Aside from the sights, the 98 Mauser has always been the standard.
The Krag was deemed the smoothest, but the magazine was less than desired for military use.
Your Madsen may have had the best sight, but the Mauser wins.
Jim

 

You have to bring A LOT to the table to beat the M98 Mauser. I'll also throw in another of my personal favorites, the P17 enfield.

 

strap,

I own too many Mausers and P-17s as well as P-14s. How do you make Windage adjustments on your P-17? After you make the windage adjustment, how do you "take off" the windage adjustment after the wind "dies" down? HOW precise is your windage adjustment?

Webley

 

Stock Mausers and 03's are ok, took a P-17 and turned it into a High Power rifle with micrometer sights and a bull barrel. Loved it before I started into shooting gas guns. Had to deal with a bunch of Israeli converted Mausers (.308)

Only Madson's I know were the SMGs.

 

The most accurate rifle with the best sights does not make the best military rifle. What does is magazine capacity, rapidity of fire, reliability under adverse environmental conditions and durability under the stresses of combat. The military bolt rifle with the longest satisfactory track record in actual COMBAT is the No.4 Enfield in .303. When properly ,set up and fed good ammunition, a well turned out No.4 rifle will hold its own on the range all the way to 1000 yards.

Try shooting down the Ottawa river across Magpie Alley at Cannaught with your Madsen or Mauser against DCRA shooters using No.4s and you will be educated. Longshot and I been beaten over the Palma Course at Bisley, Ottawa and NZ by Commonwealth teams using No.4s and in the 1970s I developed a healthy respect for it, and now own two.

With Canadian Rangers still being armed with No.4s until a replacement magazine-fed, 7.62mm boltgun is selected and fielded, the No.4 is remains in service.

 

The most accurate military bolt rifle in my opinion goes to the 03 Springfield, but in terms of do-all, most rugged, best longevity, I also acknowledge the K98k.
I've a K98k, pre war, [1937] that was built by a bicycle company [BSW] It's a Russian capture gun, but still wears Wehrmacht runes as well as nazi. While the rifle 'should' be in a walnut stock, it came with a very blonde wartime laminate. The barrelled action sits tight and snug in it, and shoots fairly accurately despite it's dark bore. The rifling is crisp, but bore dull. I did however, have to tap the front sight to achieve my best results. I reload for it, rather than continue to shoot all that dirty/possibly corrosive surplus out there.

I'd also consider the Mosin as a rugged rifle.

My 03 is just plain accurate, a pick it up and hit kind of gun. It's from 1918, and while the bore still gleams, the rifling is waning. I've an 03A3 also, I found at a garage sale that had been sporterized. I built an 03A4 [gery] out of it. It too shoot well.

That being said, I've never the opportunity to fire a Madsen.

 

Outpost75,

I agree with you, "rapidity of fire" is good, BUT hitting Ivan on the Russian Front at 200 or 300 yards would be problematical if your KAR98k was Windage zeroed for 154 grain military Ball ammo and your company just got in a truck load of 198 grain Heavy Ball. Yes, your Mauser enjoys controlled feed, you have positive ejection, BUT can you hit Ivan at 200 yards when your rifle is a foot to the left and you do not have a way to correct it?

My first choice is a pre-1916 Mk III with windage adjustable rear sight. That was scrapped so MY OPINION is for the Model 58 Danish Madsen. Your mileage may vary.... LOL. The M58 is a handy short rifle made after WWII and makes a fine deer rifle as is. If different lots or bullet weights in issue ammo came to troops using the M58, it was a few clicks, left or right, to hit what your aimed at. I dislike the hammer and pin punch guess and by gosh windage adjustments the Mauser and No. 4 offer serious riflemen.

I like shooting 1,000 yards, and my rifles were always click adjustable for windage and elevation.

Webley

 

ONE MORE THING:

I own far too many Mausers and agree Peter and Paul Mauser made the BEST bolt action Rifle in the world in their Model 1898. I think this is a case where the makers did NOT use their product! I cannot understand how they made the positive feed, sure extraction and clip-fed rifle and NEVER UNDERSTOOD rifles from other nations had windage-adjustable sights! The M1884 .45/70 Springfield had the Buffington windage-adjustable rear sight. The Mauser boys made a fine rifle and put JUNK sights on their product. I never understood why the Mausers did not put WINDAGE adjustments on their Mauser Rifle sights?

Mausers are fine UNTIL windage sight adjustments are needed. Since troops in the line receive ammo from various arsenals, the bullet weights can vary as the 154 German issue Ball and the Heavy Ball 198 grain bullets, but a $5.00 windage sight adjustment ESCAPED the Mauser Wizards. They made a fine rifle, but where does it HIT??? The BEST rifle on Earth is not worth much IF it does not have Point-of-Aim concurrent with POINT-of-Impact! Many contemporary Military Rifles had Windage adjustable sights to improve usefulness, but SOMEHOW the Mauser WIZARDS "Missed The Bus!" Great Rifle, BUT can we hit anything with it?

Webley

 

I think that we need to look at the best mechanical action, not the sight.
If the Madsen was so good, why is it not in production today?
The Mauser action is the prototype of most modern rifles.
Agreed?
Jim

 

Bought a never issued Madsen M58 back about 1967, still have it. Yes, it is a nice rifle. Seldom take it to the range, but when I do, will always be someone who'll want to ask me about it. Ran into a guy at a gun show that I hunted with back in the late 60s, but I'd not seen him for maybe 30 yrs. During our brief conversation, he will ask me, "you still have the Madsen"?

Will not say it is the best military bolt action rifle, but the Madsen was a well made good looking rifle.

 

The "Best" military weapon depends on the criteria used. To argue that the Madsen is the best, in part, because it has a windage adjustment makes long distance accuracy of high importance. That assumes deliberate, aimed shots. Now days, one would want a scope to achieve that at long distance. But the arms were not issued to snipers and sharp shooters. They were issued to men who basically pointed the thing down field towards an enemy who were mostly under cover. Rate of fire in the bolt action would have been the most important factor for actual military use. That's why we adopted the Garand and later the M16. So, for bolt actions, I would vote for the Enfield as well. In WWI many small arms were used more like mortars to cause havoc in the rear lines, without any thought of an aimed shot.

 

The "Best" military weapon depends on the criteria used. To argue that the Madsen is the best, in part, because it has a windage adjustment makes long distance accuracy of high importance. That assumes deliberate, aimed shots. Now days, one would want a scope to achieve that at long distance. But the arms were not issued to snipers and sharp shooters. They were issued to men who basically pointed the thing down field towards an enemy who were mostly under cover. Rate of fire in the bolt action would have been the most important factor for actual military use. That's why we adopted the Garand and later the M16.

You do understand that when they were issuing M16s in Vietnam the number of rounds used to make a kill skyrocketed into the 10s of thousands. It's why they went back to a burst limiter and the Military is once again exploring the one shot one kill ideas.

 

But, the Mauser action lives on.
The M1 was the rifle that won the second world war. No argument.
But the Mauser design is the basis of most of our modern sporting rifles.
Remember, we're talking about rifles, not sights.
Jim

 

But, the Mauser action lives on.

But the Mauser design is the basis of most of our modern sporting rifles.

Jim

So very true! If it wasn't for the M98 there would be no Winchester model 70, no Ruger M77 and dare I say no 30-06 cartridge.

 

yep, mauser it is.

 

"best"

If you folks want to go back far enough, there is the Ross which for it's day was exceptionally accurate, but slightly flawed.

 

The Madsen was a very late bolt-action rifle, designed for Third World countries which couldn't afford modern automatics. I don't believe anybody but Columbia bought it. It is probably accurate enough, that is a very bad place to put a peepsight, because the bolt makes it difficult to put it further back, and the lever isn't convenient for rapid fire. when I saw them advertised in "American Rifleman" in the 60s, their principle merit was that they were nearly new, and still cheap.

The Boer War of 1899 could be said to be won by rifle fire, although it was lost, by attrition and lost ability to supply, by the side which started out the best riflemen. No more recent large war has been won by rifle fire, and few armies nowadays expect better or longer-range accuracy than could have been achieved with a well-cleaned and well loaded Minié rifle. I doubt if any army expects its run-of-the-mill soldier to do much windage adjustment in the field, or make much use of the rifle at over 300 yards. At that distance, few soldiers will do better with windage adjustment than they would by knowing the sort of conditions and range which require a half or full body width of wind allowance.

Probably the best large force of riflemen were the British Expeditionary Force of 1914. But they weren't trained to chase wind deflection in the field. That was for the range, and in the Second World War every unit armourer having a screw foresight adusting tool, rather than a hammer, worked just fine.

Somewhere around 1968, on a target range, I saw some impeccably equipped young men laughing at an old man in a crumpled raincoat, with pebble glasses, who had made a group bout the size of a soup-plate at 200 yards, with a completely standard SMLE. He phoned the firing-point, told them to leave a target up, and did the same, no better but no worse, ten times in a quarter-minute. I've seen Germans on TV, in 1963, telling how their units were swept away at nine hundred.

I've also had old men tell me how they picked up wounded student volunteers who admitted to having no military training whatsoever, and seen tears in their eyes they would never have shown for their own, because the German emperor had used them to do murder. A lot of good Mausers (or perhaps more likely the rather satisfactory M1888 Commission rifle) did them. TF Fremantle, who had a lot to do with the design of the .303, said the French believed that because all divisions were turning in the same rifle scores, the limits of rifle accuracy had been reached. The Germans, he said, believed that as soldiers always shoot inaccurately to some extent, giving them a perfectly accurate rifle would make them miss all the time, instead of only part of it.

No. 4 Lee-Enfields sometimes had excessive groove and neck diameters, and unlike most defects of military rifles this wasn't associated with wartime emergency or poor finish. Late wartime ones are often better in this respect. But reloading with larger bullets - e.g. 318 J-bore Mauser bullets sized appropriately, or in the worst cases just as they come, made a great difference to accuracy and brass life. (This requires caution, since although I have never heard of one having an oversize groove diameter and not an oversize neck, you might, and oversize bullets could cause that chamber to clamp the neck tightly onto them.)

There were inaccurate M1903 Springfields in wartime production too. Incidentally I don't believe a thing in the Springfield can be attributed to the 98 rather than 93 to 96 Mausers In particular it lacks the stop-ring inside the receiver ring, which if you do get a ruptured case-head, makes the Mauser pretty safe when made of mild steel. As a matter of fact not a thing in the Springfield (front locking, rear lever, solid receiver bridge, Lee's clip-loading magazine etc.) wasn't used by Mannlicher on different, mostly experimental rifles. The Springfield could have come together without the Mauser brothers.

If we are talking about a military rifle to be used for military purposes, just as it comes, I think it has to be the P14 or M1917 Enfield. It needed to be shorter and lighter, and with less urgent need would surely have become so. But its big advantage, and what caused General Hatcher to call it the best First World War military rifle, was its correctly placed and well protected peepsight, the first even attempted in a mass production military rifle. It could still be seen, in simplified form, in the early M16. I don't believe anybody in the West went for an all-new rifle with anything else. Fast, foolproof aim, including in rain or poor light, does far more for even an above-average rifleman than anything twiddling knobs can do.

If, on the other hand, we are talking about what the modern civilian rifle enthusiast can do with a rifle or its action, I think it has to be the 98 Mauser. Among other advantages come the availability and usability of good modern scope mounts, micrometer peepsights, threaded barrels and triggers. The Springfield, with less availability of those, still makes as good a basic rifle. The P14 or M1917 accommodates a lot of cartridge, at the expense of a lot of gunsmithing. I must confess I'd go for the Greek Mannlicher-Schoenauer, but that's probably just me. You would have to find something like the old external-adjustment Bausch and Lomb scope (about the earliest with modern-standard optics), in Kuharsky side-mounts, like I have on my civilian version.

 

Conflicts are fought differently now.
The Viet Nam conflict was a close quarters affair, fought in a jungle.
WW2 was a conventional battle field with opponents firing at sometimes extended ranges.
The M16 would not have been efficient in WW2 scenarios.
Times change.
But the big war was won by the M1 Garand.
Jim

 

Easternhunter,

I agree with you. I own too many Garands and used one special one to go to Camp Perry in 1982 and 1984 on my state high power rifle team. The Garand is easily adjusted for windage so when different lots of ammo were issued, the soldier could ensure his Garand hit where it was aimed.

I have fired my many Mausers and changing bullet weights means a front sight hammer job to get POA/POI. I wonder how many rounds fired in WWII were "wishful thinking" on the steppes where the distances were long and 154 grain Ball and 198 grain Heavy Ball rarely coincided. A simple windage adjustable Mauser sight would have been an asset.

Most of my military arms are windage adjustable; from the M1884 .45/70, to the Krags, Springfields, FN ABLs, Madsens and Mk IIIs. It would not have been "Rocket Science" for Mauser to make the best rifle in the world, easily windage adjustable to hit bad guys at distance.

I like the P-14 and P-17, but they are windage adjusted for only one bullet weight. What a shame. I will say no more on this subject.

Be well.

Webley

 

You do understand that when they were issuing M16s in Vietnam the number of rounds used to make a kill skyrocketed into the 10s of thousands. It's why they went back to a burst limiter and the Military is once again exploring the one shot one kill ideas.

Burst limiters are necessary because training and discipline is lacking (Or panic trumps both). The full auto selection was still supposed to be a 3 round burst and only one in a squad was supposed to be in full auto. But the philosophy was to make the round smaller so more could be carried so more suppressive fire could be obtained. The lessons learned from earlier wars was that the vast majority of soldiers and even Marines did not aim. Makes sense. If they are firing, you're down, if you're firing, they're down. What you want is to be able to do more firing so you can maneuver. Aimed shots were not a high priority. Get them in a box and call in artillery or air strikes. Philosophy is changing, it seems, because our most recent battlefields have been in open deserts or mountains. However, if we again found ourselves in terrain that favored maneuver, suppressive fire would be the most important factor.

It's ironic because Vietnam was the one place where the supposed criterion for victory was the numbers of enemy dead rather than territory taken. Virtually all other wars are not won based on how many of the enemy are killed but on whether the objectives are taken and maneuver is the key to pushing an enemy back.

 

Burst limiters are necessary because training and discipline is lacking (Or panic trumps both). The full auto selection was still supposed to be a 3 round burst and only one in a squad was supposed to be in full auto.

Actually this dates back to the deployment of the M14 where they were issued M14s with the lock out, and one man per was issue with the cyclic switch (except spec Ops)

But the philosophy was to make the round smaller so more could be carried so more suppressive fire could be obtained.

Actually lighter to carry twice the basic load of 7.62X51 ammo. That was McNamara's call after the M14 program fiasco. Read "The Great Rifle Controversy".

The lessons learned from earlier wars was that the vast majority of soldiers and even Marines did not aim. Makes sense.

Either you'd been reading SLAM or I have no idea where you get this conception. I can walk you through extensive reading on this subject dating back to "A Rifleman went to war" to people that understood site alignment and trigger squeeze up to and including Vietnam. I was trained to shoot distance (1000 yards) by a NAM era Sniper and I've known a lot of people that knew how to shoot, be it ARMY, NAVY or USMC dating back to WWII (mainly later). This is a strange observation.

If they are firing, you're down, if you're firing, they're down. What you want is to be able to do more firing so you can maneuver.

It's called fire suppression or suppressive fire.

Aimed shots were not a high priority.

Really? Why is it that people were trained to fire at muzzle flashes to suppress incoming small arms fire? Like to discuss the things that Sniper's were trained to work with?

Get them in a box and call in artillery or air strikes. Philosophy is changing, it seems, because our most recent battlefields have been in open deserts or mountains.

Which is why the M21/M25 is really popular again and has been since Desert Storm. And why they'd fiddling with the M39, which is basically based around an M14. We can all thank Clinton for the fact that 3/4's of the M14s in inventory went overseas (MAP). The ones that were retained were mainly NAVY which went to the USMC. There are still some in Army hands including the USAMTU.

However, if we again found ourselves in terrain that favored maneuver, suppressive fire would be the most important factor.

Something you might have brought up earlier. In WWII, Korea and Vietnam, fire suppression was taught in training and used by disciplined troops. They used grenades close in to hold off on disclosing their positions.

It's ironic because Vietnam was the one place where the supposed criterion for victory was the numbers of enemy dead rather than territory taken. Virtually all other wars are not won based on how many of the enemy are killed but on whether the objectives are taken and maneuver is the key to pushing an enemy back.

The Body count mentality did not last through the entire Vietnam War. But because the actions were close the .223 was popular, including using the KAR 15 by Special Forces, the M60 was also used, The Seals used a wide range of weapons including the Stoner System, USMC Force Recon also used a wide range of weapons including SMGs dating back to WWII and a small amount of M15s. The indigenous people ended up with a lot of the WWII weapons, including M1s M1 Carbines, M3s, a lot of captured weapons.

Let me know if you want to do some research on this, the reading is worth the effort since many of those folks are passing. For a quick cheat, simply watch "Band of Brothers", although the guys did come out with several books once the series was popular. Vietnam requires reading.

One more note on this, this is the 1000 yard pad at my home range for years. In our day it was .30 (for me and some others it was M1s, M14 NMs, or tuned M1As, for others it was bolt actions). Now it's big bore.

 

Either you'd been reading SLAM or I have no idea where you get this conception. I can walk you through extensive reading on this subject dating back to "A Rifleman went to war" to people that understood site alignment and trigger squeeze up to and including Vietnam. I was trained to shoot distance (1000 yards) by a NAM era Sniper and I've known a lot of people that knew how to shoot, be it ARMY, NAVY or USMC dating back to WWII (mainly later). This is a strange observation.

Sorry to say, I don't know what SLAM means. In any event, I do not think we disagree on much. However, I think now we think of the military as special ops only. It was rare that anyone in Viet Nam took 1,000 yard shots. That is sniper territory. In reality, troops have not prized accurate aimed shots. Most troops really don't want to kill anybody.
Much like the smooth bore days, quantity of fire in fussilade mode, is what is needed in most combat situations, historically. We may never have large wars again --- I hope we do not--- but the object in such wars is to use suppresive fire, from rifles, machine guns, artilery, air strikes, or whatever, to keep the enemy from being able to fire so that we can get closer and the enemy fall back.
While there are many weapons superior to the M16 for killing enemy troops, it is a fantastic weapon to put bullets down field to achieve the goals of manuever. To the extent the Enfield of WWI and WWII achieved those goals, it was also excellent. We all seem to agree that the Garand was the weopon that won WWII (not bolt action, so not in the OP's criteria) and it was its rate of fire that mattered, not its weight of bullet or capacity to be used in aimed fire. In my discussions with my family and other veterans of WWII (on both sides), they almost always aimed "toward the enemy" and not at a specific targert.
A friend of mine who earned the Silver Star in Viet Nam told me that he jusst went "Audie Murphy" because his friend next to him was killed. He just charged ahead, shooting his M16 at whoever he saw, killing several enemy but never aiming at any of them.
While we like to shoot our military surplus as accurately as possible, that is not what they were designed for.

 

Sorry to say, I don't know what SLAM means.

SLA Marshall, commonly called SLAM.

In any event, I do not think we disagree on much. However, I think now we think of the military as special ops only. It was rare that anyone in Viet Nam took 1,000 yard shots. That is sniper territory. In reality, troops have not prized accurate aimed shots. Most troops really don't want to kill anybody.

I suggest you do a bit or research on this, because you completely overlook basic training, qualification with the rifle/weapons and military discipline once the new guys got past being shot at. I had no trouble and you're doing an injustice to people that served and served well since they were trained to use their firearms from the 1911 on up.

Much like the smooth bore days, quantity of fire in fussilade mode, is what is needed in most combat situations, historically.

????? Do you understand the causalities we inflicted on the British with rifled bores? That's both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812.

While there are many weapons superior to the M16 for killing enemy troops, it is a fantastic weapon to put bullets down field to achieve the goals of manuever.

It's called fire and maneuver. It's also why there were LMGs and currently SAWs and LMGs.

To the extent the Enfield of WWI and WWII achieved those goals, it was also excellent. We all seem to agree that the Garand was the weopon that won WWII (not bolt action, so not in the OP's criteria) and it was its rate of fire that mattered, not its weight of bullet or capacity to be used in aimed fire. In my discussions with my family and other veterans of WWII (on both sides), they almost always aimed "toward the enemy" and not at a specific targert.

Everyone overlooks the Ross which was a slightly flawed but exceptionally accurate rifle.

I deleted the rest because we're getting a bit off topic. But I can post a bunch of books you might really want to read to get a better idea of what you're talking about there. I read history at night before I go to bed aside from personal experience.

 

Well, now we are going round and round. You are simply wrong if you think many troops use aimed fire in engagements. For one thing, it's impractical since the target is moving or only momentarily in view and, if you want to take a careful shot, you are simply exposing yourself to fire. Because our military is evolving and especially since it is using more special forces, that is changing somewhat. We certainly do not have fronts as in the past. You mention the damage rifles did in the Revolutionary war. That is overstated. Except for the Battle of Saratoga, I am unaware of such aimed fire having much effect on the war. The vast majority of casualties were effected with volley fire. Washington was finally successful once he had his troops trained in the traditional disciplined formation tactics of the day.

That troops are trained in aimed fire and many are very good at it and some become snipers, does not change fact that volume of fire is more imporant in combat situations than aimed fire. Therefore, the more effective weapons are those that can supply volume of fire reliably over those that can be adjusted for slow, carefully aimed fire, taking into account windage, etc. In fact, if aimed fire was very important, especially at 1000 yards, one would expect the weapons to all be issued with telescopic sites.

 

Well, now we are going round and round. You are simply wrong if you think many troops use aimed fire in engagements.

Nope, I'm not going to waste my time with someone that approaches this subject with an exceptionally limited knowledge of what we're discussing dating back to the Revolutionary War. You comments are just to strange for me. If I had the time, I could easily take apart your statements point by point with references. But you don't seem interested enough to bother doing any real research on the subject other than reverting to "My friend told me".

 

The Madsen has it's good points, and it's bad points. I shot one in highpower competition for awhile. The windage adjustment is a plus, but I found one click moving me more than 6" at 300yd. Each click was a quarter turn, so I added a few notches along the radius that the ball clicks into. The stock is a plus, it's not just wood, it's high pressure epoxy impregnated wood, nearly as stable as a laminated stock. The rifle strung vertically until I relieved a bit of wood under the bayonet lug. The action is smooth, rivals a Krag and might be smoother. It is a long reach to that bolt handle, and if the pressure of your loads is up, you'll know it, not very good leverage and high pressure make for a hard to open bolt. But with GI standard pressure loads it's up to rapid fire. One thing always puzzled me, and I've not taken it apart far enough to verify it, it looks like the locking lugs in the receiver are replaceable. Headspace control? Final problem was the muzzle brake, guys didn't like to shoot on either side of me, and if you used a powder slower than say, 4064, it became a real boomer that would knock the grass down 10ft around.

 

Accuracy wise it is hard for any as issued military bolt action rifle to compete with a Swedish Mauser.

 

Nope, I'm not going to waste my time with someone that approaches this subject with an exceptionally limited knowledge of what we're discussing dating back to the Revolutionary War. You comments are just to strange for me. If I had the time, I could easily take apart your statements point by point with references. But you don't seem interested enough to bother doing any real research on the subject other than reverting to "My friend told me".

I'm not going to waste my time going back to sources either. However, the conclusions of the surveys made by the US government after WWII relating to engagements during both world wars was that the side with the greater fire power tended to win, the chance of being hit was random, accurate firing made little difference, and the number 1 predictor of casualties was the rate of fire. Those conclusions led the government to develop the M-14 and then the M-16. If accuracy had been the highest priority, I'm sure the government would be issuing .338 Lapuas to all our troops. Your position on the subject is both illogical and ill-informed.

 

Rumpelhardt,

I own far too many Swedish Mausers and agree they are fine arms. How do you make Windage adjustments and how do you "Take Off" the windage adjustments AFTER the wind dies down? NO Mauser I own has an "EASY" or Positive WINDAGE adjustment. Peter and Paul Mauser did not address the Windage Issue and that is surprising as Other Nations DID incorporate Windage ADJUSTMENT in their Issue Rifles when they were making the BEST Bolt Rifles in the World. Somehow these EXPERTS could not understand a WINDAGE Adjustable sight was the LAST STEP in their PERFECTION. In Heaven, I will tell Peter and Paul Mauser that getting to the 99 Yard Line and Dropping the Ball does not equate to a Touchdown! They DID get close, but they were NOT shooters and could not understand WINDAGE is needed in a military rifle.

Again, I need to say, Peter and Paul, "Missed the Bus" when it came to windage. They needed me as a Consultant, I suppose.

Webley

 

As FYI, the era of "spray and pray" rifle fire in the US military is ending. Leave that and gangsta technique to the bad guys armed with the AKs.

Experience in Iraq and Afghanistan led to a new emphasis on aimed single rounds rather than frequent use of automatic rifle fire. The M4 is able to exploit a variety of weapon sights and accessories developed since the 1990s to enhance aimed round accuracy. U.S. forces have made numerous changes in marksmanship programs, now training to fire while taking cover and wearing full battle gear, engaging and hitting difficult to see targets. Training includes rapid reloading and trainees are graded on speed to first-round hit well as rapid repetitive hits in the manner of the Infantry Trophy Team Match. American troops now fire their rifles more, in more realistic and imaginative training situations. Since 2011 U.S. Army trainees have gone from firing 300 rounds in basic, to 500 for non-infantry and 730 for infantry MOS.

Source: Infantry: The Philippines Accepts The Truth

 

Lack of windage adjustment is hardly limited to Mauser's. Of the six milsurp rifles I currently own those being three Lee-Enfield's one each Mosin Nagant, M96 Swedish Mauser and a 1903a3 Springfield the 03a3 is the only one that came with windage adjustable rear sights as issued. Two of my Enfield's are now equipped with Parker Hale aperture rear sights so the problem has been addressed on them.