Mauser rifle

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Mauser rifle

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Mauser rifle, any of a family of bolt-action rifles designed by Peter Paul Mauser (1838–1914), a German who had worked in an arms plant before entering the German army in 1859. Mauser’s first successful design was a single-shot, 11-millimetre, bolt-action rifle that became the forerunner of many important designs. In 1880 Mauser applied a tubular magazine to his rifle, and the result was selected (1884) by the Prussian government as a basic infantry weapon.

The tubular magazine, which held eight rounds, proved not entirely successful, and Mauser adjusted the design until he devised a five-round box-style magazine located within the forearm. This became the basic infantry weapon of the German army in 1898, and its bolt action was widely—virtually universally—copied around the world. It has been chambered in a wide variety of calibres, but original German Mausers were all made in 7.92 mm.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.

bolt action

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bolt action

breech mechanism

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bolt action, type of breech mechanism that was the key to the development of the truly effective repeating rifle. The mechanism combines the firing pin, a spring, and an extractor, all housed in a locking breechblock. The spring-loaded firing pin slides back and forth inside the bolt, which itself is the breechblock. The bolt is moved back and forth, and partially rotated, in the receiver by a projecting handle with a round knob. One or more lugs at the front or rear of the bolt (or at both) fit into slots in the receiver and lock the bolt firmly in place against the base of the cartridge chamber when the rifle is to be fired. As the bolt is thrust forward, it pushes a cartridge into the chamber and cocks the piece. The trigger releases the spring-driven firing pin inside the bolt. After firing, the extractor on the head of the bolt removes the spent cartridge and ejects it. The bolt moves a new cartridge from the magazine and repeats the process.

Some bolt actions lock without rotating. Straight-pull bolts are used in the Canadian Ross, the Austrian Mannlicher, and the Swiss Schmidt-Rubin rifles. Bolts that turn to lock have been standard in the Krag-Jorgensen, Lee-Enfield, Springfield, and Lebel rifles, among others.