From Single Shot to Self-Loader: Service Rifles from the Sharps to the L1A1

The Sharps began with a design patented by Christian Sharps in 1848 and was a single-shot, falling-block, breech-loading rifle. It was among the few early breechloaders successfully adapted to metallic cartridge ammunition, and it entered military and civilian use from about 1850.

Rather than build a new rifle, Britain adopted the Snider-Enfield in 1866 to convert its Pattern 1853 Enfield muzzleloaders into breechloaders using Jacob Snider's breech action. The British Army used it until 1880, when the Martini-Henry replaced it, and the British Indian Army kept it longer.

Formally accepted on 14 February 1872, the Mauser Model 1871 was the first rifle in the Mauser line, a bolt-action single-shot in 11.15x60R. It was Germany's primary infantry arm until 1888 and was supplied to or used by many other nations, with conversions lingering in limited use as late as 1945.

The Lee-Metford joined James Paris Lee's rear-locking bolt action to William Ellis Metford's seven-groove barrel. Adopted in 1888 to replace the Martini-Henry, it was the first British bolt-action service rifle, and was itself superseded by the Lee-Enfield after production that ran from 1884 to 1896.

The Swiss Schmidt-Rubin rifles served from 1889 to 1958 and were distinguished by Rudolf Schmidt's straight-pull bolt action, paired with the GP90 cartridge developed by Eduard Rubin. The design stayed the Swiss Army's standard service rifle for nearly seventy years.

The Berthier was designed to fix the shortcomings of the Lebel, particularly for mounted troops, using a three-round Mannlicher-style en-bloc clip that loaded faster than the Lebel tube magazine. Cavalry carbines entered service in 1890 and full-length rifles followed from 1902 to 1907, with the five-round Model 1916 its most widely used variant.

Known as the Arisaka and named for the thirtieth year of the Meiji era, the Type 30 was a box-fed bolt-action repeater that served as the Imperial Japanese Army's standard infantry rifle from 1897 until 1905. Development was directed by Colonel Arisaka Nariakira at the Koishikawa Arsenal.

Designed by Major Kijiro Nambu and adopted by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1905, the Type 38 was chambered in the 6.5x50mm Arisaka cartridge. Roughly three million rifles and over half a million carbines were produced, and it armed Japanese forces until 1945 and appeared in conflicts from the Mexican Revolution to the Vietnam War.

The M1917 Enfield adapted the British .303 Pattern 1914 Enfield to the .30-06 Springfield cartridge and was produced from 1917 to 1919. It was the principal rifle of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe in the First World War, and the Danish Sirius Dog Sled Patrol still uses it in Greenland.

Adopted in 1936 to replace the older Berthier and Lebel rifles, the MAS-36 was a French bolt-action rifle in 7.5x54mm built from late 1937 at Saint-Etienne. About 1.1 million were made before 1952, and it stayed in French service until 1967.

Designed by Fedor Tokarev, the SVT-40 was a semi-automatic rifle meant to be the Red Army's standard service rifle, entering production in 1940 after the SVT-38. The German invasion of 1941 disrupted its production and forced the Soviet Union back on the bolt-action Mosin-Nagant, so the two served side by side.

The M1 carbine was a lightweight semi-automatic rifle for .30 carbine ammunition, meant as a compact weapon for support troops rather than frontline riflemen. Adopted in 1941 and in service from 1942, it was made in more than 6.1 million examples during the Second World War.

The EM-2 was a British bullpup assault rifle with a built-in carrying handle and optical sight, firing the intermediate .280 British cartridge. The British Army briefly adopted it in 1951, but Winston Churchill's government withdrew it in favor of a standardized NATO cartridge, the 7.62x51mm round.

The L1A1 was the British-built version of the Belgian FN FAL, in 7.62x51mm NATO, made at the Royal Small Arms Factory and other Commonwealth arsenals from 1954. It was the standard infantry rifle of the United Kingdom and most Commonwealth nations, serving British forces until 1994.