Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum and I'm here today at the Morphy
Auction Company taking a look at one of the guns
that they're gonna be selling in their upcoming April
of 2019 firearms auction.
And I really find an interest in unusual operating systems,
and if you're watching this, there's a good chance you do too.
So this is gonna be a fairly short video today,
because what we have here today is a Heym SR30.
It is a commercial sporting rifle. This particular one
is chambered for .300 Winchester Magnum,
but they make this in a whole range of calibres
from .22-250 at the low end, up through one of the big
9.3mm hunting cartridges at the high end.
And what makes it interesting is that it is a straight pull bolt action system with a rather unique and
innovative way to do the actual locking. How to do a straight pull system. So let's take a look at that.
I'm just gonna jump right in and pull the bolt out of this, and then we'll come back and take a look at the
mechanics of how ... the safety system works in a moment. because that's kind of cool too.
The bolt itself, however, is the main deal here, and what we have are 6 ball-bearings that are loose.
So they can get ... gravity will make them fall out of the bolt, not fully out, but exposed from the bolt body.
And that's because I have the cocking piece pulled all the way back. What we have going on here
is a hollow bolt body with basically a plunger inside it. And the plunger is connected to the bolt handle.
So, if I undo the safety here, this is the fired position and that is our
striker sear right there. So in this position the firing pin is exposed.
Normally, if this were in the rifle, the sear would hold this back until you pull the trigger.
But in this position the centre plunger has gone forward, and it forces these 6 ball-bearings out of
the bolt body. And those lock up into 6 obviously matching recesses inside the receiver,
and that's what locks the bolt in place. So to unlock it, all you have to do is pull the bolt handle back.
This is now un-cocked but still locked, when we pull it all the way back, now
the plunger comes back, the ball-bearings can drop into the bolt, and now you can open the thing up and cycle it.
So where most straight pull systems are actually rotating bolt heads,
and then they just have some mechanism for converting, you know, a linear movement
into rotary movement at the front, this one actually is not.
... This is actually basically a roller locked bolt action with spherical ball-bearings
instead of cylindrical rollers, and of course not being semi-auto.
So I just thought that was a pretty cool system. So, locked, unlocked, locked, unlocked.
It also has the advantage of being quite cost-effective to manufacture I expect.
Making round parts and round symmetrical recesses is mechanically, or machining wise,
a pretty simple thing to do. Sorry, I should say a pretty simple thing to do very precisely.
Straight lines are easy too, but symmetrically round recesses like this are...
That's one of the reason the roller locking systems
were popular is that it was pretty easy to make some of those very high precision parts.
So the rest of this system is actually still kind of cool, they've done a good job.
It's not anything like revolutionary, but it's a really good application of general principles here.
The bolt right now, I have pulled it back and locked it in place, so that the locking bearings
are free to move in and out. And so that allows me to take the bolt in and out.
There is a bolt release right there,
so lock the ball bearings, push this in, and then the bolt just pulls out the back.
Once we put it back in, I can then push this button in, and now I have actually engaged the locking lugs.
You can see it has a red dot which typically indicates that it's ready to fire.
However, the striker is not actually cocked unless I push the bolt handle all the way forward.
So if you cycle this energetically, like you just fired a shot, it naturally comes back into the fully cocked position.
The safety is not visible now, and it's ready to fire.
There is no way to engage a safety with it in this position. Instead,
if you want the gun safe, you actually pull the bolt handle back just this slight amount,
and what that does is de-cock it. So I can pull the trigger
but it doesn't do anything because there's no spring tension on the striker.
In this position, I can cycle the bolt but I can't fire, so I can open this up, close it.
... And this is the position that a lot of people would want to use for carrying the rifle when hunting,
because there's no spring tension, there's no chance of it firing, but it's very easy to get it into
position to fire simply by closing that, and then you're ready to shoot.
So if you are on a stalk, or in a ... tree hide,
and you're just waiting for an animal you can do it very safely like this, and then very easily and quietly
cock the thing and be ready to fire. However, you can also push the safety across.
Now you have your white indicator, which is traditionally safe, and that locks the bolt in place as well.
So trigger's locked and the bolt's locked, and in this position you can't do anything with the gun.
So you have your option of, like, overly safe, regular safety and ready to fire.
There's often a problem with straight pull systems in that they ... typically historically
have a set of rotating cams inside, and require actually a pretty darn stiff pull
on the bolt handle to actually open. And any potential speed advantage you might get
from it being a simpler, you know, straight back / straight forward action
you lose because it's a lot harder to actually open them than it is with a typical
lift and then pull and then close and then lock sort of action.
So this one's pretty cool in that that cool ball-bearing system kind of negates that problem.
It's a neat idea, so.
These have been around since like 1988, so they're, by our standards,
really quite brand new, but they have been on the market for a while.
It seems to be a very nicely built rifle and if you're in the market for a sporting rifle of this basic pattern,
Heym seems like a pretty cool one. To be honest a lot of these sorts of rifles are pretty
interchangeable, at least in my mind, and having one that has a cool locking system,
well that's ... a neat thing that holds it above some of the traditional typical styles.
So anyway, it is of course for sale here at Morphy's. If you take a look at the description text below
you'll find a link to their catalogue page on it, get all their information, prices, bidding, etc. on it.
And it'll go to someone, I'm sure, who will enjoy it.
Thanks for watching.