The World’s Great Rifles

The World’s Great Rifles is a lavishly illustrated record of the development of the rifle from its earliest times to the present. Moving on from the cruder versions, The World’s Great Rifles looks at the great smoothbore muskets, such as the British Brown Bess. The book then examines the most notable breechloading rifles of the nineteenth century, weapons such as the French Minié rifle and the British Martini-Henry. The great bolt-action rifles (models such as the British Lee-Enfield ranges and the German Kar 98) are also featured in the text and fully illustrated. The World’s Great Rifles moves on to the vast range of modern semi-automatics that have entered service with all the world’s armies. This in-depth chapter includes such famous examples as the M16, the Belgian Self-Loading Rifle, the Russian AK series, the Austrian Steyr AUG and French FAMAS. Each of these weapons is illustrated by a full-colour cutaway artwork, which allows the reader to see all its internal workings. The text in The World’s Great Rifles emphasises the development of each rifle, its unique design features and, where appropriate, combat capabilities. In addition, The World’s Great Rifles compares each rifle featured against its main rivals from other countries and manufacturers. In addition, there is a chapter on sniper rifles, both those employed in the field and those used for police and paramilitary operations, such as the precision-engineered German Heckler & Koch PSG 1 and the Swiss SIG-Sauer 2000.