I agree totally. I also put in a half vote for the mauser, but the greatest gun decision is a never ending question and answer. If you just went with, for instance the mauser, because of its ingenuity and given many present models are based on its designs, then you could argue that in the colonial days, muzzleloaders were based on the key designs of another manufacturers design that was innovative, but that does not make it the greatest gun ever made. Guns are inventions built on top of overlapping designs, and just like any invention that has, hit mainstream production, its has been improved, de-railed, improved again, and sometimes slopped together with copies of any one single idea. My real thought on the greatest rifle ever made, could go to Ronnie Barretts creations, where that rifle was based on just firing the .50 BMG, a cartridge that is obviously older than the rifle, but is now used in a rifle that has changed rifle history since the first Persian Gulf War. Like I said, impossible question with somewhat limited capability of answering on a single item.