MAGAZINE RIFLES.
Chaffee-Reece Magazine Rifle.--We do not insert a drawing of this arm--one of the three selected by the American board--as it belongs to the same class and is similar in general construction to the Hotchkiss. There is, however, an important difference in the magazine, which has no spiral spring, but is furnished instead with an ingenious system of ratchet bars. One of these carries forward the cartridge a distance equal to its own length at each reciprocal motion of the bolt, while a second bar has no longitudinal motion, but prevents the cartridges from moving to the rear in the magazine tube after they have been moved forward by the other bar. The magazine is loaded through an aperture in the butt plate, the opening of the spring cover of which causes the two ratchet bars to be depressed, so that the magazine can be filled by passing the cartridges along a smooth middle bar. The act of closing the spring cover again brings the two ratchet bars into play.
FIG. 9.--KROPATSCHEK MAGAZINE GUN
By means of a cut-off the ratchet bars can be prevented from acting, and the piece used as a single loader.
Kropatschek Magazine Rifle.--This rifle, which is the small arm of the French navy, has a bolt-action rifle resembling the Gras (see Fig. 9).
The magazine is a brass tube underneath the barrel, as in the Winchester, Vetterli, Mauser, and other rifles of class 1. It contains six cartridges, while a seventh can be placed in the trough or carrier, T.
When the breech is opened by pulling back the bolt, a projection on the latter strikes the carrier at N, causing its front extremity to raise the cartridge into the position shown in the section. This movement is accelerated by the spring, A, acting against a knife-edge projection on the trough, T; in the upper position of the trough, the spring acts upon one face of the angle, and upon the other face when in the lower position.
On closing the breech, the bolt pushes the cartridge into the chamber, and when the handle is locked down to the right, a part of the bolt presses against a stud, and thus depresses the trough to be ready to receive another cartridge from the magazine.
The magazine can be cut off and the rifle used as a single loader by pushing forward a thumb-piece on the right side of the shoe. The effect of this is that, on turning down the handle to lock the bolt, the latter does not act on the stud to depress the carrier, so that no fresh cartridges are fed up from the magazine.