The trade-off was that the Steyr required more maintenance than the SMLE, and suffered from extraction problems. An Austrian soldier armed with the M95 could fire up to 35 shots per minute. I mentioned in an earlier post that a British soldier could fire an impressive 25 shots per minute with his SMLE. The Austrian troops called this “ruck-zuck” roughly “right now.” The Steyr reduced this to two smooth movements: pull then push. In typical bolt action rifles, the shooter has to lift the bolt handle up and then pull it back then push bolt forward and press it down. M95 has a then-revolutionary Mannlicher design feature that made it easily the fastest bolt action rifle of WWI – a straight pull action. Afterwards they would continue to pop up in third world hotspots like Mozambique as late as the 1970s. When the Empire was broken up after the war, the ’95 Steyr continued to serve with the Austrians and the Hungarians, as well as the Czechs, Yugoslavs, Bulgarians and others through WWII. The 1895 Steyr was the standard issue rifle of Germany’s main WWI ally, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
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