What is the difference between a rifle and a carbine?

[poperszky]

I was just over on the Taurus looking at their .22 rifles, what is the difference between a rifle and a carbine?

BTW, anyone have a Taurus model 62 or 72?

Terry.

 

[blades67]

The difference is the length of the barrel. A carbine usually has a 16" barrel and a rifle a 20" barrel.

 

[Rokchukrslave]

A carbine is a rifle that shoots pistol calibers.

 

[johnwill]

Rifle has five letters, and carbine has seven.

Seriously, there are a lot of different ideas what makes a rifle a carbine, including barrel length, cartridge fired, weight, etc. Generally, a carbine is a short, handy rifle.

 

[Edmund Rowe]

2 schools of thought

The definition used by at least 90% of the shooting community is a carbine is a smaller version of a rifle. Usually this means a shorter barrel.

The Jeff Cooper school of thought is a less powerful long arm shooting an intermediate or smaller power cartridge including pistol calibers. This school feels that honest to goodness rifles shoot stuff that was used by most of the world's militarys in the first half of the 20th century. In other words, 8mm Mauser, .30-06, .303 Brit, etc. are rifle cartridges. .308 NATO is one of the latest and last of the rifle power category. Intermediate stuff includes 5.56mm NATO and 7.62x39 Combloc. Put another way, the M-16s, AR-15s, AK-47s, AKMs, AK-74s, are all carbines while M-1 Garands, M1903A3 Springfields, Lee-Enfields, 98k Mausers, M-14s, M-1As, FN-FALs, Mosin-Nagants, and many others are rifles. It's easy to get confused here because the "k" in the WW2 German 98k Mauser stands for "karbine"!

In the case of the Taurus .22 rifles, the difference is probably barrel length.

Edmund

 

[Zorro]

Actually I thought a carbine is a rifle designed for use from horseback.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Zorro, carbines may have been designed originally for use from horseback, but use or use from a location is not what defines the machine. The shorter size may it easier to manipulate from horseback, but darn if it didn't do well for CQB and village fighting as well - from foot. And later, carbines seem to do well in the jungles.

 

[Ledbetter]

Si, mi amigo.

I'm with Zorro on this one. It's a long gun that's light enough to use while mounted. On your horse.

 

[Melvin]

While barrel length can be a factor in deciding the difference between rifle or carbine,some Winchester models of carbine had longer barrels than some of their rifles. Had to do with other parts,such as the "short rifle" had a steel fore end cap and some had the more traditional curved butt plate. This may have only been a Winchester oddity however. Melvin

 

[Destructo6]

I always thought it was fairly clear: a shorter, lighter version of a standard rifle. The action is the same, but the rest is re-designed for quick handling.

carbine (kär´bên´, -bìn´) noun
A lightweight rifle with a short barrel.

[French carabine, from Old French carabin, soldier armed with a musket, perhaps from escarrabin, gravedigger, from scarabee, dung beetle. See scarab.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution restricted in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

 

[George Hill]

Often with new rifles on the market the Carbine version can simply be one with a barrel 2 inches shorter than standard.

 

[M77B1]

The definitions in the classic firearms reference works such as "The Book of Rifles" by Smith & Smith define "carbine" as a rifle with a barrel of 22" or less; if it is a carbine that can mount a bayonet it is a "muskatoon".

These definitions have fallen out of popular use,though. Most manufacturers and shooters today use the term "carbine" to describe any model of a rifle that has a shorter barrel than the standard or original model of that particular rifle.

[Edited by M77B1 on 05-03-2001 at 04:17 PM]

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Does anyboyd market muskatoons these days?

 

[Poodleshooter]

So I guess the M16 would be a musketoon?

 

[Ledbetter]

And that makes you . . .

A musketeer? A musketooner?

 

[M77B1]

Ain't "muskatoon" a great word? I think I'm gonna use it more often,especially since it refers to a weapon that has an evil bayonet lug,or worse yet,a folding bayonet.

 

[Kharn]

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a Musketoon is both the weapon (a large bore, short barreled musket) and the user of the weapon.

Kharn