Rifle

The rifle is a gun with a stock to brace against the shoulder and a barrel with twisting grooves. The grooves are called rifling and make bullets spin as they fly through the air. Rifles are made to shoot many different sizes of bullets using different amounts of gunpowder. Rifles are usually made to be able to hit targets at long ranges. Modern rifles are made for many different purposes. Some are made for hunting animals. Some are made for soldiers to use in war. Others are made for police to have in case they need them. Some rifles are made for target shooting.

Modern hunting rifle

Types

diagram of a bolt action (about to load a bullet)

Rifles can work in different ways. Some rifles have what is called a bolt action. A small handle is used to move a part of the rifle called a "bolt". By moving the bolt backward, then forward, allows the shooter put a bullet in the chamber ready for firing. It also ejects any spent shells still in the chamber from any previously fired rounds. The rifle in the picture above is a bolt action. Some rifles are semi-automatics, where a bullet is loaded (automatically) and fired each time the trigger is pulled. Some are fully automatic, which work like semi-automatics but allow the shooter to fire more than one bullet at a time by holding down the trigger. The automatic rifle stops firing when the trigger is released or it runs out of ammunition.

Related pages

• Assault rifle
• Battle rifle
• CornerShot

Other websites

• Quick Guide to Olympic Shooting
• Nazarian's Gun's Recognition Guide on Bolt Action Rifles Archived 2006-02-14 at the Wayback Machine
• Nazarian's Gun's Recognition Guide on Automatic Rifles Archived 2006-02-14 at the Wayback Machine
• UK Air Rifles Archived 2007-03-15 at the Wayback Machine
• Israeli Special Forces Rifles at isayeret.com
• On the AK-47's social and military effect on history Archived 2016-06-02 at the Wayback Machine
• WW2-era Small Arms
• ShootingWiki.org Competition Arms Database