List of Straight-Pull Military Bolt action Rifles?

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jason.h

New member
Hello,

I've been wanting to make a full list of all Military Straight-Pull Bolt Action Rifles, and was wondering if anyone can think of any I missed.
1. Swiss Schmidt Rubin Variants and K-31
2. Austrian Steyr M95 and variants
3. Canadian Ross Rifle
4. American 1895 Lee Navy
5. Mexican Mondragon
Am I missing any?

Also if anyone knows of any commercial rifles from the 1950's or before please let me know.

Thank you,
 
J

Jimro

New member
Blazer R93 Tactical, used by Australia, Bulgaria, and Malaysia as a military sniper rifle.

Russian VKS, used by the Russian Federal Security Services, which may/may not meet your "military" requirement.

Jimro
 
4

44 AMP

Staff
would you count an M14 with the gas system shut off??? ;)

You got all the military ones I can think of, off the top of my head...

commercial???

Browning T-bolt .22LR is the only one that comes to mind, I'm not sure, I think the T-bolt dates from the 60s though.
 
M

Mike Irwin

Staff
The Lee Navy is always through of as a straight pull bolt action, but it's really not. It's really a wedge or cam lock action as compared to the traditional definition of a bolt action.
 
S

Slamfire

New member
The straight pull bolt rifle was not a particularly success design approach. Whatever advantages in rate of fire were always off set by design complexity, cost, and difficulty in disassembly/reassembly.

The last was a bit of a surprise to me, I have a decent mechanical aptitude and to find shooters who could not reassemble their Mosin Nagant bolt, was an eye opener. I don't consider the Mosin Nagant bolt particularly difficult, but one Bud, who was a Major in the Vietnam War, it was puzzle that could not be picked. He could not figure it out, but he could be trained to go step by step, to reassemble.

Given that the guys selected for Infantry are called "knuckle draggers" by all the other Corps, you don't want to give them complicated mechanisms.

Now, try to make a list of all the military turnbolts, and keep it to one 8.5" X 11" sheet of paper. I would be curious if it went to a couple of pages.
 
T

T. O'Heir

New member
"...would you count an M14 with..." Or an M1 Carbine with the gas piston changed to a plug? snicker.
And the Ross was designed by a Brit. Buddy of Sam Hughes, our idiot W.W. I Minister of Militia and Defence.
 
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Mike Irwin

Staff
One of the major drawbacks with the straight pull design (but not as much the Lee) was that primary extraction of a sticky cartridge was just about non-existent.

If a case was sticky, sometimes the only way to generate enough force to start extraction was to kick the bolt handle.

This wasn't as much of a problem with the Lee because the camming action associate with lifting the bolt handle gave some primary extraction power.

Given that all of these rifles were adopted in what was really still the infancy of drawn metallic cases, this could be a problem at times.
 
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Mike Irwin

Staff
"would you count an M14 with..." Or an M1 Carbine with the gas piston changed to a plug? snicker."

I've fired my SKS as a straight pull rifle numerous times in the past.

Works fairly well.
 
S

Slamfire

New member
I've fired my SKS as a straight pull rifle numerous times in the past.

Works fairly well.
Click to expand...

I used to compete at a range where the 500 yard point was an elevated embankment about 40 to 50 feet above the ground. When I shot the Garand at that range, I disabled the gas system by punching out the grenade launcher valve on the gas cylinder lock. That reduced the rifle to a straight pull. While this did have the effect of keeping my rounds from ejecting down the embankment, I found that extraction was much harder than a bolt gun. The Garand has a very short primary extraction cam compared to a bolt gun.

The designer of the Schmidt Rubin tried to add a long primary extraction cam, about 1/2" of travel. I never had any issues with sticky extraction in any Schmidt Rubin. I fired my K31 in vintage rifle matches and I was able to rock and roll during the rapid fire stages. I only used military surplus in my Mannlicher , maybe the round were a bit hot, but its extraction required a good stiff pull.
 
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