Best of Straight Pull Bolt Action Rifles

here we are again once in a while a rifle shows up that's so unique that I kind of have to make a video immediately so I'll just plunge into it so we thought out a Mauser 98 because you all know them but for those of you that are new viewers typical Mauser 98 you raise the bowl that's how the action works and of course we all know this is an excellent action but the people at that time thought maybe there's a way to improve the action and how do you improve this action so not that many ways but I suppose there's a bit of time loss in a combat situation racing the bolt pulling it to the back and closing in function there's not much time loss and it's surprising how quickly a Mauser can be fired anyway this is the Mauser and then Ferdinand Mannlicher came up with the patented another system which is a straight pull bolt and I thought this is kind of interesting now I'll try to do this so that the camera can report just how beautifully made this rifle is this is the 1895 steyr and it's a straight ball I'll show you how it works in a second but as you can see this is not a military rifle it obviously started out as one but it was taken by Ludwig burov neck and fairlock Austria and I recommend to any of you have a look at fairlock f er L ACH if if there's any place on earth left that makes absolutely unique and painstakingly made firearms it's fair lock it's actually hard to believe place is like like the broth neck shops they kind of operate a cooperative down there for hundreds of years you can get almost any configuration of drilling or even single-shot rifles that have hammers anyway maybe I'll make another video on that one day but this is the Steyr 1895 so you can think that when this mechanism was made we were making the 1894 Winchester and you can compare the ballistics of our cartridges with their European cartridges and that isn't to make any kind of value judgment it's just interesting to look at look at what was being done on the two different continents so it's fully engraved this is kind of cute they made the bolt knob look like an acorn and the actually the quality the engraving is excellent on both sides of the magazine and if you wonder what this is it's not a removable magazine it's just a housing for a stripper clip you load these from the top with a stripper clip and I'll show you how the scope comes off so that you can see that it's very easy to reload and the scope attachment itself and the whole rifle is finished like like a watch so the claw mount normally claw mounts you release from the rear and pivot forward but on this one you just push here and the scope comes off it's that easy and it returns to zero perfectly every time these are fixed surfaces so there's no change in the point of impact now the bolt mechanism is a rotating bolt just like a Mauser so if we pull here you'll see the lugs typical Mauser lugs here the bolt head is separate from the bolt body so as we move the ball forward a cam inside the bolt body causes these to rotate and when they rotate of course the mechanism is locked so you just put forward like that it's best to do it abruptly as I did because there's some force involved this bolt runs on a rail which you can't see but nevertheless the rails about right here and it likes it when you use force well actually the Mauser 98 and most bolt rifles work best if you're aggressive with your movements so you just slam the cart the rifle shut now it's cocked you can see the cocking pieces back there's a safety here which locks the bull handle and the trigger I won't lock it because I'll show you how to decock if you don't want to use the safety so the safety is off that means I can pull the trigger I can hold the cocking piece with my thumb and it's chequered to give the soldier grip or hunter and you pull and release and then if you want to fire you can pull back the cocking piece or you could you work the bolt but that would toss out a cartridge if it looks smooth or rough I can't tell when it's being filmed there is some effort on this action because we're operating a cam that's turning the bolt but really I wanted to draw your attention just how beautifully made the countless hours of fitting the stock the cheek piece now the finish on this rifle is nothing to write home about but it can all be brought back to like new and I'll probably do that or have that done it weighs about 6 pounds and the trigger is good it has a double set trigger so you to set the back trigger and just touch the front one just the theory is you don't disturb your point of aim which you all know and quite a slender four end right to the muzzle so it doesn't add any weight and that's just a style of stock there's no real functional advantage that I'm aware of and the iron sights are are on instantly so for snap shooting it would be almost ideal and even when the scope is mounted there are tunnels in the scope mount I'll set it down on the table and you can see the the hole right through the scope mount might be hard to film but that way if you decide you want to use iron sights and you don't have time to remove your scope you can still see your iron sights under the scope and there are modern systems just like that Weaver does the same thing although they tend to get quite high the stripper clip feeding is very subtle you fit from the top and the cartridges sit in here I forget how many it looks like a lot I never load more than five so maybe it's maybe it is five hundred but everything else is finished to perfection inside the triggers are polished the trigger guard is not the original military configuration there's actually a weld light in here which you don't need to see they went to the trouble of color case hardening this but that's worn away and then they engraved it so that I mean that's that's one way to make a rifle and I'll just leave it here and then I thought well I'll show you another one which you know this is the military K 31 same problem if you want to call it a problem as the 1895 and that is if you want to turn a bolt you have to have a strong system for turning the bolt because you don't have the advantage of the lift of the balls 498 there's a serial number here which you can keep your eye on when I work this and you can see it turning that means the bolt lugs are turning and this is a highly praised rifle and mechanism from Switzerland it has the Swiss cross and so on and it is all those good things and they're very accurate but having said that here are the locking looks again you can see them just as on the 1895 but again whether a turn bolt system can be made to work really smoothly in a straight pool mechanism well it's tricky to determine that some later bottles not at the 1895 and not other key 31 but other Street pull rifles I've seen and had in my collection for time had segmented bolts the Canadian Ross rifle actually the 1905 use solid luxe then they switched to a system where the lugs were segmented kind of like a Weatherby but anyway the Swiss k31 always a good right to provide very accurate but it's got the same thing there there there is effort involved in moving and opening this action I removed the magazine because the follower lifts to inform the soldier that the magazine is empty so I couldn't just push it forward without depressing the follower and the magazine does make the operation of the action a little bit more difficult that's often the case with with different rifles so that's the key third you want a straight pull then this one I showed you on another video this one came out of the blue I'm Steeve lots of messages about the origin of this bolt mechanism this is a Mauser 98 action and a company and I received the name two or three times from viewers in Europe told me about who made this bolt and it works yeah actually if you look at it it looks something like this tyre this is a spare bolt from the shire and you can see the bolt head is separate from the bolt body and now the bolt handle is different but I mean the concept is roughly the same and all of these straight balls that turn the locking lugs this one is a lot smoother than they look whate barovik because the tolerances are far less tight look how it moves now some people say that's a bad thing but actually it's a good thing I mean this doesn't maybe feel the best but as far as utility as far as whether it makes the gun work better or not this is immaterial it moves very smoothly dust debris whatever grit that wouldn't interfere with the operation of this straight-pull in that part of the mechanism which is true of the Mauser 98 so exceptional but people have always been attracted to bolt action straight pulse because it's one of the most interesting ways of getting rapid firepower rapid repeat shots and not having a lever a pump or a semi-automatic and in some jurisdictions it's the only way to get fast repeat shots so especially in Germany if I understand some of the people at right meeting wild boar hunting is popular and throughout Europe in different places they want that fast repeat shot so I mean the obvious solution is how do you get the bolt unlocked without turning the bolt handle and without using the bolt handle to turn lugs in the action and probably the Blazer er8 is the best solution and it has that amazing radial lock so there are no turning components here the locking mechanism is a number of arms in a radial configuration they expand inside the chamber so when this happens the the radial lock has now opened the cartridge can move backwards and then by this simple motion you can see the action actually already starts opening just by tipping the bolt handle and then the movement of the action can be not effortless but it's very smooth and I have to say for smoothness and from a sporting point of view this is the probably the best straight poem I've reviewed the Haim and SR 30 and others very compelling but quite a few people reporting the r8 is outselling everything and people of the Blazer are rate it has the unusual distinction of being one of the few rifles or the Ola rifle I know where the trigger comes out with the magazine and that's that's unusual on its own and you can see with trigger out the magazine is gone and the rifle is completely safe which a lot of people like and of course there are different laws in different jurisdictions so not everything means what it seems to mean just at first blush I'm so getting back to the Ludwig bra flick this r8 as good as it seems to be is a machine mate firearm and if you were a custom gun maker or someone who enjoyed the art of guns you would say it's almost a characterless tool but there's nothing wrong with with that it just sounds bad it does exactly what it sets out to to do this on the other hand I don't know how many hours it would take to make something like this now wouldn't be affordable for almost anybody and whether the action is as good as the browser I think in some ways superior but in operation not as smooth now I can smooth this output valve compound and a few other tricks there might have been a little bit of where although not much the bolt face doesn't show any primer pocket flame cutting so a remarkable rifle I thought it's worth showing to you just because you probably won't see these it won't see something like this probably anywhere they're extremely rare even for fairlock didn't make many rifles based on the on the 1895 steyr but you can see how clean and compact that action yes and that's way back when so for someone wanting a straight pull rifle you can still get the military version this one by the way brodnik went to the trouble of reworking so that 7 by 57 are works perfectly and that's a convenient readily available cartridge and one of the best cartridges ever the 7 by 57 miles er this has the r4 rim it has a rim they do that in Europe they have 6.5 by 57 our seven-day fifty-seven are and so forth because they used a lot of combination guns and drillings and those guns need a rim to remove the cartridge so again a lot to cover in a short period of time but I thought this is definitely worth sharing to you and probably one of the most unique straight bull rifles and certainly the best made straight bull rifle that I have in terms of quality of workmanship and engraving and for those of you that may want to know there are roe deer on one side and there are some beautifully done red deer on the left side of the action the trigger is fully adjustable front and rear it's a watch that happens to be a firearm but amazingly made and I think a very sound investment and I'll probably at some point take it hunting so that's it thank you for watching and please do subscribe whatever you have to do to accomplish that and join me on patreon when you can thank you again we'll see you next time

Channel: undefined

Views: 38,917

Rating: 4.9117241 out of 5

Keywords: Steyr, 1895 Steyr, Mauser 98, straight pull action, straight pull bolt, Mannlicher, Ferlach, Ludwig Borovnik, Austrian Firearms, K31, military K31, Swiss Firearms, Blaser R8, best straight pull, best made straight pull rifle, Blaser R93, firearm education, learn about straight pull bolt actions, usog teaches about straight pull bolt actions

Id: NTiuvjbGlUI

Length: 16min 45sec (1005 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 13 2018