminov and Tokarev. I'd include Ivan Mosin and the Belgian Nagants here but I'm not overly familiar with their designs.
 
John Moses Browning uber alles!
The Mauser boys run a respectably well played and very close second.
Diudonne Saive for his heavenly FAL closes the ranks in third place despite his weird, phlegmishly foreign name.
John C. Garand gets an honorable mention for winning WWII...

Kalashnikov gets my vote for "Most Accomplished Plagiarist", after taking a novel German design and cheapening it up quite a bit, thereby making it more peasant proof. Had the Germans fared a bit better in the late unpleasantness, we would all be toting Sturmgewehrs.

Eugene Stoner gets my vote for most contrived, overdesigned, ridiculous POS ever sold to the US Military. :(
Unless of course, the US Army actually ends up buying the bill of goods packaged as the OICW (Offensively Idiotic Combat Widget), in which case Eugene only gets dishonorable mention and a smack in the mouth.

As a side note, I know someone that has an uncle that dated JMB's daughter way back when. Evidently she was quite the package.
 
Just a note on Stoner. The AR-15 is Light, Sexy, and accurate in its original incarnation. Unfortunatley for the US Military, That JackAss McNamara fell in love with both Stoner and his gun. The AR-16 was a far superior design, but that design was post-stoner. That design evolved into the AR-18 which is the gun that, arguably, should have made the cut for Vietnam. I think the AR-18 needed to evolve a bit more, but no moreso than the AR-15's that killed so many Americans in Vietnam. Read it again, I didn't mis-type.

As for Stoner, he redeemed himself quite well with the Stoner 63. Maybe he felt bad for getting so many Americans killed in Veitnam. The M-16 today is a mature but flawed weapon which is in bad need of replacement. Its reputation for reliability is deplorable and not fitting of the finest fighting force in the world.
 
Eugene stoner.

THe problems with his rifle were from the military not the design. Idiots made choices and had no Idea what was really going on.

Not issueing cleaning kits, non chrome lines bores, etc, etc.

Mad Dog you are making posts and topics just to piss people off. Good way to get banned real quick in most places.

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"Knowledge is a destination. Truth, the journey."
 
Sir Maxim was mentioned for the machinegun, let us not forget his developments in the noise suppression field as well.
 
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