Good point about the extractor. Clearly the use of two rods is to make the action shorter and more compact.

One might fear that the use of two rods would give excessive width to the action, but that's not the case here. Without handling the rifle it is impossible to get a feel for how tiny this action really is. To put that statement into perspective I shot this image, using a very familiar object as a comparative prop.

Remarkable, isn't it?

Curl