[SHOT 2025] Kudu Turns Any Bolt-Action Into A Straight-Pull

Got an itch for a straight-pull bolt-action rifle? Yeah, you could go out and buy one. Or, you could buy a conversion kit from Kudu Arms and make your own.

Straight-pull rifles @ TFB:

• The Rimfire Report: Volquartsen Summit Straight-Pull Rifle Review
• The New Savage Impulse Driven Hunter Straight-Pull Rifle
• New Finnish LYNX TD21 Straight Pull Rifle
• SPAR – Straight-Pull AR-15 from Italian BCM Europearms

This week at SHOT Show, Kudu Arms was showing off their production-ready bolt action adapter. This SCK Linear Pull Conversion Kit can in theory turn almost any 90-degree bolt-action design into a straight-pull action.

It's an idea so simple, it's surprising it isn't more common. At its most stripped-down basics, the design is just an external camming system that mounts over a bolt-action rifle’s receiver. Basically, it adds a secondary bolt-action system that manipulates the original design. A straight-pull arm attaches to a modified version of the rifle's stock bolt, and when you operate the modified system, you simply work the new bolt handle back and forth while the cam design manipulates the OEM bolt handle in and out of the action like normal. The auxiliary handle runs in a trick on the left-hand side of the assembly.

In addition to the new bolt handle on the right-hand side of the receiver, there's also a flip-out handle on the left-hand side of the Kudu Arms assembly. This allows you to keep your right hand on the rifle’s grip, operating the action with your left hand as long as the rifle is supported.

It all sounds a bit complicated, and it is. However, it is an interesting way of converting a standard rifle that you already own into a straight pull.

The designer says the assembly only weighs 15 ounces; while some might shy away from adding the weight of nearly a pound to their rifle, note that this also serves as a scope mount, and the reason for the weight is because any moving parts have been made of hard steel to give it a long long life. And speaking of that scope mount role: Some users might note that this device raises the height of your scope mount, and that’s true. But the designer says that with low rings, your bore-to-bore measurement between scope and rifle is the same as if you were using medium-height rings on standard bases. In other words, no big deal.