Total Garbage: 5 Worst Military Rifles on the Planet

Kyle Mizokami

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The AMD-65 was developed while Hungary was a member of the Warsaw Pact, and differs from the AK-47 in a number of ways. It shortens the sixteen inch barrel of the AK-47 barrel to just twelve inches, and as a result the AMD-65 has a shorter range and is less accurate. The weapon’s metal vented handguard heats up quickly and can burn the user’s hands. The AMD-65 also has a shorter sight radius, the distance between the front and rear sights, resulting in more frequent aiming errors. The simple wire stock makes the weapon front-heavy and, as one reviewer noted, it is impossible to get a cheek weld on for aiming down the sights.

Military rifles were for decades the primary weapon of an army. Wielded by the largest fighting branch, the infantry, rifles were used in both attack and defense. Because of their importance and the slow march of technological innovation, rifles were upgraded conservatively, with some armies, such as the the German and British armies, using the same rifle for fifty years or more. Rifles simply had to work, and it was better to stick with an older one that was a sure thing than a newer rifle that was less than perfectly reliable.

Despite an inherent conservatism, there have been several examples in the last century of military small arms that have been sub-par. The relative decline of the infantry on the battlefield means that none of these weapons were bad enough to lose a war, but they were often bad enough to cause the side using them to lose engagements and lower morale.

Here are five of the worst military rifles:

Type 38 Arisaka

Twentieth century Japan’s leap into the modern world was in large part due to the wholesale import of foreign ideas and technology. One of those technologies was the famous Mauser bolt action. This was adopted into the Type 38 Arisaka rifle, and it proved a poor weapon.

Recommended: 5 Worst Guns Ever Made.

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