In the blackpowder era, you were limited by blackpowder pressures, so if you wanted more power, you had to have a lot larger case. Building a repeating rifle around 4 or 5 inch long cases would have resulted in something that was very heavy.
It is hard to beat a Remington rolling block for simplicity. It is almost intuitive to operate. Just pull the hammer back, roll the block, load the cartridge. This does have a military advantage and the vast amount of rolling block sales were to Armies. Given that all Militaries of the period abhorred “cartridge wastage”, it is no doubt that single shot military rifles were primary arms up to the 1890’s and were still used by Colonial troops in WW1. The African troops of General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, used Mauser 71’s against the British until they replaced them with captured Lee Enfields!
The Martini Henry action should be back in production because it is such a well designed action. Very few parts, easy to take the breech block out, and it is very strong and protects the shooter from gas release.
The Trapdoor was a mistake. The US Army never wants to change, so they come out of the Civil War and there were all these excellent single shot designs, and instead of adopting one of them, they pick a rifle that is the closest they could get to an 1861 musket and still be able to use a cartridge! That Trapdoor was used against the Spanish, in Cuba and the Philippines, who had M1894 Mausers and 7mm Mauser cartridges!. What a retrogressive move!
If you shoot small bore prone, you have to use a single shot rifle. Prior to WW1, when the small bore prone was evolving in the US, you shot 50 yards slow fire, 75 yards rapid fire, 100 yards slow fire, and 125 yards rapid fire. I think the rapid fire sequences ended just after WW1, by the time you get into the 30’s it was all slow fire. But the target rifles had magazines. It was legal to load the magazines and shoot from the magazine. I was told that this all came to an end after Arthur E Cook. Arthur E Cook was an 1948 Olympic Champion http://pronematch.com/all-american-smallbore-and-air-rifle-shooters-and-olympic-gold/ and figured out that loading up the magazine and shooting as fast as possible in the same wind conditions was great way not to drop points. Other competitors were unhappy about that and the rules were changed to make you load the rounds, one at a time, in small bore prone.
It is hard to beat a Remington rolling block for simplicity. It is almost intuitive to operate. Just pull the hammer back, roll the block, load the cartridge. This does have a military advantage and the vast amount of rolling block sales were to Armies. Given that all Militaries of the period abhorred “cartridge wastage”, it is no doubt that single shot military rifles were primary arms up to the 1890’s and were still used by Colonial troops in WW1. The African troops of General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, used Mauser 71’s against the British until they replaced them with captured Lee Enfields!
The Martini Henry action should be back in production because it is such a well designed action. Very few parts, easy to take the breech block out, and it is very strong and protects the shooter from gas release.
The Trapdoor was a mistake. The US Army never wants to change, so they come out of the Civil War and there were all these excellent single shot designs, and instead of adopting one of them, they pick a rifle that is the closest they could get to an 1861 musket and still be able to use a cartridge! That Trapdoor was used against the Spanish, in Cuba and the Philippines, who had M1894 Mausers and 7mm Mauser cartridges!. What a retrogressive move!
If you shoot small bore prone, you have to use a single shot rifle. Prior to WW1, when the small bore prone was evolving in the US, you shot 50 yards slow fire, 75 yards rapid fire, 100 yards slow fire, and 125 yards rapid fire. I think the rapid fire sequences ended just after WW1, by the time you get into the 30’s it was all slow fire. But the target rifles had magazines. It was legal to load the magazines and shoot from the magazine. I was told that this all came to an end after Arthur E Cook. Arthur E Cook was an 1948 Olympic Champion http://pronematch.com/all-american-smallbore-and-air-rifle-shooters-and-olympic-gold/ and figured out that loading up the magazine and shooting as fast as possible in the same wind conditions was great way not to drop points. Other competitors were unhappy about that and the rules were changed to make you load the rounds, one at a time, in small bore prone.
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