Mondragón rifle – The First Semi-Auto Combat Rifle The M1 Garand gets credit for being the first successful semi-auto combat rifle. That’s only partially true. Sure, the M1 Garand was widely successful, but General Manuel Mondragón, a Mexican General and Arms designer, beat Garand by about 30 years. Mexico adopted the Mondragón Model 1908 in 1904,…
Tag: Obscure Rifles
Military Weapons From The Past: The Spanish FR-8 “Cetmeton” Rifle
The FR-8 is a Spanish rifle manufactured in the 1950s as part of Spain’s adoption of the CETME semiautomatic rifles. Spain was not only moving to their first semiauto rifle, but also changing from 8mm Mauser to the new 7.62mm NATO. It was not possible to immediately equip everybody with the new rifles, so a…