Bolt assembly and cartridge feed mechanism for automatic firearm

A repeating firearm including a barrel having a chamber for receiving a cartridge to be fired by said firearm, a receiver section including means for receiving a sliding bolt assembly, and a magazine for storing a plurality of cartridges for feeding said cartridges seriatim to said chamber in response to operation of said bolt assembly, said bolt assembly comprising:

• a bolt carrier slidably disposed in said receiver section;
• a breech bolt slidably disposed on said bolt carrier and movable with said bolt carrier and relative to said bolt carrier;
• means interconnecting said bolt carrier and said bolt and operable upon movement of said bolt carrier relative to said bolt to effect locking and unlocking movement of said bolt with respect to said barrel;
• and
• bearing means engageable with a cartridge in said magazine in a predetermined position to be fed into said chamber for holding said cartridge in said position during at least part of movement of said bolt carrier relative to said bolt to unlock said bolt and extract a spent cartridge from said chamber, said bearing means connected to said bolt with cradling means to permit axial rotation of said bolt and slidably mounted within said bolt carrier for movement with said bolt during movement of said bolt away from said chamber to provide clearance for a cartridge to move into position for engagement by said bolt to load said cartridge into said chamber.