French NATO Standardization: the MAS 49-56 in 7.62mm
Semiauto Rifles
•
12m
In the late 1950s, France was still part of the NATO integrated military structure. When the 7.62x51mm cartridge was adopted as standard for the alliance, France looked to be in a good position to simply convert their MAS 49-56 rifles to use it. After all, the 7.5mm cartridge the rifle was designed for was very similar to the new NATO round. After several years of trials, however, the project was dropped as impractical. It turned out that the much different pressure curve of the 7.62mm round would require significant redesign of the MAS rifles. They suffered from poor extraction, broken parts form high bolt velocity, and other issues (not coincidentally, the exact same problems reported with the 308 MAS 49-56 rifles imported by Century...). The St Etienne factory only made a total of 150 of them in 7.62x51mm before the project ended.
Up Next in Semiauto Rifles
-
Model 1927 Thompson Semi Automatic Ca...
One of the rarest versions of the Thompsons Submachine Gun is the Model of 1927 Thompson Semi Automatic Carbine. These were regular 1921 machine guns that had their fire control groups slightly modified to only firm in semiauto and their receivers remarks to show Model 1927 instead of 1921. The r...
-
HK 41: "Paramilitary Rifle" for the B...
The HK41 (designation: “paramilitary rifle”, caliber 7.62x51mm) was the first semiautomatic version of the G3 military rifle. It was made for the Bundeswehr reservist market; a rifle that could be privately owned in Germany but which would duplicate the handling of the G3 for reservists to practi...
-
The Type 81 LMG in Civilian Form: Nor...
The Norinco 313 is the semiauto commercial variation of the Type 81 LMG. The Type 81 was a small arms family of rifle and LMG developed to finally replace the SKS and RPD in Chinese military service. When the Chinese and Soviets parted ways, China was making milled AKs, but did not have the stamp...
