Topic summary
Firearm actions
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Action (firearms).
Single-shot actions
Single-shot actions operate only to ignite a cartridge that is separately set up ("in battery") for firing, and are incapable of moving the cartridge, itself. As the name implies, all single-shot firearms (unless they are multi-barreled) can only hold one round of ammunition and need to be manually reloaded after every firing. Historically, these are the earliest cartridge firearm actions invented.