As he said this type action is refered to as a M71 type, But I struggle with this as it is hard to differenate between the Mauser and Dresey(sp)types, since they have some common features.
Mike
Mike,sorry, here you are wrong, just as John Walter "RIFLES of the WORLD" is. Walter ascribes all these "Simplified M71 actions" to Dreyse. Though during the final years of the family owned company, about 1900, Nikolaus II von Dreyse sold many guns of this type bought in from Zella-Mehlis too, Franz von Dreyse's own centerfire bolt action, designed to compete with Mauser's M71 action and also offered as sporting rifles, but quite rare, is very much different and not easily confused IMHO if you have an eye for details. The curves that cock the striker are not at the rear end of the bolt body as on the Mauser, but inside the bolt between the long, separate bolt head and striker. The Dreyse action is put on safe not by blocking the striker, but through uncocking the coil mainspring by giving the bolt sleeve a quarter turn and sliding it back, similar to Dreyse's needlefire rifles. The only features Dreyse's and Mauser's M71 designs have in common: Both are single-shot bolt actions with seperate bolt heads, locked by the bolt handle root only. Here is a contemporary drawing and a photo of Franz von Dreyse's centerfire action:
The seperate bolt head goes back to the front of the bolt handle, joint visible in the photo.
BTW, Walter's book is often plain wrong, at least unreliable, when it comes to German rifles.
