The Madsen LAR was a
battle rifle of Danish origin chambered in the
7.62×51mm NATO caliber. It is based on the
Kalashnikov rifle
A Kalashnikov (Калашников) rifle is any one of a series of automatic rifles based on the original design of Mikhail Kalashnikov. They are officially known in Russian as "Avtomát Kaláshnikova" ( rus, Автома́т Кала́шник ...
and was made from lightweight, high tensile alloys and steel
similar to that used on the
M16 rifle
The M16 rifle (officially designated Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of military rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military. The original M16 rifle was a 5.56×45mm automatic rifle with a 20-ro ...
. Its layout is similar to a number of rifles at the time, such as the
GRAM 63 and the
Valmet M62. Development of the Madsen LAR can be traced back to 1957 when various arms manufacturers such as
FN Herstal and
Heckler & Koch
Heckler & Koch GmbH (HK; ) is a German defense manufacturing company that manufactures handguns, rifles, submachine guns, and grenade launchers. The company is located in Oberndorf am Neckar in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, and also ...
were producing the
FN FAL and the
Heckler & Koch G3
The Heckler & Koch G3 (''Gewehr'' 3) is a 7.62×51mm NATO, select-fire battle rifle developed in the 1950s by the German armament manufacturer Heckler & Koch (H&K) in collaboration with the Spanish state-owned design and development agency CET ...
, respectively.
Variants
Variants of the LAR came with solid wood stocks that covered the receiver from the handguard to the buttplate, then with a fixed steel tube and side/underfolding stocks. The earlier assault rifle variant (chambered for the
7.62×39mm
The 7.62×39mm (aka 7.62 Soviet, formerly .30 Russian Short) round is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge of Soviet origin. The cartridge is widely used due to the worldwide proliferation of Russian SKS and AK-47 pattern rifles, as ...
M43 round but incompatible with AK magazines) was intended for the armed forces of Finland and to draw them away from using a Soviet-based design, the Valmet M62. However, Finland, being a neutral country, ignored this and went ahead with the
Valmet M62, adopting it as their standard service rifle due to its cheaper cost for production and potentially better reliability.
See also
*
List of battle rifles
Battle rifles are full-powered rifles, full-length, fully automatic or semi-automatic rifles that have been adopted by a nation's military. The difference between a battle rifle and a designated marksman rifle is often only one of terminology wit ...
References
Madsen LAR at Modern Firearms*Small Arms of the World: A Basic Manual of Small Arms December 1983
{{AK47 derivatives
7.62×39mm assault rifles
7.62×51mm NATO battle rifles
Rifles of the Cold War
Rifles of Denmark
Infantry weapons of the Cold War
Kalashnikov derivatives