Tilting bolt action is a type of locking mechanism often used in self-loading firearms. Essentially, the design consists of a moving bolt driven by a piston with gas pressure from the gas port behind the muzzle. The bolt drops down into receiver recess and locks on bolt closing. Tilting the bolt up and down locks-unlocks in the breech. This tilting allows gas pressure in the barrel from firing the gun to lower to safe levels before the cartridge case is ejected. It can also be adapted for repeating rifles. For handgun design, the tilting barrel as used in the Browning, is a similar operating mechanism. The tilting bolt has lost favor in contemporary firearm design of rifle caliber to locking systems such as the

rotating bolt Rotating bolt is a method of locking the breech (or rear barrel) of a firearm closed for firing. Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse developed the first rotating bolt firearm, the " Dreyse needle gun", in 1836. The Dreyse locked using the bolt handle ...

due to reasons such as increased wearing of the surfaces acted on, higher demands on the receiver due to transfer of locking stresses to it (e. g., it can't be made from aluminium or stamped sheet steel) & better potential accuracy of rotating bolt. Yet it is widespread in vintage firearms listed below.

Examples

FN Model 1949 The Fabrique Nationale Model 1949 (often referred to as the FN-49, SAFN, or AFN ( automatic rifle version) is an autoloading battle rifle designed by Belgian small arms designer Dieudonné Saive in 1947. It was adopted by the militaries of Arge ...

semi-automatic rifle A semi-automatic rifle is an autoloading rifle that fires a single cartridge with each pull of the trigger, and uses part of the fired cartridge's energy to eject the case and load another cartridge into the chamber. For comparison, a bolt- ...

FN FAL The FAL (a French acronym for (English: "Light Automatic Rifle")), is a battle rifle designed in Belgium by Dieudonné Saive and manufactured by FN Herstal (simply known as FN). During the Cold War the FAL was adopted by many countries of th ...

, select-fire battle rifle * SKS, semi-automatic carbine *

SVT-40 The SVT-40 (Samozaryadnaya Vintovka Tokareva, Obrazets 1940 goda, "Tokarev self-loading rifle, model of 1940", Russian: Самозарядная винтовка Токарева, образец 1940 года, often nicknamed "'' Sveta''") is a ...

, semi-automatic rifle * Kbsp wz. 1938M, prototype semi-automatic rifle * AS-44, prototype select-fire assault rifle *

ZH-29 The ZH-29 was a semi-autom