A repeating rifle is a single barreled rifle containing multiple rounds of ammunition. These rounds are loaded from a magazine by means of a manual or automatic mechanism, and the action that reloads the rifle also typically recocks the firing action. The term repeating rifle is most often applied to weapons in which the next cartridge is loaded by a manual action, as opposed to semi-automatic rifles, in which the force of one shot is used to load the next.
Repeating rifles were a significant advance over the preceding breech loaded single-shot rifles when used for military combat, as they allowed a much greater rate of fire. The first repeating rifle to see military service was the Windbüchse Rifle
Read more about Repeating Rifle: Early Repeaters
Famous quotes containing the words repeating and/or rifle:
“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Many times man lives and dies
Betweeen his two eternities,
That of race and that of soul,
And ancient Ireland knew it all.
Whether man die in his bed
Or the rifle knocks him dead,”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)