Rifle model 1943 / puska 43M / G.98/40

 G98/40 or 43M rifle.

 G98/40 or 43M rifle, close-up view to receiver.

Caliber: 7.92x57 mm
Action: manually operated, rotating bolt
Overall length: 1092 mm
Barrel length: 605 mm
Weigth: 3.91 kg
Magazine capacity: 5 rounds

The Gew.98/40 rifle, also known as Puska 1943. Minta (Rifle, model of 1943, or 43M in short) was developed at Hungarian FEG arms factory in around 1941 under German contract. It was intended for German troops, as weel as for Hungarian troops that were serving along with German troops on Soviet front. In German service, this rifle was known as Infanterie Gewehr 98/40 or Gew.98/40 or G.98/40 in short. It was also adopted by Hungarian army in 1943, as rifle 43M, with minor cosmetic changes from German-contract rifles. Despite having significant external similarities to German Mauser K.98K rifle, the G.98/40 is not a 'Mauser' design, but an amalgam of the Mannlicher-type action (based on Hungarian 35M rifle) and Mauser-type integral box magazine. This rifle was produced by FEG between 1941 and 1945, with total production of German-contract G.98/40 rifles estimated at around 140 000; plus, some 90 thousands of 43M rifles were produced for Hungarian army.

The 43M / Gew.98/40 rifle is a manually operated rotary bolt action weapon. It uses Mannlicher-type rotating bolt with dual locking lugs, located at the front of the bolt body, and detachable bolt head which hosts extractor and ejector. The receiver has a split rear bridge. Feed is from integral Mauser-type box magazine, holding five cartridges in a two rows. Magazines are loaded usingMauser-type stripper clips. Manual safety is provided at the rear of the bolt body, just above the exposed cocking piece. Rifle was fitted with blade front sight and tangent type rear sight marked from 100 to 2000 meters range. Wooden stock is made of two separate parts - buttstock with semi-pistol grip and a forend. A carrying sling and a Mauser Kar.98K-type knife bayonet were provided as standard accessories.

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35M

 Rifle model 1935 / puska 35M.

 Rifle model 1935 / puska 35M, close-up view to receiver and magazine.

Caliber: 8x56R mm
Action: Manually operated, rotating bolt
Overall length: 1105 mm
Barrel length: 610 mm
Weigth: 4.04 kg empty
Magazine capacity: 5 rounds

The Puska 1935. Minta (Rifle, model of 1935, or 35M in short) was developed at FEG arms factory in Budapest during early 1930s, with intent to replace obsolete Steyr Mannlicher M1895 rifles then in use by Hungarian army. The rifle was designed to accept newly developed 8x56R 31M ammunition, and was broadly based on design features, originated by famous Austrian arms designer Ferdinand Ritter Von Mannlicher. This rifle was adopted in 1935 and manufactured at FEG factory. It was used by Hungarian army before, during and shortly after the WW2, and to much lesser extent, by German army during WW2. Total production of 35M rifles is estimated at about 160 000 guns.

The 35M rifle is a manually operated rotary bolt action weapon. It uses Mannlicher-type rotating bolt with dual locking lugs, located at the front of the bolt body, and detachable bolt head which hosts extractor and ejector. The receiver has a split rear bridge. Feed is from integral box magazine, holding five cartridges in a single row. Magazines are loaded using Mannlicher type en-block clips that stay within the magazine until the last round is chambered, and then fall down freely through the opening in the base of magazine, and out of the gun. Manual safety is provided at the rear of the bolt body, just above the exposed cocking piece. Rifle was fitted with blade front sight and tangent type rear sight marked from 100 to 2000 meters range. Wooden stock is made of two separate parts - buttstock with semi-pistol grip and a forend. A carrying sling and a knife-type bayonet were provided as standard accessories.

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Steyr Mannlicher M95

 8x50R Steyr Mannlicher M95 long rifle.

 Steyr Mannlicher 8x56R M95/30 short rifle (upgraded and shortened M95), left side.
Image: Frank Rodyns, Belgium

 same 8x56R Steyr Mannlicher M95/30 short rifle, right side, with the loaded en bloc clip shown in front of the gun.
Image: Frank Rodyns, Belgium

Steyr Mannlicher M95/30 rifle, with bolt open and loaded clip partially inserted into action; note how the bolt handle remains horizontal, as opposed to more common rotating bolt actions such as Mauser.
Image: Frank Rodyns, Belgium

Drawing of the Mannlicher 1895 straight-pull bolt system; note the curved ribs and cuts marked with the dotted lines, which rotate the bolt head on bolt open/close action.

 Bottom view on the Steyr Mannlicher M95 rifle, showing the large opening, through which the empty clip is ejected.

	M95 long rifle	M95/30 rifle
Caliber	8x50R М93	8x56R M30
Overall length	1272 mm	1000 mm
Barrel length	765 mm	480 mm
Weight	3,8 kg empty	3,36 kg empty
Magazine capacity	5 rounds in en bloc clip	5 rounds in en bloc clip

The Steyr M1895 rifle, also known as Steyr-Mannlicher M95 straight pull rifle, was developed by famous Austrian arms designer Ferdinand Ritter Von Mannlicher. Based on his previous M1890 design, this rifle was manufactured in Austro-Hungarian Empire at state arms factories in Steyr (Austria) and Budapest (Hungary). More than 3 millions of M95 rifles were produced between 1895 and 1918. This rifle was issued to Austro-Hungarian army, and, after the fall of the Empire, to the Austrian and Hungarian armies. Originally produced in 8x50R caliber, in 1924 some of M95 rifles were converted to the German 7.92x57 Mauser (also known as 8x57 Mauser) ammunition. These converted rifles featured shorter 58 cm barrels, were designated as M95/24 and used in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. This conversion gave away with original Mannlicher en bloc clip, and replaced it with Mauser stripper clips. Since 1930 Austria converted most of the M95 rifles to the more powerful 8x56R M30 ammunition, using the same Mannlicher en bloc clips. These rifles were designated as M95/30, and marked with the letter "S" on the receiver ring. Hungary started to convert their rifles to the same 8x56R ammunition in 1931, with the upgraded rifles being marked with the letter "H" on the receiver ring. Many of the M95 rifles were used during the Word War 2 by the Hungarian, Bulgarian and Italian armies, as well as by some German police forces.

Ferdinand Von Mannlicher developed his first straight-pull bolt action rifle by 1884, and by 1885 he developed the famous Mannlicher en block clip, which was inserted into the box magazine from the top, and automatically ejected through the opening at the bottom of the magazine as the last round was chambered. This significantly speed up the loading process, compared to the earlier designs with magazines loaded by single rounds; the problem was that such magazine could not be loaded with loose rounds without the clip. As a result, during the early part of the 20 century Mannlicher en bloc clip was generally replaced by the Mauser-type stripper clip. Earliest Mannlicher straight-pull rifles have had not so strong wedge-locking system, but in 1890 he introduced a straight pull bolt action with rotary bolt head with two lugs, which he latter used in M95 rifles.

Steyr Mannlicher M95 bolt has a separate head with two frontal locking lugs; bolt head was inserted into the bolt body from the front. Bolt body had internal spiral-shaped ribs, with matching spiral-shaped cuts in the tail of the bolt head. These ribs and cuts forced the bolt head to rotate on the pull of the bolt body, locking and unlocking the action. Box magazine contained five rounds in en bloc clips; as the magazine emptied, the clips were ejected from the opening at the bottom of the magazine. Non-empty clips could be removed from the top with the bolt open, by depressing the clip catch inside the triggerguard. One specific feature of this system was that the clip has specific "top" and "bottom" sides, and could not be loaded into the rifle upside down. The safety was located at the rear left side of the bolt. Large ear-shaped cocking handle at the rear of the bolt served as a manual cocking handle, to re-cock the action without operating the bolt. M95 rifles were issued with detachable knife bayonets. Other than basic rifle, M95 also was issued as Stutzen (short rifle or carbine, with bayonet lug), and slightly shorter cavalry carbine (without bayonet lug).

These rifles are generally considered as a reasonably strong and accurate, but somewhat sensitive to mud and dirt, as most others military straight pull bolt action rifles. There were several downsides, inherent to these rifles. The straight pull bolt lacked the powerful initial extraction, provided by most rotating bolt actions. Large opening at the bottom of the magazine easily collected the dirt and dust into the magazine. The en block clip loading system does not allow the partially full magazine to be refilled without removing the non-empty clip first. The use of rimmed ammunition resulted in the non-symmetric clip which could be inserted into the action only with one side down; upper side of the clip has stamped serrations to hold it while loading (this particular problem was cured in Italian Carcano rifles, which used rimless ammunition, and symmetric clips).

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Military Rifles

This section is intended to give a brief overview of the general issue military rifles, used by various nations during the XX century. This section is further divided into two subsections - bolt action rifles and semi-automatic rifles.

Bolt action rifles

Bolt action rifle is a weapon, which requires a manual operation to reload a weapon prior to each shot. Term "bolt action" comes from the "bolt" - a part of the weapon that is used to feed cartridges into the chamber and to lock the barrel upon the fire. This part also is more generally known as "breech block", but the term "bolt" is usually referred to the longitudinally movable breech block. So, to fire each shot from bolt action rifle, one must manually unlock the bolt, open it to extract and eject spent case, close the bolt, feeding a fresh round into the chamber simultaneously, and then lock the bolt. When trigger is pulled, rifle goes off and another set of manipulations described above is required prior to the next shot can be fired. Bolt action rifles could be further divided in numerous sub-categories, such as single-shot or magazine-fed rifles, rotating bolt or straight pull bolt action rifles etc, but this will not be discussed here, at least for now.

First bolt action rifles appeared somewhere in the mid-XIX century, and first magazine fed bolt actions were adopted by the Swiss army in the 1870s in the form of the Vetterly-Vitaly rifle. Since then and until the end of the World War 2, bolt action rifles and carbines were the main individual infantry long arms.

It should be noted also, that the term "carbine" refers to shortened and lightened rifle, does not matter if it is bolt action or semi-auto.

Semi-automatic (self-loading) rifles

Semi-automatic rifles differ from the manual repeaters in fact that semi-automatics used some amount of the energy, generated by the each shot fired, to commence the reloading cycle (extract and eject the spent case, feed a live round and lock the action, cock the hammer or striker). Due to this, semi-automatic rifles are often referred as a self-loading rifles, too. So, as long as a cartridge supply to the action remains uninterrupted (magazine is not empty), gun will fire each time the trigger is pressed, without any other manual operations. However, when gun is loaded for the first shot, it usually requires at first manual loading cycle to be commenced. The key difference between automatic and assault rifles and semi-automatic rifles is that the semi-automatic rifle will fire exactly one shot per each trigger pull, while automatic (assault) rifle will continue to fire continuously as long as the trigger is pulled and cartridge supply to action is not interrupted. First semi-automatic rifles appeared at the end of the XIX century, but it was not until the 1930s when semi-automatics began to proliferate into the military service. The World Wars 1 and 2 gave a birth to the numerous design that were designed and issued to troops in 1930s - 1950s, but fast proliferation of the selective fire assault rifles made the day for semi-automatics in general military service.

Many bolt action and semi-automatic rifles are still in limited military service in the form of Sniper weapons, but this particular category is discussed elsewhere on this site. This particular section will describe mostly general issue infantry weapons.

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