Bolt (firearms)
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A bolt is the part of a
In most automatic firearms that use
Operation
In
, the bolt is held fixed by its locking lugs during firing, forcing all the expanding gas forward. It is manually unlocked and moved to extract the spent casing and chamber another round.In a
A telescoping bolt is a bolt that wraps around the breech end of the barrel. This bolt design is often used to reduce overall weapon length without sacrificing barrel length or bolt weight.
A turn bolt refers to a firearm component where the whole bolt without using a bolt carrier turns to lock/unlock. This is mostly used to describe manually operated bolt action firearms, but also on some automatic firearms.
The most common locking mechanism on rifles is a
Closed bolt vs. open bolt
In a closed bolt firearm, the bolt is in its foremost position upon firing. This is opposed to an open bolt firearm where the bolt is held rearward, and pulling the trigger releases it to slam forward and fire the cartridge.
See also
References
- Full Auto describes the function of the bolt in detail