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.

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

Variants

See also

References