Guns and Shooting

Atreyu invited me here to do a thread on shooting and weaponry. As we all know shooting is the primary skill in which a military leans on. Without the ability to shoot, you have no military.

To shoot, you need a gun to operate, to operate a gun, you need to know how it works. So this first post is dedicated to showing the working parts and the idea of how humble bolt action rifle and it's supporting friend, the .308 Winchester works.

For a weapon so simple operate and with such an easy mechanism to understand, the bolt action rifle is mainly the tool of an expert marksman, namely snipers. Thus for these posts i'll be showing off the mechanism of the Bolt Action Rifle with my personal Accuracy International rifle with a ton of pics and diagrams to help people understand what they're looking at.

Now let's start with the simplest mechanism. The .308 Winchester/ 7.62mm NATO cartridge.

The Cartridge itself is made out of 4 components.
LEFT : Primer
RIGHT : Powder
UP : Bullet
MIDDLE : Case



The theory of firing is simple, the firing pin hits the primer, the primer releases a very intense spark (or jet of flame), this jet ignites the powder, the pressure rises in the case until it is powerful enough to push the bullet out of the case and into the barrel. Here's a pic of a round which has had its primer hit. The wording on back of a case is called a "Headstamp", it usually indicates what kind of round the case is for and it's manufacturer (eg; FC means Federal, PPU is Prvi Partisan, L is Lapua and so on)



Other pics

Primer


Bullet. Lapua Scenar 179gr


Powder


I can't show the powder itself unless i want to use it, because exposure to air degrades the powder and reduces its consistency. But it looks like Milo kasar most of the time.

Moving on to the second part lets take a look at the rifle itself and an overview of all major parts.



Fancy names...what do they all do?

Stock - This is the plastic (any material) part you hold that is part of the rifle, but not part of its firing mechanism.

Receiver - It is the part of the rifle that the barrel and bolt are attached to and where the chamber is. It is also where you mount your scope most of the time.

Bolt - To force the power of the explosion from a cartridge to push the bullet forward instead of explode in your face, the Bolt loads a cartridge from the magazine and pushes it into the chamber, locks the cartridge into the chamber and has the firing pin that will strike the primer for that bullet to fly towards the target. The firing pin has to be cocked for it to have sufficient power to slam into the primer, with bolt action rifles there are 2 mechanisms, cock upon opening, and cock upon closing. Cock upon opening means, after you fire a round, when you push the bolt up, the bolt will pull back the spring and ready it for the next shot. For a cock upon opening, after you have loaded a round and are closing the bolt and going to shoot some bugger, the bolt cocks the spring. Upon Opening = After firing cock spring, Upon Closing = Before firing.

Chamber - This is where all the boom boom happens. The chamber is usually very strong to contain the explosive forces.

Muzzle - Bisness end of the rifle. Hopefully pointed at the thing you want to shoot.

Butt - The non bisness end of the rifle that points towards you.

Magazine (Either internal or external) - This is what holds the bullets. An external/detachable magazine is a physical magazine you can remove (take empty one out, put fresh one in), internal magazine is internal, to reload you usually have the insert the cartridges into the rifle and push them down so they'll lock into the internal magazine.

Magwell - This is what an external magazine goes into. It's like a metal guide that accepts the magazine and guides it to the chamber and locks it in the right place so the bullets can be loaded by the bolt. I call it a gun vagina.

Trigger - You pull this, it go BOOM. There are 2 kinds of triggers, single stage and dual stage. Most ultra accurate match civilian rifles are single stage, meaning the trigger is already erm......keras...so when you push it, it's hard and until you reach the set trigger pressure, then it releases and then rifle go boom! Dual Stage is different, it's like single stage, but you have to pull the trigger A BIT to the back then only it will keras. Dual stage triggers are mostly used by Law enforcement and military because you're shooting at people, so the first stage pull is there to give safety margin. If you don't want to shoot, just let go of the trigger, no such chance with single stage because with SS, you pull trigger, it go bang, you get no second chances. But of course, SS triggers are the best if you want accuracy.

woah you are already here!
welcome dude!
I hope that you will be active here!
we always lepaking at the Warung Pak Jebat thread!

The Heart of a bolt action is the bolt. Simple eh?


(Note the bolt, and the stamp mark. This is called a "Proofing Mark" meaning that the bolt has been tested by a proofing house, in this case the symbol shows the Birmingham CIP proofing house)

ADDED : Proof mark ID : Fire breathing Dragon = Finland proofing, St Ettaine = French Proofing, Crown with the letters CP beneath it = Birmingham

The bolt is what does the work in the gun, no matter what kind of action. A semi auto has a bolt as well, but it isn't called a bolt action because a bolt action is defined as a mechanism where the bolt is operated by human power after every shot to load and chamber another round.

Now lets have a look at the bolt.



The curved thing at the end is the handle, which is operated to load, chamber and extract a round of ammunition. To lock it for firing, the handle is pushed to the front to chamber the cartridge and then pushed downwards to lock the bolt in position.

The catch on the right side of the bolt is the safety. But this varies from rifle to rifle. The Sako TRG's safety is in the trigger guard, the Remington 700's safety is on the stock.

The little groove that runs the length of the bolt (i call it the longkang banjir) is called a relief vent. In case of a catastrophic failure of the rifle and if something is going to explode (much like a banjir), this groove allows for the gas to escape instead of turning the gun into a small bomb. This groove also functions as a place where moisture may gather, so in freezing conditions, the moisture will freeze there instead of on the working bolt surface allowing the weapon to still operate in freezing temps instead of locking up.



Looking at the "face" of the bolt there are a few things to point out.

First are the 3 things that stick out of the bolt at 60 degree intervals, these things are the heart of the action, these are the locking lugs. When you push the bolt downwards to lock it, you're actually turning these so they'll "lock" in with another 3 sets of lugs that are built into the receiver. This is the "lock" and if any of these lugs fail, someone's gonna get hurt real bad.

If you notice on the 6 o'clock of the bolt face, there's a claw of sorts. This is the extractor. After firing a cartridge, you obviously have to remove the spent case from the rifle. This claw locks into the case as you push the bolt downwards to lock the chamber. So when you unlock the bolt and pull it back, the used casing comes with it, gripped by the extractor.

at the 5 o'clock of the bolt face is a little thing that sticks out. That's the ejector. Is is generally a metal rod with a spring behind it. When you load and chamber a round, the round pushes into the ejector and compresses the spring behind it, but since the cartridge is in the chamber, the ejector can't push the round anywhere. But when you extract the case and pull back the bolt, the ejector neatly pushes the case out of the lobang in the side of the rifle so a new cartridge can be loaded.

The hole in the middle is where the firing pin goes through to hit the primer of cartridge.

Anyways, here's a pic for the receiver locking lugs.

welcome empire, loves to read your posts in LYN as well.

hmmm this kind of design always make me think that this rifle is capable to shoot quite a distance in range, is it sort of sniper?

eh empire,
when are you coming back to Malaysia!

Wohoo Empire pun dah masuk sini~

move to hobbies!

Eh empire how the's .50 cal bullet look alike man?
can be imported or not!

powerw00t wrote:

hmmm this kind of design always make me think that this rifle is capable to shoot quite a distance in range, is it sort of sniper?

he said Hunting Rifle maaa!

macam overkill!

atreyudevil wrote:

powerw00t wrote:

hmmm this kind of design always make me think that this rifle is capable to shoot quite a distance in range, is it sort of sniper?

he said Hunting Rifle maaa!

macam overkill!

Accuracy International L96 tapi versi mana (AW / AWM) tak pasti cuma kompem ni versi civvy.. rifle sama ada dlm inventori ATM/PDRM

tp woo marc, ini rifle buleh bawak masuk sbg sport utilities taw...

woih empire mana ko punya sig sauer P226!!


hishh sat aku pm dia!

marc_zman wrote:

atreyudevil wrote:

powerw00t wrote:

hmmm this kind of design always make me think that this rifle is capable to shoot quite a distance in range, is it sort of sniper?

he said Hunting Rifle maaa!

macam overkill!

Accuracy International L96 tapi versi mana (AW / AWM) tak pasti cuma kompem ni versi civvy.. rifle sama ada dlm inventori ATM/PDRM

nama designation british.boooooo

empy punya AWSM

btw empy,can i has some .338 and .50?the store ran out

and also,wheres the steyr with all the RAILZZZ?

heavyduty wrote:

marc_zman wrote:

atreyudevil wrote:

powerw00t wrote:

hmmm this kind of design always make me think that this rifle is capable to shoot quite a distance in range, is it sort of sniper?

he said Hunting Rifle maaa!

macam overkill!

Accuracy International L96 tapi versi mana (AW / AWM) tak pasti cuma kompem ni versi civvy.. rifle sama ada dlm inventori ATM/PDRM

nama designation british.boooooo

empy punya AWSM

btw empy,can i has some .338 and .50?the store ran out

and also,wheres the steyr with all the RAILZZZ?

booo panjang.. boooooo
booo pendek.. booo
booo sikit.. booo booo booo
booo banyak.. booo booo booo booo booo booo booo.. ekekekekeee

the dengkis is hot in here!

well if the gummint didnt have tight gun laws we wouldnt be jelly would we?

i want an enfield!

I want a mac harris!

heavyduty wrote:well if the gummint didnt have tight gun laws we wouldnt be jelly would we?

i want an enfield!

yeahhh.. gimme anfield man.. i wanna go to anfiled
ehhh.. silap benang plak

haaa maka aku pn pinjam kata powe..

oit!!!