What is a 30.06 bolt action rifle?

Answer 1

A "30.06 bolt action rifle" is a high powered rifle, mainly used for hunting medium to large game (anything from a deer to a Grizzly bear, although I wouldn't try it on a Kodiak). A good one can hit a 2 or 3 inch target out to 300 yards, in the hands of a good shooter, and the bullet can potentially kill out to 4 miles (they are usually not legal to hunt with in anything other than dense forest, just for that reason).

30.06 is the type of bullet it fires. Pronounced "thirty ought six", it is a .30 caliber bullet (.30 inches in diameter), adopted as the standard US Military round in '06 (1906). Please note that there is no standard of naming for bullets; thus, 30-30 means something COMPLETELY different.

Bolt action describes how the gun loads it's ammo. There is a little handle on the back of the gun (on the area called the "receiver") that you lift up, usually out of a little notch. As you pull it up, it turns the bolt, which you then pull back (using the handle) until the empty casing from the last bullet pops out. Then you push it back forward and put the bolt back in the notch; that loads a new round into the rear of the barrel (the chamber).

Rifle refers to a kind of gun with a long barrel (at least 16 inches for a civilian gun), that has twists ("rifling") cut into the length of the barrel on the inside, in long spirals. These twists spin the bullet, which makes it more accurate (like someone putting a spiral on a football when they throw it). Almost any gun has these cuts in them these days; shotguns usually don't though. If you ever watch the beginning of an old James Bond movie, where you are looking down a dark tube with spirals on the inside, that's the barrel of a gun, and a great illustation of what one looks like.