Self-loading rifle

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Ruger Mini 14

Self-loading rifle is the generic term for a rifle that automatically ejects the empty cartridge case after firing a shot, reloads a new cartridge from the magazine and is then ready to fire again.

Self-loading rifles used for hunting and sports are usually referred to as self-loading rifles , the last-mentioned term is also used in gun law.

development

United States

First Maxim patent in 1883 for self-loaders
Maxim-Winchester self-loader
Winchester-Browning self-loading 1892
Winchester Model 1903 cal. .22 Win Auto
Winchester 05 Self Loading
Browning Auto-5 self-loading shotgun disassembled
Browning self-loading rifle cal. 22
Mauser C96 carabiner, one-off production
Mauser M1916 with stock
Luger model 1900 pistol carbine
Mannlicher pistol 1896 and carbine 1903

The first self-loading rifles were designed in the USA. Between 1883 and 1885, the American-British inventor and designer Hiram Maxim developed a rifle with an unlocked mass lock and a six-shot drum magazine in the breech block. This was later followed by a Winchester rifle with a knee joint lock, modified by Hiram Maxim . In this lever action rifle , the loading lever was connected to the spring-loaded end plate movably attached to the rear of the piston via a connecting rod. Recoil and forward movement when firing activated the weapon's knee-joint mechanism for reloading. On this basis, Maxim developed his machine gun , a recoil loader that worked with a knee-joint lock .

Even John Browning used a Winchester carbine with knee cap for first attempts. For recharging, he used the energy of the gases flowing out of the muzzle, which hit a perforated metal plate at the end of the barrel. The movement of the plate was transmitted to the loading lever of the weapon via a lever mechanism. In later developments he used a cylinder attached parallel to the barrel, in which a gas piston was pushed backwards by gas transferred from the barrel into the cylinder: in principle a gas pressure charger .

It is not known whether the rifles mentioned above emitted single or continuous fire. None of these experimental weapons were copied in series.

Europe

The first attempts with a self-loading rifle were made by Karel Krnka in 1883/84 with a converted Werndl rifle . The pioneer of self-loading rifle development in Europe, however, was the Austrian inventor Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher . He developed his first prototype in 1885, with this unwieldy weapon, the bolt and barrel locked back by about the length of the cartridge, and after unlocking, the bolt ran back in a tube that was attached to the top and almost reached the end of the piston. The box magazine was attached to the top of the breech block, the cartridges were pushed in by their own weight. In the Mannlicher M1894, the barrel, which was locked at the rear end of the bolt housing, ran forward when firing; a corresponding system without a locking was later used on one of his self-loading pistols. A prototype M1893 largely corresponded to the orderly repeating rifle of the same year, the locking grooves in the barrel extension and the corresponding cams on the bolt were attached at an angle that delayed unlocking and left the system with enough energy for reloading.

Start of series production

Civil weapons

The first self-loading rifle to be mass-produced in the USA was the 1903 model developed by Thomas C. Johnson, chief engineer at the Winchester Repeating Arms Company , bypassing the Browning patents, with an unlocked ground lock and a tubular magazine in the butt. The rifle initially fired the specially developed .22 Winchester automatic cartridge. Reason: Malfunction of the not yet finally developed system due to the non-uniformly loaded .22 long rifle ammunition on the market. 122,000 examples of the weapon were produced up to the 1930s. From 1905 Winchester produced the 1905 model with a box magazine in .32 caliber (later models 1907 and 1910 in larger calibers). The weapon fired cartridges with cylindrical casings, as it was recognized that bottle neck casings were not suitable for these weapons with an unlocked breech due to possible tearing of the casing.

In October 1900, John Browning sold his US Patent 659,786 for a self-loading rifle to the Remington Arms company . Remington began in 1905 to produce this recoil loader with a long barrel return, a rotating head lock and box magazine under the name Remington Model 8 (later Model 81).

The Auto-5 shotgun developed by Browning was the first self-loading shotgun to be produced in large numbers, a locked recoil loader with a long barrel return and barrel magazine. Patented by John Moses Browning in 1900, it was offered to Winchester for manufacture, which they refused. In the USA it was therefore produced in large numbers by Remington Arms Co. and in Europe by the Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre (FN) in Belgium. Winchester then developed the Model 11 self-loading shotgun, bypassing the Browning patents, which failed to prove itself and was quickly taken out of production.

The FN-Browning self-loading rifle cal 22 developed by Browning from 1900 onwards , a shooting recoil loader with a ground lock, was also manufactured in large numbers by FN in Belgium and Remington in the USA from 1910. At the turn of the century, self-loading pistols or their locking systems were also used to manufacture self-loading rifles (or carbines). Examples are the Mauser C96 pistol and the Mannlicher self-loading carbine 1903.

Military weapons

Mondragón patent lock, the 6 locking cams visible

One of the first military self-loading rifles was the Mondragón rifle designed by the Mexican General Mondragón at the turn of the century. Developed further in Switzerland by SIG Neuhausen , it was produced in small series by the same company from 1908. This gas pressure loader with a double-locked rotary head lock (the 6 cams at the front lock in the barrel extension, the 6 cams at the rear in the breech housing) was used by the Swiss and German armies as an "aviator rifle" to arm the flight attendant during the First World War. Another self-loading rifle developed around the turn of the century was the Italian Cei Rigotti rifle, which, however, did not prove itself.

Although designed as a hunting rifle, the Browning Auto-5 shotgun in caliber 12 and with a 20-inch barrel was used by the military and police, as were the Remington Model 81 rifles. The Winchester Model 1910 self-loading rifles in .351 caliber were also acquired by the US Army and Allied armies during World War I, but with a 10-round magazine instead of the 5-round magazine for hunting weapons.

Industrial manufacture of military weapons

First World War

Second World War

Self-loading rifles manufactured after 1945

Military weapons

Civil weapons

literature

  • George M. Chinn, Lieutenant Colonel USMC: The Machine Gun, History, Evolution and Development of Manual, Automatic and Airborne Repeating Weapons , Vol I, Bureau of Ordnance, Dept. of the Navy, 1951
  • George M. Chinn, Lieutenant Colonel USMC: The Machine Gun, History, Evolution and Development of Manual, Automatic, and Airborne Repeating Weapons , Vol II, Bureau of Ordnance, Dept. of the Navy, Confidential Security Information 1952
  • Jaroslav Lugs: Handguns. Systematic overview of handguns and their history , Volume I. Berlin 1956.
  • Jaroslav Lugs: Handguns. Systematic overview of handguns and their history , Volume II. Berlin 1956.
  • Rainer Lidschun, Günter Wollert: Infantry Weapons (1918-1945) , Volume 1. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 1999.
  • Rainer Lidschun, Günter Wollert: Infantry weapons (1918-1945) , Volume 2. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 1999.
  • WHB Smith & Joseph E. Smith: Small Arms of the World , Seventh Edition 1962, Printed in the USA, Copyright 1960 & 1962 by the Stackpole Company.
  • WHB Smith & Joseph E. Smith: The Book of Rifles , Third Edition 1963, Second Printing 1965 Printed in the USA, Copyright 1960 & 1963 by the Stackpole Company.
  • Melvin L. Johnson & Charles T. Haven: Automatic Weapons of the World , William Morrow & Company, New York 1945.
  • Christian Reinhart, Michael am Rhyn: Automatic weapons, submachine guns, self-loading rifles. 1972 by Verlag Stocker and Schmid AG, Dietikon Zurich, ISBN 3-7276-7014-2 .

Web links

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