The Ryalkirk rifle

Late in the second round of the Northern Wars [when?], the armed forces of New Britain - which had heretofore struggled against those of the Anglo-Scottish north, New Andalusia, and assorted aboriginal nations [details?] - fielded something fairly commonplace by our standards, but unheard of at the time: a repeating bolt-action rifle. It was named Ryalkirk, after the armory it was first built in [where?], and it changed military history forever.

Basic design of the Ryalkirk rifle

The Ryalkirk rifle was a fairly long-barreled bolt-action rifle, much longer than the musketoons the UCNA had standardized on by that point.

This by itself was nothing to write about; single-shot rifles were normal for the period. What set the Ryalkirk apart from everything else of its day was its tube magazine, placed in the buttstock like a Spencer rifle, that could hold up to three other rounds. This magazine was named "the reserve" by its designers [who?], because for very good reasons (discussed below) the Ryalkirk was intended to be used as the single-shot bolt-actions still in use; to that end, the Ryalkirk was also the first bolt-action rifle to feature a magazine cutoff.

The Ryalkirk rifle's performance

For the Ryalkirk's entire service life, New Britain was polarized as to whether it was a bad thing or not. Ryalkirk Arsenal itself felt the Ryalkirk rifle dishonored their name and the name of the fine rifles they'd heretofore produced, and were happy to say so.

• The Ryalkirk's 0.404" cartridge was by a fraction of an inch the smallest caliber in military service at the time. Its detractors were quite happy to play up what they felt as its... inadequacy.
• Prior to the Ryalkirk rifle's invention, New Britain's army was considering upgrading to a bigger bore, on par with the .49-94. Its adoption was a win for the small-bore status quo, and as long as the Ryalkirk rifle stayed in service their opponents' cause was a lost one. [details?]
• Both supporters and detractors admitted that the Ryalkirk rifle didn't scale well. The action had only two locking lugs, one of which was the handle itself, and this wasn't considered enough for heavier calibers. (In one infamous test, an experimental .47 Ryalkirk rifle exploded when it was test-fired.) Later designs improved on the action strength, but by then it was already obsolete.

The biggest problem, though, was also its most important feature: the reserve. It was the weakest part of the entire gun, and had a number of problems all its own:

• Using the stock as a bludgeon (as soldiers were wont to do, especially at close ranges) was prone to denting or even slightly warping the reserve, causing feeding problems only an armorer could fix. (Late-model Ryalkirks made the reserve threaded and screw-on, and armorers were instructed to simply replace it.)
• The Ryalkirk's accuracy was never as impressive as it should have been. Every shot noticeably changed the gun's balance and subtly changed its point of aim; single-loaded and reserve rounds were also loaded differently and shot to slightly different points. Marksman saddled with a Ryalkirk rifle simply ignored its reserve, and line infantry were never able to shoot quite as well with it as their compatriots with the old single-actions.
• Worst of all, the bolt-action limited the overall cartridge length that could be safely loaded in the reserve. Reserve cartridges (loaded out of battle) would either use lighter bullets or - as eventually became standard - a slightly shorter case, which caused logistics no small number of headaches and cost many soldiers their lives in the field. While they would fit into the reserve, they wouldn't fit out of one; the brass would catch on the bolt, causing a jam that couldn't be fixed in the field. Many soldiers forgot this in the heat of battle, and paid for it with their.

In practice, that last problem was the only one that mattered.

The Ryalkirk rifle in the field

The UCNA, which had standardized on the .49-94 more successfully than any cartridge prior, went to war (as they always had) with single-shot breechloaders. The experience downrange was as follows:

• In pitched battles, casualties started falling at slightly longer ranges than ever before.
• In skirmishes, the Ryalkirk rifle was game-changing. While the actual sustained rate of fire was no higher than the UCNA's, New British forces quickly learned that the reserve was not to be held until point-blank range, but rather fired as early as possible. Even if only once per encounter, the ability to fire ten rounds in as many seconds was unheard of.

The UCNA had always prided itself on being the fastest guns in the North. To lose that title shook their army to its core. Some forces developed a superstitious fear of the weapon, and only pressing some of the last hex-guns out of retirement could offset that.

The legacy of the Ryalkirk rifle

For all its flaws, the Ryalkirk rifle proved a concept. Prior to that point, repeating rifles had been rimfires, only slightly above long-barrel carbines of the day. The Ryalkirk rifle was the first repeating rifle: even its reserve shots were head and shoulders more powerful than any rimfire, and its loose-load cartridges were rifle cartridges. It's a simple concept, but that only added to the impact: anybody could have thought to do something like this.

• The decade or so between the adoption of the Ryalkirk rifle and second-generation smokeless cartridges saw a huge proliferation of tube-magazine bolt-actions, in various configurations. This started the general downsizing of rifle calibers that, once smokeless powder began to take off, culminated in the global three-line calibers.
• The .404" ball used in the Ryalkirk rifle had proven themselves fairly well; in smokeless loadings, they remain in use to the present, where they're adequate for everything except boar.
• Based on reports that the Ryalkirk had to be unshouldered after each shot, the UCNA went in a different direction: looking for a "reserve rifle" that didn't need to be unshouldered. This began the golden age of pump-action design; when (under Yusuf II) the UCNA abandoned that line of thought altogether, most of the rest were dumped in China.

 This is a stub. It will be expanded upon.