Bolt-action breech-loading rifle (Dreyse needle gun)
Fusil de retrocarga de cerrojo (fusil de aguja Dreyse)
- Date
- 1836-1841 · confidence high
- Place
- Sömmerda, Thuringia, Prussia (Germany)
- Credited to
- Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse (Prussia); precedent of John Hall (Harpers Ferry, 1811)
- People
- 👤 Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse1787–1867
- Field
- Conflict
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A rifle loaded at the breech by a bolt, with a paper cartridge containing bullet, powder and a primer pierced by a needle. It allowed soldiers to fire lying down, and five times faster than a muzzle-loading rifle.
John Hall made flintlock breech-loading rifles at Harpers Ferry from 1819; Dreyse (1836, adopted by Prussia in 1841) created the first bolt-action rifle with a unitary cartridge; the Sharps (1848) and the Snider (1866) are other milestones.
What it led to
- Prussian victories of 1864 and 1866 (Sadowa) and German unification
- General rearmament across Europe: the Chassepot (1866), the Martini-Henry, the Mauser
- Dispersed infantry tactics and the end of close-order columns
- The repeating rifle and the metallic cartridge
Built on
- Ferguson breech-loading rifle1776
- Percussion cap and priming1807 (cápsula c. 1814-1822)
- Minié ball and rifled musket1847-1849
- Percussion cap
- Hall's (1811) and Ferguson's (1776) breech-loading rifles
Made possible
- Metallic cartridge (rimfire and centrefire)1846-1866
- Lever-action repeating rifle (Henry and Spencer)1860
- Magazine bolt-action rifle (Mauser 98)1893-1898
- Centrefire metallic cartridge
- Mauser rifle (1871)