A Push Feed Rifle Or A Control Round Feed Rifle?

[Kawshik Rahman]

Has anyone broken an unmodified extractor or broken one when not single loading?

Tunatoy76
It is extremely unlikely .The mauser mechanism ( or “ action” ) is one of the finest actions for hunting dangerous animals.

 

[tunatoy76]

With yourself and oneday's experience that is 3 to 4 over a 40 year period with one confirmed as a modified extractor being forced over the rim.

 

[crs]

To quote Red Leg on the above "is a bit like the medieval arguments concerning how many angels could dance on the point of a pin. "

And equally a waste of time.

 

[tunatoy76]

To quote Red Leg on the above "is a bit like the medieval arguments concerning how many angels could dance on the point of a pin. "

And equally a waste of time.

I reckon you are right, internet turns hearsay into fact, up to the guy who owns the rifle on how he uses it

 

[One Day...]

Ah, come on, chatting about all this beats watching the 'stupid box' and getting our intelligence insulted by either side's propaganda, on what pretend to be "news" channels, not to mention the utter intellectual vacuum of so called reality TV

And I have already re-read Green Hills of Africa, all the Ruark, Capstick, Percival, von Blixen, Lyell, Bell, Stigand, Patterson, Roosevelt, etc. and most of the 40+ books I own on African hunting at least 3 times over the last three years... and one can only see Out of Africa or In the Blood so many times per month, right?

Waste of time? Yes, it is. In fact most everything works, from a $400 Mossberg / $500 Remington / $600 Ruger / etc. to a $150,000 Royal DeLuxe Holland & Holland; turn bolt, straight bolt, break open, falling block, slide action, push feed, controlled round feed, single or multiple shot; with iron sights or glass from a $50 Barska to a $5,000 Leica / Schmidt & Bender / Zeiss / Swarovski; and anything in between; in about any caliber from about .22 to .600; so, really, there is indeed not much to talk about

All these discussions are indeed motion that does not translate into a lot of accomplishment, and I for one could not really care less about who prefers what, to each their own, but at least conversing about all this keeps us (at least keeps me) mentally just a touch closer to that next big plane flying down south toward Africa

Actually, maybe I ought to profusely thank all the AH members for providing free therapy for the African madness that re-descended upon me over the last three years even though I had worked diligently for 20 years to cure myself of it, for, truth be told, I find it hard to get much interested in anything else these days...

To me, this is all

 

[CoElkHunter]

Dear Rahman,
No need to apologize, pls do continue your participation on this forum, in any way you please!
Thank you for another excellent overview.

Now, on push feed, or control feed, I must say - in my view it is endless debate, and you most probably have opened a "pandora box" on this forum, so you may expect a lot of forthcoming comments.

When I started hunting and target shooting this debate caught my interest, and was lucky enough to make tests of reliability of rifles, on the range for many designes. Either from my own rifles, or rifles which my friends and colleagues brought to the range.
The main issue is reliability, jamming / extracting during operation - from this public debate

So, I came to conclusion there is no bolt action rifle which is 100% fool proof.
Feeding and extraction reliability I tested on:
CZ (zastava) m70, mauser - CRF
M48 - clone of Mauser 98K, by same maker - CRF
Sako 85 - said by maker to be CRF, but in my opinion only advanced Push feed
Tikka t3 - push feed
few others...

If one "wants" to jam the rifle, each and every rifle can be easily jammed.
I tested rifles with dummy/blank rounds in magazine, of course.

In CRF action, mauser 98 or sako 85 style, when the bolt pushes forward for first 1/4 or 1/3 of movement, the claw is not holding the casing rim tightly, so in that moment if pulling back the bolt, cartridge will not be extracted, and when pushing forward again, new round from magazine sliding forward will/can effectively jam the rifle with previous non-extracted round halfway to chamber.
So, there is no fool proof rifles.
However, in final part of forward movement when extractor claw holds the casing well, unfired cartridge can be easily and reliably extracted.

If a fool is using the rifle, every rifle can malfunction. (pushing the top round so extractor to jump over the rim and brake, no cleaning, or inadequate bolt handling). The user must understand rifle design and mechanic principle, and be familiar with operation of rifle. No excuse for anything less!
Thats my opinion.

The difference in operation:
In push feed to extract the unfired round, bolt must be pushed forward and closed, then opened, and pulled back.
For CRF round feed - pushed forward, and pulled back will extract, no need to close and open. (two movements less)

Finally, even if all rifles are being equal in reliability:
I have never hunted DG - but partly due to sentimental reasons, partly due to my subjective gut feeling, I tend to prefer mauser style bolt action for DG hunt and I am in agreement with your overall assessment.

Neither here nor there, but I found on my CZ .458 WM and Whitworth .375 rifles, you can’t put one round in the chamber and close the bolt? The round must come from the magazine for the bolt extractor to engage it and hold the cartridge base? I’ve always owned push feed actions, so was just “different” ? But I love these rifles and have adjusted to this difference. But I’ve been shooting them and learning the difference between push feed and CRF actions.

 

[CoElkHunter]

Ah, come on, chatting about all this beats watching the 'stupid box' and getting our intelligence insulted by either side's propaganda, on what pretend to be "news" channels, not to mention the utter intellectual vacuum of so called reality TV

And I have already re-read Green Hills of Africa, all the Ruark, Capstick, Percival, von Blixen, Lyell, Bell, Stigand, Patterson, Roosevelt, etc. and most of the 40+ books I own on African hunting at least 3 times over the last three years... and one can only see Out of Africa or In the Blood so many times per month, right?

Waste of time? Yes, it is. In fact most everything works, from a $400 Mossberg / $500 Remington / $600 Ruger / etc. to a $150,000 Royal DeLuxe Holland & Holland; turn bolt, straight bolt, break open, falling block, slide action, push feed, controlled round feed, single or multiple shot; with iron sights or glass from a $50 Barska to a $5,000 Leica / Schmidt & Bender / Zeiss / Swarovski; and anything in between; in about any caliber from about .22 to .600; so, really, there is indeed not much to talk about

All these discussions are indeed motion that does not translate into a lot of accomplishment, and I for one could not really care less about who prefers what, to each their own, but at least conversing about all this keeps us (at least keeps me) mentally just a touch closer to that next big plane flying down south toward Africa

Actually, maybe I ought to profusely thank all the AH members for providing free therapy for the African madness that re-descended upon me over the last three years even though I had worked diligently for 20 years to cure myself of it, for, truth be told, I find it hard to get much interested in anything else these days...

To me, this is all

One Day,
In a great “round about “ way you’ve confronted the “elephant in the room” or basement or garage or wherever we’re on line at! This forum to me IS much more interesting than all the babble on my now cableless t.v.! AND you make a great point on “mostly every rifle works” EVERY time ( paraphrase)! That would be a great survey here on AH, even though it would be a VERY minute amount of data compared to all the hunters everywhere and everyone they’ve ever personally hunted with who have had zero to none rifle firing failures that were due to the stock, commercially made rifle? Not due to reloading (twice for me), weather (once), scope failures, aftermarket parts failure, modifications to the rifle, etc. Very real world points!
CEH

 

[mark-hunter]

@CoElkHunter

Neither here nor there, but I found on my CZ .458 WM and Whitworth .375 rifles, you can’t put one round in the chamber and close the bolt? The round must come from the magazine for the bolt extractor to engage it and hold the cartridge base?

If I wanted "+1" I was always loading my grandafethers rifle by removing the bolt, placing round no. 6 in the bolt, where extractor claw will hold well, and then put the bolt gently back inside the action, and round 6 in chamber.
In the same time, pushed remaining 5 by thumb down in magazine well, so no. 6 could slide over to the chamber. (then, in the woods, I would try to shoot 6 bottles as quick as possible, which was the only purpose of "+1")
Those were in my younger days. Today i dont do plinking at beer bottles, I just shoot or train on paper targets.
(that was old zastava mauser from 60-ies, and the extractor could jump over in the chamber, however I did not like that option.

Today, I dont remember when was the last time I loaded "+1" in chamber, in any of my bolt actions.

I also remember recently in one driven hunt when another hunter tried to load mauser type, older Voere rifle. (austrian firm)
Round pushed in chamber, but extractor could not snap over the rim. (true mauser?)

He could not extract the cartridge till end of hunt,nor to close and lock the bolt so rifle was uselles.

So basically removing the push feed option for "+1", as per original designers idea (as excellently explained by @One Day...) , is not necessarily fool proof, or full safety feature, especially if it happens in some remote area and in situation when intimidate use may be expected.

But in one way or another all this emphasizes the need that user MUST be familiar with his own equipment, and this is not always the case. Safe rifles + unsafe users = potential disaster!
Rifles and fire arms are being developed and continuously evolving for last 500 years, to be as simple as possible, with minimum moving parts as possible, and as reliable as possible, but still they cannot always withstand the use by ignorant person. There is no rifle that a fool cannot render useless....

On a separate note:
No body comments on push feed rifles! Why is that!? .........

 

[Red Leg]

Ah, come on, chatting about all this beats watching the 'stupid box' and getting our intelligence insulted by either side's propaganda, on what pretend to be "news" channels, not to mention the utter intellectual vacuum of so called reality TV

And I have already re-read Green Hills of Africa, all the Ruark, Capstick, Percival, von Blixen, Lyell, Bell, Stigand, Patterson, Roosevelt, etc. and most of the 40+ books I own on African hunting at least 3 times over the last three years... and one can only see Out of Africa or In the Blood so many times per month, right?

Waste of time? Yes, it is. In fact most everything works, from a $400 Mossberg / $500 Remington / $600 Ruger / etc. to a $150,000 Royal DeLuxe Holland & Holland; turn bolt, straight bolt, break open, falling block, slide action, push feed, controlled round feed, single or multiple shot; with iron sights or glass from a $50 Barska to a $5,000 Leica / Schmidt & Bender / Zeiss / Swarovski; and anything in between; in about any caliber from about .22 to .600; so, really, there is indeed not much to talk about

All these discussions are indeed motion that does not translate into a lot of accomplishment, and I for one could not really care less about who prefers what, to each their own, but at least conversing about all this keeps us (at least keeps me) mentally just a touch closer to that next big plane flying down south toward Africa

Actually, maybe I ought to profusely thank all the AH members for providing free therapy for the African madness that re-descended upon me over the last three years even though I had worked diligently for 20 years to cure myself of it, for, truth be told, I find it hard to get much interested in anything else these days...

To me, this is all

Now this is progress! So what is your next big hairy hostile thing on the menu? Mine is a Russian Siberian Brown bear. I'll hunt him with a Blaser R8 - and dare I say it - in PUSH feed in .375. I seriously doubt that I am anymore inadequately armed than my buddy using a CZ in the same caliber. And I like the ergonomics, trigger, and reload capability of my choice much more than his claw extractor. That said, with the quality of most modern arms, I really do believe this is a bit of a irrelevant argument today.

@CoElkHunter

Neither here nor there, but I found on my CZ .458 WM and Whitworth .375 rifles, you can’t put one round in the chamber and close the bolt? The round must come from the magazine for the bolt extractor to engage it and hold the cartridge base?

If I wanted "+1" I was always loading my grandafethers rifle by removing the bolt, placing round no. 6 in the bolt, where extractor claw will hold well, and then put the bolt gently back inside the action, and round 6 in chamber.
In the same time, pushed remaining 5 by thumb down in magazine well, so no. 6 could slide over to the chamber. (then, in the woods, I would try to shoot 6 bottles as quick as possible, which was the only purpose of "+1")
Those were in my younger days. Today i dont do plinking at beer bottles, I just shoot or train on paper targets.
(that was old zastava mauser from 60-ies, and the extractor could jump over in the chamber, however I did not like that option.

Today, I dont remember when was the last time I loaded "+1" in chamber, in any of my bolt actions.

I also remember recently in one driven hunt when another hunter tried to load mauser type, older Voere rifle. (austrian firm)
Round pushed in chamber, but extractor could not snap over the rim. (true mauser?)

He could not extract the cartridge till end of hunt,nor to close and lock the bolt so rifle was uselles.

So basically removing the push feed option for "+1", as per original designers idea (as excellently explained by @One Day...) , is not necessarily fool proof, or full safety feature, especially if it happens in some remote area and in situation when intimidate use may be expected.

But in one way or another all this emphasizes the need that user MUST be familiar with his own equipment, and this is not always the case. Safe rifles + unsafe users = potential disaster!
Rifles and fire arms are being developed and continuously evolving for last 500 years, to be as simple as possible, with minimum moving parts as possible, and as reliable as possible, but still they cannot always withstand the use by ignorant person. There is no rifle that a fool cannot render useless....

On a separate note:
No body comments on push feed rifles! Why is that!? .........

And my Blaser really isn't a +1 - it's a four. Nothing quite like that cocking system.

 

[1dirthawker]

For CRF owners out there who see value on the point I am making, if the extractor was beveled on your CRF action (Win 70, Montana, Mauser 98, Santa Barbara, Zastava, etc. clones, ZKK 602, CZ 550, etc.) and if it can snap over a cartridge head, therefore negating most of its extraction power, and negating the safety feature of not being able to close on a cartridge inadvertently left in the chamber, you can fix this easily by purchasing a non-beveled extractor and replacing it. True gunsmith legends to this day do not bevel their extractors, an I am curious to ask Red Leg, if in your modern Stalker, Rigby/Mauser sacrificed to the market fashion and beveled the extractor or maintained the true Mauser functionality with an unbeveled extractor that cannot close over a round in the chamber?

re: beveled extractors, my dads 338 winchester was beveled after it failed to feed a shell single feed pushed into the action/barrel. it worked fine after that on single feed. never saw it fail, but was not shot high volume. i have seen 2 push feed rifles fail to eject, one a remington, the other a ruger. the remington's ejected claw would not grip the case on a 416 rem magnum and needed replacement. the rulers ejection button rusted into the bolt face and would not operate normally and eject shell. (the remington has the same button) so for these reasons, i am a crf guy.

my 375 ruger has never failed to operate, basically a mauser copy.

 

[tunatoy76]

Broke an extractor on a BSA CF2 around 30 year's ago, lots of rounds through it without cleaning on a hot day, finished the day off with a Parker Hale military Sporter, lots of rounds and no cleaning and no problems. They were very abused rifles used for culling feral pigs and kangaroos. I'm quite sure that I got some brass mixed up which contributed to the jamed case and it was not a fault of the rifle, could just as easily have been the Mauser that jammed, though chances are it would have extracted it. For what it's worth I even feed my m70 push feed from the mag, really can't think where I would need to use six quick shots anyway.

 

[Pondoro]

Ah, come on, chatting about all this beats watching the 'stupid box' and getting our intelligence insulted by either side's propaganda, on what pretend to be "news" channels, not to mention the utter intellectual vacuum of so called reality TV

And I have already re-read Green Hills of Africa, all the Ruark, Capstick, Percival, von Blixen, Lyell, Bell, Stigand, Patterson, Roosevelt, etc. and most of the 40+ books I own on African hunting at least 3 times over the last three years... and one can only see Out of Africa or In the Blood so many times per month, right?

Waste of time? Yes, it is. In fact most everything works, from a $400 Mossberg / $500 Remington / $600 Ruger / etc. to a $150,000 Royal DeLuxe Holland & Holland; turn bolt, straight bolt, break open, falling block, slide action, push feed, controlled round feed, single or multiple shot; with iron sights or glass from a $50 Barska to a $5,000 Leica / Schmidt & Bender / Zeiss / Swarovski; and anything in between; in about any caliber from about .22 to .600; so, really, there is indeed not much to talk about

All these discussions are indeed motion that does not translate into a lot of accomplishment, and I for one could not really care less about who prefers what, to each their own, but at least conversing about all this keeps us (at least keeps me) mentally just a touch closer to that next big plane flying down south toward Africa

Actually, maybe I ought to profusely thank all the AH members for providing free therapy for the African madness that re-descended upon me over the last three years even though I had worked diligently for 20 years to cure myself of it, for, truth be told, I find it hard to get much interested in anything else these days...

To me, this is all

One Day...there is no cure...I have tried it all..drunk more G/T´s..chewed raw cordite sticks in the morning...fondeled my double rifles..prayed in Church...but the african bug keeps biting me..

 

[Newboomer]

All very interesting--but to what point? Trying to force an extra round is abusing the equipment beyond what it was designed for. Sooo if something breaks, look in the mirror for the cause. What we call operator error. Oh, I am as guilty as anyone else---til I tried it. My M70s won't do it. Therefore, if I feel I need a + 1 I load one in the chamber, then open the floorplate and load the magazine.Voila! Topped off + 1 and no chance of messing up..

 

[Wyatt Smith]

All very interesting--but to what point? Trying to force an extra round is abusing the equipment beyond what it was designed for. Sooo if something breaks, look in the mirror for the cause. What we call operator error. Oh, I am as guilty as anyone else---til I tried it. My M70s won't do it. Therefore, if I feel I need a + 1 I load one in the chamber, then open the floorplate and load the magazine.Voila! Topped off + 1 and no chance of messing up..

I’m assuming your talking about your 375 safari express, if so, I load mine with 4 round all the time.
Load your three in the magazine, the place the fourth on top of the stack, press it down, then push the bolt forward and let the fourth round up under the extractor. It easy and safe for the extractor.

 

[Kawshik Rahman]

Indeed , l see that l have written an article on a topic which so many members are passionate about .
In the mean time , l am being able to learn so much more about modern fire arms. Thank you , gentlemen .
At the same time , it is pleasant to see the venerable model 70 from Winchester , just as popular today as it was five decades ago.

 

[mark-hunter]

Dear mr Rahman, I said in the beginning you have opened a Pandora box with this topic... so far 75 posts, 4 pages...

This is a debate that started in 60-ies with winchester post-64, and rem 700, and never concluded, passed already to next generation of hunters.

And new generation started one more public debate: turn bolt actions vs. linear actions (aka blaser 08)... o man...!

Thats why the forums are for!

 

[Newboomer]

Sure makes life interesting. Can also confuse the hell out of you.

 

[CoElkHunter]

All very interesting--but to what point? Trying to force an extra round is abusing the equipment beyond what it was designed for. Sooo if something breaks, look in the mirror for the cause. What we call operator error. Oh, I am as guilty as anyone else---til I tried it. My M70s won't do it. Therefore, if I feel I need a + 1 I load one in the chamber, then open the floorplate and load the magazine.Voila! Topped off + 1 and no chance of messing up..

Newboomer,
That’s the beauty of this thread, there is no real definitive answer and no real point to be made other than our personal likes/dislikes/experiences/distractions (I.e. heard this about that?), etc, etc. But, at least for me, it is very interesting and informative and better than watching the nonsense on t.v., as One Day so eloquently pointed out.
CEH

 

[Newboomer]

Individuality. It would be a helluva mess if we all were the same.

 

[CoElkHunter]

Mr. Rahman,
Would/could you please inform us as to how many rifle action failures you have seen/personally know about regarding the CRF vs. push feed action (or even doubles?) types during your many years hunting in India? Please exclude ammo, action modifications, scope issues, etc. Just the rifle actions themselves. Thank you!
CEH