semiautomatic rifle

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contrast with automatic rifle

  • M16 assault rifle
    In automatic rifle

    …should not be confused with semiautomatic rifles, as the latter fire only one shot at each pull of the trigger. An automatic rifle fires repeatedly as long as the trigger is held down, until the magazine is exhausted. That fully automatic firing is achieved by weapons such as the machine…

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development

  • semiautomatic pistol
    In small arm: The self-loading rifle

    …up with experimental self-loading, or semiautomatic, rifles, which used the energy generated by a fired round to load a fresh round into the chamber. However, only a handful of these weapons were adopted in very small numbers by the major armies, whose interest in automatic fire from the 1880s through…

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rifles

  • bolt-action rifle
    In rifle

    …but after World War II semiautomatic rifles became popular for hunting in the United States. It is illegal in some countries to hunt with a semiautomatic rifle.

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