Bolt-action rifle

The bolt-action rifle has considerably long range, high accuracy, moderate damage, and a somewhat long overall cooldown period. You'll ideally want to equip somebody with at least 97% post-processed shooting accuracy to be somewhat efficient with the bolt-action rifle at maximum range - one way of achieving this is with a healthy colonist with at least 10 shooting skill. Do note that bolt-action rifles can outrange automated gun turrets.

Bolt-action rifles can be purchased from outlander or orbital combat suppliers, found equipped by outlander and pirate raiders, or manufactured. You'll also start with one survival rifle with the 'Crashlanded' scenario.

Crafting

As a modern firearm, bolt-action rifles can only be produced at a machining table, which requires machining to be researched in order to be constructed. A bolt-action rifle requires 60 steel, 3 components, and 25,000 ticks (6.94 mins) of work to be created, assuming perfectly normal work speed.

Conclusion and Comparison

The bolt-action rifle can be seen as a rapid-fire, more skill-friendly alternative to the overall more powerful sniper rifle. Due to its attributes, the survival rifle remains a useful weapon throughout all stages of the game, and works nicely when a few bolt-action rifle shooters are mixed amongst many charge rifle shooters.

It fares much better at close range than the sniper rifle. Sniper rifles are very inaccurate at close range, while bolt-action rifles fare much better.

Trivia

The survival rifle used to be called the Lee-Enfield in older versions of RimWorld. In real life, the Lee-Enfield is a reliable and powerful bolt-action, magazine-fed, repeating rifle that was used primarily by the British military in the early 20th century, notably during World War I and II. The Lee-Enfield had a 10-round magazine (loaded with 5-round "charger clips") and used a .303 caliber (7.7mm) cartridge.
Its previous name before Alpha 17 is the Survival rifle.
Bolt-action rifles with Masterwork or above quality are capable of producing 100% accuracy across all ranges. It's the only weapon capable of such a feat in-game.

Weapons