What makes a rifle a classic?

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mainecoon

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There are a lot of “really good” rifles out there - what makes one a classic? Does it have to change the game in some way?
 
Widespread use, mostly universal acclaim, and preferably something that at least started production a good while back. Nothing introduced since 2000 IMHO can be considered a "classic" (yet).

For me and rifles, the Savage 99 instantly springs to mind (though it's certainly not alone on the list). For shotguns - the Ithaca M37 and Browning A-5.
 
What does "classic" mean? It could mean one thing to Peter, another thing to Fred.

Maybe Fred thinks it means the 1873 Winchester ---- the "rifle that won the west."
But, Peter thinks it's the M-1 Garand, the "best implement of the war," as I believe General Patton said.

Both guys ----- hey, I would not argue with either one.
 
Yup. Classic is a made up and ultra interpretation word, one guy may think old wood and blued 30-30 and I may think a UZI.
 
If I'm selling it, it's a Classic. For example, "this here Classic example of Ruger's SR9 family of weapons. . ."

Also, on Armslist, Classic is like a 30% off coupon, but the 30% goes onto the price, not off.
 
What is a classic? What stirs your soul?

My old 92 Winchester isn't much to look at and probably not all that hard to replace... But... My grandfather gave me the little carbine after I managed to make a target spread at 50 meters that could be covered with a quarter. His dad gave it to him many years earlier. Long (and much missed) hours with the old man at the range with that rifle is what makes it a classic to me.
 
my definition is that its an early archetype of a design.

or its a design/style

A Mauser m/k98 from the 20s is a classic rifle.
A current m98 is a classic design.
A Mauser M3 Pure is a classically styled rifle.
 
Sometimes we know the classic only in retrospect. The Winchester, as an example, in its many variants was just what a rifle should be, what we expected. Until that fateful year when silver coins turned to copper, LBJ gave us the Great Society, and Winchester stopped making the Rifleman's Rifle.

Of course the Winchester was always an American phenomenon, largely unknown to the outside world. In that great movie, The Wind and the Lion, Sean Connery, who plays the Bedouin sheik who has kidnapped the American woman played by Candice Bergen, asks her during their game of chess what kind of rifle her President, Theodore Roosevelt, uses.

She answers, "A Winchester."

"Never heard of it."

"You will. Checkmate."
 
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