Category:Assault Rifle

If you're creating a new page for an assault rifle make sure to add [[Category:Gun]], [[Category:Rifle]] and [[Category:Assault Rifle]] to the page so that it will be listed here.

Despite being a 'politically charged' term by the media and gun control proponents, the term Assault Rifle is used to describe a series of weapons which have certain characteristics. Unfortunately this is a very loose term since there are tons of exceptions to any rule that people can think of.

Here is a short primer on the term and how IMFDB uses it:

(a) It fires an intermediate cartridge (5.56x45mm/5.45x39mm/7.62x39mm/7.62x51mm), meaning a round larger than a handgun round but smaller than a full sized rifle round (eg .30-06, 7.62x54mm R)

(i) Exception: Some ultra short assault rifles are called submachine guns, which is technically wrong, but people still do because they are used in the submachine gun role (only with larger caliber ammunition). Some are even referred to as pistols due to fulfilling the legal definition of a pistol, even though they fire intermediate rounds. Conversely some submachine guns are erroneously called 'assault rifles'.

(b) it is shorter and more compact than traditional Battle rifles prior to the 1960s

(i)In the case of the AK-47 and M16 that is true, but rifles like the G3 or FN FAL are sometimes just as long as the 'long older battle rifles they replaced'. In that case, the characteristics of box magazine and select fire and improved ergonomics are the only change.

(c) It is select fire

(i)This means it features semi-automatic and either fully automatic or burst-limited fire. At least one version of the rifle must exist which has an auto or burst mode for it to qualify as an assault rifle, simply looking like one does not automatically qualify a weapon for the assault rifle category. For example, AR15-based marksman rifles like the Mk 12 Special Purpose Rifle are semi-auto only, and therefore are not assault rifles.

(ii)True that bolt actions like the M1903 or the Karabiner 98K don't have this as well as the Semi auto M1 Garand, but there are always 'neither fish nor fowl' versions like the Type 56 Carbine/SKS or the British L1A1 which are Semi auto only, however most firearms authors refer to those as either 'carbines' or 'self loading rifles' and not assault rifles. True assault rifles are 'select fire'. Semiautomatic just means one shot per pull of trigger. This difference is many times lost on the mainstream media and the gun control lobby.

(iii) Automatic fire, whether burst or full-auto, legally defines a weapon as a "machine gun," but this is an improper use of terminology. The term machine gun is only properly used to refer to dedicated support weapons designed for sustained automatic fire, not all weapons capable of automatic fire.

(d) It has a detachable magazine

(i) People don't realize how revolutionary this was during World War II. Up to that time, only submachine guns and larger machine guns (like the Bren and BAR) used detachable box magazines. Guns like the M1 Carbine were technically support weapons. Everyone else used internal top load magazines for the most part for the main battle rifle. No longer. Now the only difference is the type of detachable magazine, whether a long cylinder with a helical feed system like the Calico series of guns or a top loading box like the FN P90.

(ii)Belt feed is an identifying feature of a machine gun; a belt-fed weapon is not an assault rifle.

The political term "assault weapon" has no real meaning in firearm terminology and is not used on this site.