Ferdinand Mannlicher Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher ( January 30 , 1848 – January 20 , 1904 ) was an Austrian engineer and small arms designer . Along with James Paris Lee , Mannlicher was particularly noted for inventing the en - bloc clip charger - loading magazine system . Later , while making improvements to other inventors prototype designs for rotary - feed magazines , Mannlicher , together with his protégé Otto Schönauer , patented a perfected rotary magazine design , the Mannlicher - Schönauer , which was a commercial and military success . Life . A scion of a long - established bourgeois family descending from Most ( ) in Bohemia , Mannlicher was born in the German city of Mainz , where his father served as a " k . k . " official in the Austrian garrison at the Confederation Fortress . He returned to the Josefstadt district of Vienna with his parents in 1857 , and after receiving his " Matura " high - school exam attended the Vienna University of Technology . He started his professional career in 1869 as an employee of the Austrian Southern Railway company and worked as an engineer at the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway company until 1887 . Mannlicher had early turned his interest to weapons technology , particularly breech - loading repeating rifle s . His ambitions were fueled by the Austrian defeat in the 1866 Battle of Königgrätz , which he traced back to the inadequate equipment of the Imperial and Royal Army . In 1876 he travelled to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia to study numerous construction designs and afterwards drafted several types of repeating rifles with tubular magazines . In 1885 / 86 he patented the " Mannlicher System " of a breechblock on a bolt action basis , which was adopted as a service rifle by the Austro - Hungarian Army and several other armed forces . Mannlicher joined the Austrian Arms Factory company at Steyr in Upper Austria , which under the name of Steyr Mannlicher soon became one of the largest weapon manufacturer in Europe . The model Steyr - Mannlicher M1895 was widely used by the Austro - Hungarian Army up to World War I . In 1887 Mannlicher was awarded the 3rd class of the Order of the Iron Crown , he also received the Prussian Order of the Crown and the " officier medal " of the French Legion of Honour . On 14 December 1892 Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria vested him with the title of " Ritter von " ( loosely translated to : ' knight of ' ) due to his earlier ennoblement . In 1899 he was given a lifelong appointment to the Austrian Upper House ( " Österreichisches Herrenhaus " ) of the Imperial Council parliament . Mannlicher ' s successful designs during his lifetime were his bolt - action rifles , both military and sporting , in both turn bolt and straight - pull actions . Mannlicher also developed several innovative semi - automatic handgun designs in the last decade of the 19th century . A measure of how far ahead of his time he was can be seen by looking at his experimental designs of semiautomatic rifles , developed at a time when ammunition was not suitable to function properly in such a weapon . Mannlicher began development in 1883 of an automatic rifle firing the 11mm Austrian Werndl , a black powder cartridge . According to WHB Smith in " Mauser , Walther and Mannlicher Firearms " the Mannlicher 1885 became the inspiration for the M1 Garand and the Mannlicher 1900 with the ' short - stroke piston ' became the inspiration for the M1 Carbine . Mannlicher ' s automatic rifle designs . Mannlicher introduced several automatic rifle designs that were unsuccessful , but ahead of their time . He introduced fundamental principles that were used by later designers , often successfully . Mannlicher ' s Model 85 semi automatic rifle used his recoil operated action originally developed in 1883 ; it anticipated the recoiling barrel system used later in designs like the German MG 34 and MG 42 machineguns , and the M1941 Johnson machine gun . The Model 85 would have fit the same tactical role as the American BAR or British Bren of World War II fame . The Model 91 semi - automatic rifle was designed to use the 7 . 92x57mm Mauser cartridge and the Model 88 rifle clip . Like the Model 85 it was a recoil operated action like the later Remington Model 8 and M1941 Johnson rifle . Mannlicher designed two semi - automatic rifles both called Model 93 , one based on his turn - bolt rifle and the other based on his straight - pull rifle . The rifles had a recoil spring housing behind the bolt and the bolt locking lugs were angled , so the bolt started turning on firing , essentially a hesitation lock or delayed blowback much like the later Thompson Autorifle utilising the Blish lock . In this system there was no recoiling barrel nor gas piston as with other rifle - caliber autoloading designs , so the mechanism was simple , but ejection of fired cartridge casings was so fierce as to be hazardous to bystanders . The Model 95 semi - automatic rifle was gas operated using a slide with the cocking handle on its side and gas piston at its front to operate the bolt , with the recoil spring operating on the slide . Loading was with the Mannlicher packet clip of cartridges inserted into the magazine from the top . These features were also used in the later U . S . M1 Garand rifle . The Model 1900 semi - automatic rifle was also gas operated but used a short stroke piston with a camming lug that engaged the bolt to open it . The bolt was then carried to the rear by momentum with the recoil spring operating on the bolt . The US M1 carbine used a short stroke piston to impart momentum to a slide that opened the bolt , combining features introduced in the Mannlicher Model 95 and Model 100 . The Model 1905 used a short recoil action with a tilting locking block . This was same principle Mannlicher used in his 1901 pistol - caliber carbine . However , for the rifle he scaled it up to 8mm Mauser , the standard German military rifle cartridge . The rifle also used a Schönauer rotary magazine , and sights copied from the Mauser Gewehr 98 . Although his company patented the design in 1905 , Mannlicher ' s death in 1904 ended any further development of the design . Patents . Repeating Firearm . April 12 , 1892 . ( Rifle )