Bolt-action rifle

The bolt-action rifle is a moderately heavy, single-shot firearm in RimWorld which deals a slightly higher amount of damage per shot; slightly longer time between shots; long range and very high accuracy.

Combat Performance

It'll take 3 shots to the torso to kill an unarmored human with a bolt-action rifle, or around 5 shots against a human with a normal armor vest. The bolt-action rifle can also instantly remove digits, cripple eyeballs and cause lethal brain damage if the victim's skull is unprotected. Limbs can be crippled in 2 shots against an unarmored human. Without factoring in any cover or shooter's accuracy, the bolt-action rifle has an average time to down of around 12.4 seconds against unarmored people or around 16.2 seconds against a person with an armor vest.

Since the bolt-action rifle has a long range, a fairly long time between shots and should be used at a minimum of 12 cells to make the most out of it, the bolt-action rifle is a fairly skill-heavy weapon. A healthy level 9 traitless shooter, level 5 careful shooter or level 11 trigger-happy can somewhat efficiently use the bolt-action rifle up to 26 cells. However, a level 15 traitless shooter, 12 careful shooter or level 16 trigger-happy is advisable to efficiently use the bolt-action rifle up to its maximum range of 37 cells.

On average, the bolt-action rifle is best paired with a careful shooter up to level 11, then with a trigger-happy shooter beyond that point.

Melee Combat

A bolt-action rifle has a weapon bulk of 100%, but weapon bulk doesn't seem to have any observable effect on actual gameplay.

All possible melee attacks with a bolt-action rifle:

Tool	Attack	Damage Type	Power	Cooldown	Likelihood	Base DPS	Armored DPS
Overall	-	-	9.69	1.869s	-	5.181	4.767
Stock	Smash	Blunt	9	1.8s	31%	5	4.6
Barrel	Smash	Blunt	10	1.9s	34.5%	5.263	4.842
Barrel	Poke	Blunt	10	1.9s	34.5%	5.263	4.842

Obtaining

Bolt-action rifles can be purchased from outlander and orbital combat suppliers, or obtained from the following raider kinds:

Pirates:

Scavenger - 24.1% chance (poor quality on average, 20-90% health)
Pirate - 12.7% chance (normal quality on average, 40-150% health)

Outlanders:

Town Guard - 12.3% chance (poor quality on average, 20-200% health)

Mercenaries:

Mercenary Gunner - 14.3% chance (normal quality on average, 70-230% health)

Spacers:

Space Soldier - 11.7% chance (good quality on average, 100% health)

Bolt-action rifles can also be crafted at a machining table once the gunsmithing research has been completed; from 60 steel, 3 components and 25,000 ticks (6.94 mins) of work.

A bolt-action rifle is also one of the three starting weapons in the standard crashlanded scenario, along with a plasteel knife and a revolver.

Conclusion and Comparison

The bolt-action rifle is the most accurate standard weapon in the game, being able to hit 100% accuracy across the board by masterwork quality. Compared to the sniper rifle, the bolt-action rifle has roughly half the time between shots but also slightly less than half the damage as well as an 18% deficit in range - both weapons are heavily weighted on the warmup though, meaning that their damage output sees a significant increase when paired with a trigger-happy shooter. The bolt-action rifle also has a longer time between shots than the greatbow, meaning that the latter has a higher damage output potential (realized at higher quality levels) while also being significantly cheaper and only seeing a 14% range deficit - though the bolt-action rifle has superior accuracy at longer distances.

In head-on 1 vs. 1 fights between healthy level 8 shooters using granite chunks as cover from 35 cells away, the bolt-action rifle is 59% better than the sniper rifle, extending to a straight doubling of effectiveness once normal armor vests and simple helmets are factored in. Against the greatbow at 27 cells, the bolt-action rifle performs 43.9% better, extending to 97% with armor - the shorter the distance, the closer the gap with things eventually going in the greatbow's favor. Against the assault rifle at the same distance, the bolt-action rifle performs 14.8% worse, with armor only making things worse for the bolt-action rifle as it performs 53.7% worse; the assault rifle performs more than twice as good here.

When tested in a small hilled temperate forest in the hands of six lightly-armored baseline level 8 shooters against nine decently-equipped and equally skilled pirate raiders, the bolt-action rifle puts up a decent performance, despite being substantially bottlenecked by the shooters for the majority of the time. Naturally the bolt-action rifle is best used as a support weapon due to its lack of burst fire, so the test conditions here could be considered a worse case scenario for the weapon since it's pushed completely to the forefront.

In conclusion, the bolt-action rifle is essentially as good as your best available shooters are when at normal quality; it's almost 100% accurate and will therefore impose very minimal hindrance for even really skilled shooters. If you're looking for something that has a decent range and can throw some punches, the bolt-action rifle serves that purpose quite well in the early game, although the assault rifle becomes a much more effective fulfillment of that role once you start encountering mercenary raiders and research precision rifling. Unless extra range really matters for your playstyle, the bolt-action rifle is usually going to be a more reliable weapon than the sniper rifle, but the same can also be said for the assault rifle to the bolt-action rifle.