The bolt action rifle was widely used as a main battle rifle through WWII until replaced by the gas powered rifle, but why? If I recall correctly, the first, non single shot rifles used in war (American civil war) were lever action. Why did the bolt action come to replace the lever action as a main battle rifle.
Personally, I feel I can use a lever action faster than a bolt action, even while prone. Thus would feel the level action better for combat than the bolt.
Simple: money.
Bolt actions are much less complicated than lever actions and therefore cheaper to mass produce.
Also lever actions were fed from a tube below the barrel and had to be reloaded one bullet at a time. Bolt actions allowed for the development of the clip and later the removable magazine which provided for ‘pre-loading’ of ammo and therefore fast reloading during battle.
I’d wager strength and ease of field-stripping/ cleaning. Plus perhaps reliability when encrusted with mud and whatnot from real battlefield conditions.
I’d think that acquiring the target would take longer than cycling the action, either way, so the differences between lever and bolt would be relatively minimal and easily overpowered by other considerations.
Not exactly a factual answer, but I don’t know that hard data on that sort of question is available anyway…
From here. I suspect reliability is the major factor for military weapons. Less complicated generally equals greater reliability.
Just to add to Hail Ants’ post, if they’re more complicated, they’re also more likely to get dirty/fouled, thus screwing up more.
And the problem with the tubular magazine, if I remember right, is you can’t use a completely pointy bullet, since too much jostling may knock it into the primer ahead of it and set off the rounds. I have no idea if that’s accurate or not, but I’ve heard it said.
Generally true. A classic example is the 30-30. All the factory loads use a flat point bullet with an exposed lead tip.
BTW, here’s a Savage 99 in 38-55 Winchestor that uses a rotary magazine http://psmilitaria.50megs.com/images/196c.jpg , so not all lever actions are tube fed. But the ones we are used to seeing in the movies usually are. Here’s the URL for the page with the information about the Savage 99 http://psmilitaria.50megs.com/savage.html
My two cents:
If I’m flipping a lever on a lever action, chances are, my sights will drift further off my target when I ratchet them gears, versus that of pulling back and throwing forward a bolt.
Bottom line to me–reacquisition time. I want my target in my sights faster, so I can send lead down that path faster than my enemy can send lead towards me.
Tripler
Just my two cents, though.
In addition to the magazine issue, bolt actions are also, on average, much stronger actions than levers, so you can use a more powerful round. Remember, in WWI and II (I think) the standard U.S. Army round was the .30-06. This was before the move to smaller .22 rifles. Only Browning makes a modern lever gun for the .30-06 last time I checked, and it is relatively recent in origin.
There was a lot of importance attached to firing from a prone position. This is far easier to do without having to reacquire the target after each shot with a bolt action than with a lever action.
I agree with all the previous answers. Just to add 1 more - bolt actions are the most accurate of all 4 types (lever, pump, semi-auto, bolt). Oh I know the difference in accuracy is not some gigantic leap above the others but I believe sniper rifles are bolt action, as well as shooting competition rifles, etc.
An excellent and obvious point, I can’t believe I missed that one! There are some very accurate semi-autos out there now, but certainly back in the day bolt guns were the way to go, and even the accurate semi autos aren’t really meant for slogging through the mud. The simplicty of the bolt allows for much tighter tolerances, which means a more accurate gun.
The question has been more or less answered. Lever actions are really only practical if they use a tubular magazine, and a tubular magazine runs the risk of detonating all the cartridges under recoil as the nose of one bullet strikes the cap of the next cartridge and sets of a chain reaction. Very, very nasty. This became a very real problem with the adoption of nitro-cellulose ‘gunpowder’. This propellant allowed for the use of smaller bullets with a much higher muzzle velocity. A smaller bullet meant a sharper point. The higher velocity meant that bullets could no longer be made of lead, since lead won’t handle such rapid accelerations. Bullets had to be coated in copper or copper alloys. Copper is harder than lead, which means that it strikes the cap of the next cartridge harder. Higher velocity also means a potential for more recoil, although nitrocellulose tends to burn smoother which can mitigate this. So a nitrocellulose rifle has harder, sharper bullets and produces more recoil, the three things you can’t have with a tubular magazine. To take advantage of the improved propellant a military either had to abandon the tubular magazine or do some serious modification on every bullet produced. A couple of European countries did adopt the system briefly (with a bolt action system though) and then discarded it fairly rapidly. The 1899 Savage mentioned in GaryM’s link was the only lever action rifle I know of that could ever take a full powered military round, and it was able to do this precisely because it used a rotary magazine. All other lever action rifles were large calibre, low velocity and essentially sporting rifles.
Lever actions are also slightly more complicated to make and care for and they also don’t allow for a detachable magazine or clip.
But there is one point worth mentioning. The bolt action was the earlier workable design for a breech loading rifle and predated the lever action by quite a few years. Although the drop down barrel design was the first working breech loading design it was closely followed by the bolt action needle gun.
probably a dumb question, but would the rounds in a tubular magazine still detonate eachother if they were rimfire?
It depends a bit on the design of the magaizine and the cartridge. In general they won’t. However the Lebel rifle used a fairly loose fit between magazine and cartridge, and centrefire rounds made so that the nose fell and sat nose to rim minimise the chance of detonating. So it’s possible fro a rimfire detonation to occur with that design. In principle it should be possible to stop it hapening simply by making the magaine a tight fit with the cartridge so they only sit nose to centre.
Not that it matters much, rimfire rounds can’t practically be made powerful enough to warrant their use.
The Savage 99 series of hunting rifles are lever action, and they have a six-round circular magazine (detacable or integral) just under the receiver. They can use pointed ammunition and are a damned fine rifle.
GaryM and I already said that BrotherCadfael. And yes, they were a good rifle. However they just weren’t practical. They are slow to load and require a lot more maintenance than a simple tubular magazine. They also have a wide profile because of the cylinder. You have the worst of all worlds. You loose the slim outline of a box magazine or tubular stock, have the high maintainence of a lever action and the even higher maintainence of a cylinder integrated into the lever action. It’s a good sporting rifle but not a military practicality. That’s why it failed to sell to the military despite Savage trying hard to sell it. The world’s militaries actually bought Springfields and other large calibre, low velocity lever actions rather than the Savage, which could take military ammunition. That choice alone should tell you how impractical the Savage was. Armies were training men and buying ammunition for two separate rifles in many instances, the lever action for close quarters and cavalry fighting and single shot bolt actions for long range engagement.
Springfield lever action? I could be wrong, but I believe Springfield (which was a government arsenal) did not make lever actions. As for Savage 99 variants being slow to load, that isn’t the case. They are, at worst. no slower to load than any of the lever actions that load through a gate. I, in fact, can load one more quickly than a Winchester or Marlin because the loading is a simple matter of pressing the cartridge straight down into the action exactly the same way one loads any blind magazine bolt action. Most lever actions load by inserting the cartridge nose-first through a small loading gate against spring pressure.
