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by CDFingers
Golly, Marlene will love this question.
From me, some thoughts as an aspiring handloader: We convert some energy from the shot to work the action on a semi automatic rifle. The rifle will be designed to work certain ammo, that is, grain weight, velocity, for a given twist. Not so in a bolt action, which converts probably nearly all of its energy to pushing the bullet. Now, I have semi and bolt. I load differently for each because of these differences. As I understand it, we can alter semi autos via gas ports and recoil springs to be able to use different ammo from the design spec. Bolts will take everything from a squibb to blowing the barrel up. If there's enough to push it out the barrel but not enough to blow it up, a bolt action will take it. I think semi's are the snotty bitches of rifles. Of course I have some--feature not a bug.
A good experiment to see if semi's eat up energy is to shoot the same ammo in a semi and a bolt and measure velocity--ten rounds of each.
CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack