A battle rifle is any military service rifle chambered to fire a fully powered cartridge. The term "battle rifle" is a retronym created largely out of a need to better differentiate the intermediate-powered assault rifles from full-powered rifles as both classes of modern firearms have a similar appearance and share many of the same features such as detachable magazines, pistol grips, etc. While modern battle rifles largely resemble modern assault rifle designs, the term may also describe older military full-powered semi-automatic rifles such as the M1 Garand, SVT-40, Gewehr 43, FN Model 1949, and MAS-49.
