History
The telescoping bolt concept first appeared on semi-automatic handguns designed by John Browning, such as the M1911-series pistol produced for the U.S. Army. These pistols feature a slide, which acts as both a barrel shroud and the bolt. This allowed Browning to design compact pistols for high-powered cartridges.
The first production model submachinegun using the telescoping bolt concept was the Czechoslovakian Cz 23 aka Sa.23 or vz.48b series, first produced in 1948. These submachineguns use a cylindrical telescoping bolt with centered barrel. While widely exported in the third world, the Cz 23 series was not well known in the west.
The first popularly well known example was the Uzi submachine gun, designed in Israel by a designer inspired by the Cz 23 series. It uses a rectangular bolt, with a barrel which is offset toward the bottom of the bolt. This configuration places the axis of recoil lower, increasing the controllability of the weapon in full-automatic fire. The Uzi was designed in 1948 after the first models of the Cz 23 were seen, and entered service in 1954 (after official adoption in 1951).
Subsequently, the telescoping bolt has been used in a wide variety of submachinegun designs.
Read more about this topic: Telescoping Bolt
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