The rifle room contains a display of long-arms and rifles which date from the 16th Century to the present time. The bulk of the weapons, however, date from post 1853 when the School of Musketry began and continued with the user testing of infantry weapons. It is possible to walk the length of the room and to identify key weapons used during the campaigns of the British Infantry.

Examples: the Tower musket and the Baker rifle which achieved such success in the hands of Wellington's infantry in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo. The muzzle loaded Minie and Enfield rifles used in the Crimea. The single breech loading rifle in the form of the Martini-Henry which met with success and failure during the Zulu War. The magazine rifle - the .303 inch Short Magazine Lee Enfield (SMLE) with its intensive back up training which slowed the German advance at Mons during 1st World War. The No 4 Enfield used in NW Europe during 1944 and 1945 and the No5 Enfield used during the Malaya emergency. The 7.62 mm SLR of many a conflict from Aden, through Northern Ireland and the Falklands, and last but not least the well trialled and tested L85A1 SA80 (& L85A2) rifles of 2 Iraq wars, the Balkans and Afghanistan.

There are also fine examples of rare and innovative designs. In the group presented by the late Jac Weller, a rare Ferguson breech-loading rifle (made by the French gun maker Durs Eg) used in the American War of Independence. The British designed Whitworth muzzle loading rifle with the designer's unique form of rifling used by sharpshooters during the American Civil War. A Soper single breech loading rifle, a weapon submitted for testing at the same time as the Martini-Henry but not adopted, capable of 60 rounds a minute and of superb design, even by modern standards. The Enfield Model 2 (EM2) 7 mm automatic rifle adopted by the Atlee led government as the rifle to replace the No4 and rejected by the incoming Churchill government because it would not convert to the US chosen 7.62 mm.

The rifle room carefully maps the reduction in size of the rifleman's calibre from .702 inch in 1854 to the present day 5.56 mm (.223 inch). Most rifles within this room are fitted with their appropriate sighting system and accessories such as 40 mm grenade launcher, and there is also a full model of our next generation soldier project known as FIST (Future Integrated Soldier Technology) as well as more modern in-service assault weapons.

There are two separate rooms displaying foreign weapons including rifles, sub and light machine guns from many countries.