[tahunua001]

although you do make a good point they weren't completely unaltered. the 1891 was very long as were most rifles of the period. throughout it's service life several different models were released and older rifles modified to conform with the newer, often shorter models. this is the same process that the mosin nagant went through. also notice that they attempted to change to a more powerful caliber with the 1938(could be considered an upgrade) but got caught in the middle of a land grab war and had to switch back to the old caliber for logistical reasons.

they were never really UPGRADED, but they were UPDATED. they got new sights, new sling mounting hardware, were shortened, ETC. little changes to put it more in line with other more modern designs and keep them competitive. the Arisaka type 30 did see some small modifications to the bolt design but the M96 swede saw no modifications that the carcano did not.

the lee metford, 1888 mauser, and 1886 lebel were the last vanguards of a dieing era. they were adapting to the new technology available to them but did not have access to all of the pieces of the puzzle yet. the 1886 was the first to use smokeless powder but they were still relying on the tube fed system which made american repeaters so popular but served to damn the effectiveness of the 1886 cartridge by forcing larger bore round nose ammo. similarly the 1888 mauser was designed to compete with the french lebel and did do a pretty good job of mimicking the ballistics and even stuffed it into an enbloc but the bolt design needed working on. the brits had a backwards problem. they had the bolt figured out, they had the magazine figured out. they were just stuck with a black powder cartridge, one of the last ever produced for military before smokeless powder rendered it obsolete. the 1891 carcano ditched the tube mag, ditched the black powder and ditched slow, large bore, round nosed calibers(though they did go with small bore round nose so not a great improvement there). there was really little that they had to do to stay competitive with other rifles.