Arms of Many Nations: Small Arms from the Lebel to the AWM

The Lebel entered French service in 1887 as a bolt-action rifle, with eight rounds held in a tube magazine under the barrel. It was the first military rifle designed around smokeless powder, which ended the clouds of smoke that gave away a rifleman after each shot.

Salvatore Carcano designed this Italian rifle at the Turin Army Arsenal in 1890, and it was approved in 1892 and issued to troops in 1894. It combined a modified Mauser-type bolt with a Mannlicher-pattern magazine loaded from a six-round clip, and it stayed the Italian standard rifle until 1981.

John Browning designed the BAR, adopted by the United States Army in 1918 to give advancing infantry portable automatic fire in a method called walking fire. It came too late for much First World War combat, then served as the squad automatic weapon through the Second World War and Korea, fed from a twenty-round box magazine.

Carl Walther released the PPK in 1931 as a smaller version of the Walther PP, its name meaning police pistol detective model. It is a blowback pistol with a double-action trigger, made as a concealable sidearm for plainclothes police rather than a main military service pistol.

The Wehrmacht adopted the Karabiner 98k on 21 June 1935 as its standard service rifle, a controlled-feed bolt-action rifle based on the Mauser M98 system. It remained the main German infantry rifle for the whole Second World War, even though Germany also fielded self-loading and automatic rifles.

The Soviet Army adopted the RPK in 1961 when it chose the Kalashnikov system, pairing a modified AKM rifle with this squad automatic weapon. It shares most of the AKM action but has a longer, heavier barrel, a bipod and a stronger stock, and fires the same 7.62x39mm round from box or drum magazines.

The PKM is the improved version of the Kalashnikov-designed PK, which was introduced in 1961 while the PKM followed in 1969. It is a belt-fed general-purpose machine gun firing the rimmed 7.62x54mmR cartridge, used on a bipod in the infantry role or on a tripod or vehicle mount for sustained fire.

Introduced in 1975 by Czechoslovak maker Ceska zbrojovka, the CZ 75 is counted among the original wonder nines. It has an all-steel frame, a staggered double-column magazine and a hammer-forged barrel, and its layout was widely copied because Czechoslovakia stood outside the international patent system.

The Austrian Steyr AUG is a bullpup assault rifle in 5.56x45mm NATO, which places the action and magazine behind the trigger so a full-length barrel fits a short rifle. It has been the primary rifle of the Tunisian Army since 1978, one example of its export to other countries.

French designers at the Saint-Etienne arsenal worked from 1967 to 1971, and the military accepted the FAMAS as its standard rifle in late 1978. Troops nicknamed this bullpup rifle Le Clairon, the Bugle, and it served in conflicts from Chad to Afghanistan before the HK416F began replacing it from 2017.

Magnum Research and Israel Military Industries developed the Desert Eagle between 1979 and 1982, with production beginning in 1983. Its gas-operated, rotating-bolt action is more usual in rifles than handguns, and it is offered in calibers up to .50 Action Express, though it is meant mainly for hunting and target shooting.

The P226 was SIG and Sauer entry in the United States XM9 pistol trials of 1984, where the Beretta 92 won on price. The pistol then found its own users, including the United States Navy for its SEAL teams, other national militaries, the Secret Service and police forces worldwide.

Britain began SA80 production in 1985, and the L85 rifle became the standard British service rifle in 1987, replacing the L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle. Early rifles had a reputation for unreliability, which led to the A2 upgrade program of 2000 to 2006 and a further A3 upgrade in 2018.

Switzerland adopted this gas-operated 5.56x45mm rifle in 1990 as the Stgw 90, replacing the SG 510. It uses translucent polymer magazines that clip together for faster reloading, and the family includes the SG 551 carbine and SG 552 commando variants.

Fabrique Nationale began development of the P90 in 1986 and started production in 1990, building it around a new 5.7x28mm cartridge. It is a personal defense weapon for vehicle crews and support troops, with a bullpup layout that lays the fifty-round magazine flat along the top of the weapon.

The Accuracy International AWM, short for Arctic Warfare Magnum, is a British bolt-action sniper rifle introduced in 1996, chambered for .300 Winchester Magnum or .338 Lapua Magnum. British forces use it as the L115A1 and L115A3, and in 2009 a British sniper with an L115A3 recorded a confirmed kill at 2,475 meters in Afghanistan.