I’ve been collecting firearms a long time. But I’ve noticed that my preferences have changed substantially as I’ve aged. I have specific programs of collecting - I’m currently working on collecting significant German center-fire battle rifles (with illustrative variations), from G71 through the G3. Along the way, I’m finding I spend far more time at the range with bolt-action rifles than I am with any of my semi-auto rifles. OK, some of that is because, well, Mausers. But I’m also ignoring my trusty American-made self-loaders, my French self-loaders, even my Sov-bloc self-loaders. I’m down to only one official ‘Black Rifle’ (with a spare upper reciever).
Hell, even my plinking is back to bolt-guns. Is it because I’m getting older, so love ‘old mens’ rifles? Is it some kind of growing sophistication? Or have I tapped into something universal?
What say you - Semi-auto, or bolt action? Or something weird and other (I’m looking at you, single-shot folks! :D), and why?
I voted for semi-auto, but only because I’ve never shot a bolt action. I have one I found at my dad’s after he died. I have attempted to shoot it, but something’s wrong. I need to get it looked at. All my other rifles are semi’s.
That being said, I greatly prefer revolvers to semi’s where handguns are concerned.’
I understand what you’re saying. I’m 6+ decades and I really enjoy shooting my single-shot Winchester .22LR more than my Mini-14 and other semi-autos. My brother and I bought it in 1968 for less than $20 and it’s still chugging along. There’s something about the very deliberate action of chambering a single round that makes you feel that this is the ONLY round you’re going to fire. You need to make it count. When my friends bring their black rifles, they just sort of keep pulling the trigger…sometimes double-tapping, then burst firing, then having to stop and reload a 20 or 30-round magazine.
I enjoy lever actions, although I own several autoloaders and a bolt action or two. My Savage Model 99 in .300 Savage is my favorite long gun, bar none. My Marlin .45-70 Guide Gun is 2nd favorite and an expensive hoot to use on reactive targets.
silenus: Just so. I came very late to Mausers, but WOW! The flexibility and utility of that action… Just recently acquired a Swedish M38, and I LOVE what that rifle can do - even with my less-than-perfect vision. There’s a *reason *so many wildly successful rifles were built on the Mauser action.
This. ^^
There’s a process involved - not just “Click-Bang!”
Don’t get me wrong - I like my black rifle, and use it for varminting quite often (and maybe more so, once I get to the root of my accuracy issues there), because Optics, and follow-up shot. My eyes are’t what they once were.
But realistically, I get far more enjoyment out of the bolt guns these days. I guess I don’t need the adenaline as much. Or maybe I’m just needing the ‘Zen’ aspect more.
Lever guns are mostly an American thing. Really, no other country has the love affair with them that we do. One of my web channels was speculating what might have been the course of affairs had the US Military adopted lever-action rifles as the primary armament.
I used to own a Model 94 in .30-30, but that went away in one of my trades many years ago. I will admit to thinking about getting a Henry in .22lr. But probably not - there are VZ24s and G88s and similar out there calling my name…
I went with 3; I burn more black powder through my flinters than I do smokeless shells through anything. With building my own and doing re-enactments and all that, its just cool as heck.
That being said, I love bolts. Right now I don’t have one semiautomatic long-gun in the safe. Everything is .30-40, 8mm Mauser, and .22. A couple are falling blocks and hinged but the vast majority are bolts. I hit better and farther out with them and speed-shooting isn’t my bag.
I almost always go with simple and reliable. I just bought a new shotgun for shooting skeet, bird hunting, and possibly deer. I went with a simple, breach action over/under double barrel model over a semi auto, even though the semi was a bit cheaper and offered one additional round before reloading. There are damn few moving parts to cause issues on the double barrel and disassembly/cleaning takes all of 5 minutes. I have an older semi-auto .22 rifle that I inherited from my dad. It’s fun to shoot, but requires higher velocity rounds to cycle the chamber consistently and takes longer to clean.
That said, I do have a one semi-auto handgun. It’s quicker to load and holds more rounds than my revolvers - just in case that’s ever a need.
I, too, have a Model 94 AE, but in .357. Love it. At times I wish I had gone with the Marlin, because it handles (cheaper) .38 much better. But it’s very satisfying to lever in a round and settle back on the target.
A lot of the US love affair with lever action obviously has to do with Winchester and our general love of all things related to the “old West.” To be honest, I’m not sure how practical a lever action would be in military combat…unless we can get the bad guys to circle the firebase riding horses while we hide behind the wagon wheels.
The Russians and Turks have used lever actions in military service - The Russians had a bunch (300K, IIRC) model 1886s chambered in 7.62x54R and used them in WWI, where they were successful and moderately popular. The Turks used some in one of their tiffs with the UK, don’t recall which one specifically, but also in limited numbers. There doesn’t seem to have been any serious complaints.
One of the larger problems with lever actions is that many are tubular magazine, so can’t safey handle spire-pointed bullets. The 1886 was box-magazine fed, solving that issue. Another complaint is that the action isn’t as strong as a lug-locking rotating bolt head. I’m willing to bet that can be overcome, too.
Indeed. My shooting pals sort of mock me. I fire, eject the shell, put on the safety, lower the rifle and evaluate the target, select another .22LR and examine it, shoulder the weapon, place the round and chamber it, remove the safety, and fire again. Meanwhile, they’ve fired 10 rounds or so.
When they ask how I’m going to engage in HD doing that, I pull out my red dot-equipped Mini-14 and punch out the little man on their targets. (BTW, never stand behind and to the right of a guy with a Mini-14. They have the most positive extraction/ejection you can imagine. I regularly bounce brass off the range officers standing 20’ and more behind me.)
Heh. Never fired a Modelo 58/G3/PTR91 (all are essentially the same rifle), have you? One wag joked that the Germans had very efficiently designed a rifle that covered their front and their right flank at the same time. :eek:
Of course, the rifle was originally Spanish, but it was designed by German engineers.
Oh, and by the way: For you smoke-pole gunners: I’m not ignoring you - I just don’t have much expertise there. I have an old Colt Navy cap-n-ball pistol, but I’ve never actually fired it. I think I’ve fired an external-ignition black powder weapon maybe twice in my life. I could talk history, but that’s about it.
Best gun I ever had was a breech-loading .22 (over-and-under with a .410, but I never used the .410, only the .22) I could put a squirrel’s eye out at 40 yards.
(When I turned 18, I swore off killing, and stopped hunting entirely. Long story, not relevant…)
My mom had a .22 semi-auto with a tube magazine. Nice bit of work, but I just could not be as accurate with it. No idea why.
So, on entirely too little data, I vote for single-shot.
No, can’t say that I have. The Mini-14 is wild enough. The brass flies pretty straight back and over my shoulder. Does the 58/G3/PTR91 do the same?
I assume that this was intentional and consistent with the need to absolutely and positively get that case “outta dere!” I’ve had a couple FTF with poor magazines, but I have never had an FTE or a stovepipe.
Design consequence. The M-58 to G3 family are all roller-delayed blowback guns, not dissimilar from the action of an MG42. The rollers hardly retard the bolt much at all, and it’s very nearly a 30-caliber straight blowback rifle. :smack: They extract under great pressure, at high velocity directly to the right, beause that bolt is coming back hard. Indeed, the gas pressure in the chamber is so high at extraction that they made the rifles with fluted chambers to ‘float’ the brass and prevent binding. This makes for beat-up brass not much worth reloading, and a dirty chamber. If they’d chosen a differnt mens of locking up, they’d have had a much lighter extraction.
If I’m not at the far right of the firing line, I put up a heavy cardboard diflector when I’m shooting my M-58; I’ve had brass penetrate partway through, or get embedded in it.
I’ve never had a fail to extract on that rifle, though yeah, there have been some failures to feed.
I came very late to Mausers, but WOW! The flexibility and utility of that action… Just recently acquired a Swedish M38, and I LOVE what that rifle can do - even with my less-than-perfect vision. There’s a *reason *so many wildly successful rifles were built on the Mauser action. 
One wag joked that the Germans had very efficiently designed a rifle that covered their front and their right flank at the same time. :eek: