I guess I should know, but this is a term I have seen several times lately.I suspect that it deals with the bolt face/ extractor assembly firmly holding the cartridge rim as the round feeds into the chamber, so there's less chance of misfeeds. Is this close to right? Please teach me. Thanks.
What exactly is a "controlled feed" rifle system?
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Yes, that's right as far as I know. A pushfeed system, the rifle round just sits atop the other rounds in the magazine or the follower, and the bolt pushes it into place. I guess if you were laying sideways, hanging upside down or in zero-gee a pushfeed might be less reliable than a controlled feed, but it's up to you.
Ringer
Member
I'm no expert but I think you pretty much got it. With CF you can also extract a round that was not fully chambered. The one thing you can do with a Push Feed rifle is load a single cartridge directly into the chamber. With CF the extractor won't slip over the rim. Unless it's Winchester Controlled Round Push Feed then you (supposedly) get the best of both worlds 
Winchester has some basic descriptions here
I'm sure others will be along that know this stuff a lot better than me.
Winchester has some basic descriptions here
I'm sure others will be along that know this stuff a lot better than me.
rbernie
Contributing Member
You got it. The boltface is open at the bottom and a side-mounted claw extractor is used such that the rim of the cartridge can slide up into the claw as it's being stripped from the magazine. If you have a 1911-pattern pistol, you can see this in action on a smaller scale - it's also a controlled-feed design.
Figure 9 in the following article shows the claw extractor for the Mauser:
http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting/mauserboltdisassembly/index.asp
The good side of this is that the round is fully controlled at all times and cannot fall out of the action should you be cycling the action at an angle, nor can you cause a feed jam by short-cycling the bolt. The down side to this is that the case head is not fully enclosed - this means that the controlled-feed boltface doesn't help support the side of the case head and doesn't help much to contain escaping gasses in the event of a case rupture.
Figure 9 in the following article shows the claw extractor for the Mauser:
http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting/mauserboltdisassembly/index.asp
The good side of this is that the round is fully controlled at all times and cannot fall out of the action should you be cycling the action at an angle, nor can you cause a feed jam by short-cycling the bolt. The down side to this is that the case head is not fully enclosed - this means that the controlled-feed boltface doesn't help support the side of the case head and doesn't help much to contain escaping gasses in the event of a case rupture.
mountainclmbr
Member
In a controlled feed rifle (bolt action) the claw on the bolt holds on to a large portion of the rim of the round being chambered. As the round is being stripped from the magazine, the rim slides up behind the claw. You can feed a round only from the magazine in a controlled feed rifle. This type of feed is favored by many for a dangerous game rifle because the round won't fall out easily even if the action is operated upside down.
The other type of bolt action feed is often referred to as a push feed. Only a small extractor may hold the cartridge rim.
The pre-64 Winchester model 70 is a controlled round feed. I believe Winchester introduced a new controlled round feed and the CZ550 safari rifles are also controlled round feed. There are probably more, but most bolt actions are push feed. I have a CZ550 that is controlled round feed, but it is the only one I have. Others on this board have much more experience with the pros and cons of the various models.
The other type of bolt action feed is often referred to as a push feed. Only a small extractor may hold the cartridge rim.
The pre-64 Winchester model 70 is a controlled round feed. I believe Winchester introduced a new controlled round feed and the CZ550 safari rifles are also controlled round feed. There are probably more, but most bolt actions are push feed. I have a CZ550 that is controlled round feed, but it is the only one I have. Others on this board have much more experience with the pros and cons of the various models.
I have just one push feeder in my rack and the rest is CRF. You have a good description in the above posts on what is is now the why.
The CRF feed better in a well constructed rifle. The is no benefit in a benchrest gun that single rounds are being feed into. Actually it is a liability because they were not designed to do that and they can eventually break the extractor with enough use, thats a big variable on who built the rifle quality of materials etc. But enough prolonged use and I suspect most will fail simply the extractor wasn't designed to pop over the rim on the cartridge.
The original rifles were designed for were military rifles. Sporters version followed pretty quickly behind the introduction of the feature.
The date the feature was invented was 1892. I will credit Paul Mauser with this feature. He certainly designed the first production turnbolt rifle in 1867 which was produced in 1871, but this featue was absent in that model. It is also missing in the 1888 French Lebel rifle, which was considered the most advanced firearm in the world when it was introduced. In 1887 Vetterli-Vitali introduced the box magazine to rifle design. And Mauser's developing the CRF is a result of troubles he had incorporating that feature into his designs.
None the less by 1892 Mauser had developed the feature and is credited with the design. Very quickly this was a requirement for military bolt action rifles for pretty much the remaining history of the bolt action rifle when it was considered a main battle rifle.
By the early 1900's most military arms of the major nations had this feature, and all of the truelly great bolt action designs incorporated this feature. A short list is the Model 98 Mauser, the US Springfield which paid patient infrigement penalties to Mauser, the Enfield, the Nagant, and the list goes on.
Reliable feeding was the design purpose and still is, although no military that still uses bolt action rifles is concerned with this feature anymore, the bolt action rifle has been religated to a very specialised role, primarily as a sniper rifle, in the modern military.
The feature is just about mandatory in a DG rifle, and many sportsmen like the reliable feeding in other hunting rifles also. This feature coupled with a polished bolt makes for some of the best feeding bolt action rifles that were ever produced.
It certainly isn't neccesary in a modern hunting rifle, but it is a very desirable feature. The real demise of this feature on the world stage is the cost to produce these actions. They are labor intensive, and to reproduce the original actions requires a lot of machine time, and simply other stronger actions can be produced for less. Winchester and CZ still produce vestages of the design, as does BRNO and several smaller manufactures like Montana Rifleman, and Dakota. But I know of no true Mauser actions still being produced by major gun manufactuers, they have retained the feature on some models, but addressed production and manufacturing issues and these are really Mauser like actions.
The CRF feed better in a well constructed rifle. The is no benefit in a benchrest gun that single rounds are being feed into. Actually it is a liability because they were not designed to do that and they can eventually break the extractor with enough use, thats a big variable on who built the rifle quality of materials etc. But enough prolonged use and I suspect most will fail simply the extractor wasn't designed to pop over the rim on the cartridge.
The original rifles were designed for were military rifles. Sporters version followed pretty quickly behind the introduction of the feature.
The date the feature was invented was 1892. I will credit Paul Mauser with this feature. He certainly designed the first production turnbolt rifle in 1867 which was produced in 1871, but this featue was absent in that model. It is also missing in the 1888 French Lebel rifle, which was considered the most advanced firearm in the world when it was introduced. In 1887 Vetterli-Vitali introduced the box magazine to rifle design. And Mauser's developing the CRF is a result of troubles he had incorporating that feature into his designs.
None the less by 1892 Mauser had developed the feature and is credited with the design. Very quickly this was a requirement for military bolt action rifles for pretty much the remaining history of the bolt action rifle when it was considered a main battle rifle.
By the early 1900's most military arms of the major nations had this feature, and all of the truelly great bolt action designs incorporated this feature. A short list is the Model 98 Mauser, the US Springfield which paid patient infrigement penalties to Mauser, the Enfield, the Nagant, and the list goes on.
Reliable feeding was the design purpose and still is, although no military that still uses bolt action rifles is concerned with this feature anymore, the bolt action rifle has been religated to a very specialised role, primarily as a sniper rifle, in the modern military.
The feature is just about mandatory in a DG rifle, and many sportsmen like the reliable feeding in other hunting rifles also. This feature coupled with a polished bolt makes for some of the best feeding bolt action rifles that were ever produced.
It certainly isn't neccesary in a modern hunting rifle, but it is a very desirable feature. The real demise of this feature on the world stage is the cost to produce these actions. They are labor intensive, and to reproduce the original actions requires a lot of machine time, and simply other stronger actions can be produced for less. Winchester and CZ still produce vestages of the design, as does BRNO and several smaller manufactures like Montana Rifleman, and Dakota. But I know of no true Mauser actions still being produced by major gun manufactuers, they have retained the feature on some models, but addressed production and manufacturing issues and these are really Mauser like actions.
rbernie
Contributing Member
One quick thot - I do not believe that the Enfield (No1/No4) is considered a CRF design, but the Enfield 14/17 certainly is....
rbernie
Contributing Member
Well, I'm about the farthest thing from an Enfield expert myself.
From world.guns.ru:
"The Lee-Enfield series of rifles was born in 1895 as a marriage between the magazine and bolt action, designed by the J. P. Lee, and the new pattern of barrel rifling, designed at the Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) at Enfield. Originally known as Lee-Metford, this design was adopted by British army in 1888 and used a Metford pattern rifling with shallow groves, intended to be used with ammunition loaded with black powder. Introduction of the smokeless powders in the form of the Cordite showed that the Metford rifling was very short-living, so it was soon replaced with Enfield rifling, with 5 traditional land and grooves and left hand pitch."
"RSAF was set do design another rifle, patterned after the German Mauser, which also should be more suitable for mass production, than the SMLE. This rifle finally appeared in 1914 as an ".303 caliber Enfield Pattern 1914 rifle", or simply a P-14. .... The "No.3" was assigned to the P-14 rifle"
During WWI the US was contracted to produce No3's. Most of these were chambered in 30-06 and called 'M1917'. See http://www.surplusrifle.com/m1917/index.asp
Bolt details for the No1/No4 can be found at http://www.surplusrifle.com/m1917/index.asp . I also have two No4Mk1's, and can attest to their NOT being a CRF design.
The No3, being a Mauser knockoff, has a CRF design as shown in Figure 13 at http://www.surplusrifle.com/m1917/bolt/hs.asp .
It is interesting to note that the development of the Mauser copy (the No3) did NOT result in the adoption of that rifle. The No1/No4 design proved sufficient after all, and the Brits never really found the need to switch to the Mauser design.
From world.guns.ru:
"The Lee-Enfield series of rifles was born in 1895 as a marriage between the magazine and bolt action, designed by the J. P. Lee, and the new pattern of barrel rifling, designed at the Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) at Enfield. Originally known as Lee-Metford, this design was adopted by British army in 1888 and used a Metford pattern rifling with shallow groves, intended to be used with ammunition loaded with black powder. Introduction of the smokeless powders in the form of the Cordite showed that the Metford rifling was very short-living, so it was soon replaced with Enfield rifling, with 5 traditional land and grooves and left hand pitch."
"RSAF was set do design another rifle, patterned after the German Mauser, which also should be more suitable for mass production, than the SMLE. This rifle finally appeared in 1914 as an ".303 caliber Enfield Pattern 1914 rifle", or simply a P-14. .... The "No.3" was assigned to the P-14 rifle"
During WWI the US was contracted to produce No3's. Most of these were chambered in 30-06 and called 'M1917'. See http://www.surplusrifle.com/m1917/index.asp
Bolt details for the No1/No4 can be found at http://www.surplusrifle.com/m1917/index.asp . I also have two No4Mk1's, and can attest to their NOT being a CRF design.
The No3, being a Mauser knockoff, has a CRF design as shown in Figure 13 at http://www.surplusrifle.com/m1917/bolt/hs.asp .
It is interesting to note that the development of the Mauser copy (the No3) did NOT result in the adoption of that rifle. The No1/No4 design proved sufficient after all, and the Brits never really found the need to switch to the Mauser design.
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