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of the rifle, then draws the bolt
in the rear four inches or so, yanking
"ill the fired shell and cocking the rifle.
The reciprocal motion pushes in a new
cartridge, closes the boll, and the final
turn-down of the bolt handle locks the
bolt ready to fire.
Training makes the motion of opening
and closing the bolt a fast one, but just
the same there remains the fact that the
soldier must release his grip of the rifle
with the right hand to go through the
motions described. The maximum rate
of fire of such a rifle is twenty-five
aimed shots a minute.
But, while the rate of fire of the present
hand-operated rifles is higher than
is required for ordinary fighting, the
same rate is not high enough for repelling
a charge, or for stopping the sudden
eruption of masses of running men from
the position of the enemy a short distance
away, Reports from the east war
front—from Russian sources—have it
that the German Mausers, formerly fiveshot
rifles, have been converted to
twenty-five-shot rifles by the addition of
deep magazines.
The Mauser, like the Springfield, is
charger-loading, the five cartridges beingheld
together at their bases by a brass
strip and the five being swept out of the
brass strip into the magazine as the soldier
places the five with their clip in a
slot in the receiver of the rifle and
presses his thumb down against the top
of the five. The operation is very
speedy, taking no more time than reload-
The New Yankee Ritle Ought to Have
a Good Receiver Peep Sight Like This
ing an ordinary rifle with one cartridge.
The writer has performed the operation
OUR RIFLE OF THE FUTURE 543
including dropping rifle from shoulder
and throwing it up again, reloaded with
five cartridges, in five seconds.
Rut, at the pinch, even this time is
costly if the other chaps cover several
yards of precious ground therein.
Our ideal man-killing rifle would be
therefore a rifle to hold many cartridges,
giving twenty-five shots a minute in
regular use, which is ample for the ordinary
fighting fire at distant enemies, but
also giving a tremendous speed of fire
for a few seconds when the critical moment
has arrived.
Before war broke out, the great Paul
Mauser at Oberndorf, -Germany, had
perfected several types of automatic infantry
rifles. Our own Army Ordnance
Department had tried out many designs
and had started the attempt to build a
successful one.
Now comes the authentic report that
German arsenals are building, at top
speed, ten-shot automatic rifles to supplant
the old five-shot Mauser on the
firing line, the new rifle being one of
those which Mauser had evolved before
his death two years ago.
As fast as the exigencies of war supplies
will permit, other nations will have
to follow suit.
To let the ordinary soldier do his
fighting with an automatic—self-loading
the mor%. correct term—infantry rifle
would be to waste precious ammunition
without adding to the results obtained.