Is this mislabeled?

Yes, it's a MAS (short for "Manufacture d'Armes de St. Etienne", one of the main French arsenals), but it's also a Model (shortened to "Mle" in French) 1944; this rifle was a step between the MAS 39 and the MAS 49, and chambered for the 7.5mm French cartridge.
 
SDC is dead on. It was MAS' first attempt at a semi-auto version of the standard MAS 36 bolt-action rifle but it never really went into full production or should I say never issued as the primary battle rifle for France. It was finally replaced in 1949 by the MAS Mle 49.
 
trippingpara said:
...this rifle was a step between the MAS 39 and the MAS 49, and chambered for the 7.5mm French cartridge.
Click to expand...

I'm sure you meant to write MAS 36 instead of MAS 39.

1)The MAS 44 uses the same magazines as the MAS 49 and MAS 49/56. They are decent rifles if you don't mind a few things.

2)The weird magazines (the catch is on the magazine, not the rifle)
The direct gas impingement system. This is the worst feature of the AR 15 design and the MAS uses it to its detriment.

3) Ammo is hard to come by, and the stuff you see most often is Syrian which is prone to hangfires and misfires.

4) The MAS 36 uses the same stock as the MAS 44.

5) They are ugly as sin
 
I think SDC meant exactly what he wrote. The original semi auto prototype was the MAS 38, modified in 1939 by the MAS 38/39. This was followed by the MAS 40, which was actually adopted by the French Army about the time the Germans crashed the party.

Incredibly, development continued through the war years, and the MAS 44 was developed, followed after the war by the MAS 49 and 49/56.

The MAS semi autos are not conversions or modifications of the MAS 36 bolt action rifle; they are similar in appearance, but the semi-auto receiver is much larger than that of the MAS 36, and the whole gun is sturdier. Stocks are not the same, though they look the same at first glance.

The gas impingement system in the MAS semi autos is much like that of the Ljungmann; both are superior to the AR-15/M16 system because the spent gas is exhausted into the air, not directed back through the bolt carrier, which is a weak point in the Stoner design.

Jim
 
I never heard of anything like that. The closest thing to that I ever read about was the CR 39 which was a MAS 36 with a folding aluminum buttstock. Of course, there was the MAS 38 SMG, but we're talking rifles, not machine guns.

Hmm, something for me to research.
 
"Ammo is hard to come by, and the stuff you see most often is Syrian which is prone to hangfires and misfires."

Not to mention being some of the most corrosive ammunition ever manufactured...
 
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