Do you think you loved the Portuguese afterwards?
Or maybe you left with the Malay …
A. A. Vertinsky
It has always been and will always be so that some successful design will become so firmly in use that subsequently people will return to it many times, hone it to true perfection, until, roughly speaking, everyone just gets tired of it! That is, it will not become obsolete both morally and physically!
Greek militias with Gras rifles from 1874.
At one time, a similar story happened with the "Henry rifle", which differed from all other rifles of its time by the presence of an under-barrel magazine and a bolt controlled by a lever - "Henry's bracket". She was advertised, she was admired, because she was also solving the issue of double loading *, which was very relevant at that time *, but the question is, why did not she have a forend? That is, in the winter you had to hold her by the cold metal, or be sure to wear mittens? And she could not have it due to the design features!
Henry's rifle.
There was a slot in which the bronze lever of the cartridge pusher went. And at the top, the tube was split, and at the top there was an L-shaped groove. Here it was necessary to put this lever, like in the MP-40, into this groove, then raise the upper part of the tube and remove it from the hook from the lower one.
View of Henry's rifle from the muzzle while loading.
The upper part was retracted to the side, and the lower part was filled with cartridges "back to front". And then all this had to be done in reverse order. It is clear that lying down all this could be done, but only that was inconvenient. And the lever … as soon as it got under the fingers of the left hand, it interfered.
Henry's rifle shop and ammunition.
He made his gun on the eve of the war between the North and the South and for five years the Americans successfully killed each other with it, but when in 1866 Nelson King improved the "Henry rifle" by installing a door for loading cartridges and improved the cartridge case ejector, it became even better. With the loading, but not with the power and range of this rifle itself, which, as you know, despite all the efforts of Oliver Winchester, never got into the US Army! The same can be said for other American lever operated rifles such as the Ballard, Burgess, Colt Lighting, Kennedy and Marlin. Actually, the latter did not particularly try to make rifles for powerful rifle cartridges. The exception was the same Winchester with its 1895 rifle and the Savage company (or Savage), which produced the 1899 model rifle - with an underbarrel lever, a wedge-shaped bolt and … an unusual drum magazine - too original for the military to even look at it seriously.
Diagram of the Savage rifle device.
However, the store under the barrel was so fond of the designers that they, with energy worthy of better use, continued to create weapons of just such a design and, we can say that they even succeeded on this path. And not so much even in the United States itself, as in Europe, that is, overseas! Let's start with the fact that a rifle of 10, 4-mm caliber with an under-barrel magazine for 11 rounds was designed by the Swiss gunsmith Friedrich Wetterli. In his rifle, he first implemented a simple and original principle: the drummer was cocked by turning the bolt handle, when the bolt was pulled back, cartridges fell from the magazine to the feeder, and when the bolt moved forward, the next cartridge was sent to the chamber. When reloaded, the spent cartridge case was ejected using an ejector.
The store was filled with cartridges, as in the 1866 hard drive, through the side window one by one. Moreover, in addition to 11 cartridges that fit in the store, 1 could be on the feeder and 1 - in the barrel. All these 13 rounds could be fired in 40 seconds. Thus, the Wetterly rifle fired 45 rounds per minute and remained the fastest-firing rifle in Europe for ten years.
Wetterly rifle bolt and loading window.
In neighboring Austria, the cavalry, gendarmes and border guards received the Fruvirt carbine, also with a 6-round magazine and two cartridges on the feed and in the barrel. All these 8 rounds could be fired in 16 seconds, and reload the magazine with 6 rounds in 12!
In 1871, a rifle with an under-barrel magazine for 8 rounds was released by the Mauser brothers, thus remaking their single-shot rifle into a multi-shot one. And the Mannlicher firm took the same path in 1882. Interestingly, both of these rifles had the same weight - 4.5 kg and caliber - 11 mm, and the number of cartridges in the store.
In the United States, the glory of Winchester haunted many. In any case, in 1880, Remington again tried to bypass it, which also produced a rifle of 11, 43-mm caliber with an under-barrel magazine and a Wetterly-type bolt. However, the rifle was tested, but it was never adopted.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 - 1871. the French had a particularly hard time. With the Chasspo rifle in service, they experienced a real "weapon hunger" and were forced to use Snyder-Schneider rifles, Mignet muzzle-loading primer guns, as well as foreign breech-loading rifles of Sharpe, Remington, and Allen. The last two samples turned out to be more perfect than the Chasspeau system, but they were clearly not enough. Rearmament in Germany (Mauser, 1871), Bavaria (Werder, 1869), Austria (Werndl, 1867 - 1873), Russia (Berdan, 1870), England (Martini-Henry, 1871), Italy (Vetterli, 1872) and in other states simply forced the French to adopt a new rifle of the Basil Gras system in 1874. It had a sliding bolt, the caliber was the same as that of the Chasspo rifle - 11 mm. Gra combined in it almost all the best achievements of weapons technology that were known by that time.
So one of the features of the Gra shutter of the 1874 model was the absence of threaded connections in it. The shutter consisted of only seven parts and could be disassembled without the use of tools in just a few seconds. Even for the Mosin rifle, the bolt, which also consisted of seven parts, was of a more complex design, in particular, it had a threaded connection of the hammer with a drummer and an extractor that was not removable in the field. Cartridge Gra had a brass bottle sleeve, the charge of gunpowder had a weight of 5, 25 g, a bullet weighing 25 g was made of pure lead and had a paper wrapper. Between the gunpowder and the bullet was placed an oil seal, which consisted of wax and lamb fat. The barrel 82 cm long gave the bullet an initial velocity of 450 m / s. The sight had divisions from 200 to 1800 m. The rate of fire - 30 rounds per minute - was higher than that of the Mauser rifle mod. 1871 True, the Gras rifle was scolded for the safety catch, but the French themselves did not consider it a bad device. Gras rifles were produced in four models: infantry, cavalry, gendarmerie and choker model.
The stock was made of high quality walnut wood. The bayonet had a T-shaped blade with a flat back, and looked like a sword with a guard and a brass handle lined with wood. In general, the Gra rifle was technically more advanced than the 1871 Mauser rifle. The quality of its workmanship was also high. But, despite all its high quality, it was still single-shot.
Rifle Steyr-Kropachek М1886 caliber 8 mm.
Meanwhile, in Austria, Artillery Major Alfred Kropacek designed his own under-barrel magazine with a feed mechanism, which was specially adapted for a sliding type bolt. Its peculiarity was that this mechanism can be turned off by locking with a special latch, and shoot from a rifle as a single shot.
The military at that time, more than anything else, feared the overexpenditure of cartridges caused by the advent of magazine rifles, and considered such a store arrangement extremely important. Like, a soldier should shoot from a multiple-shot rifle as from a single-shot one. Well, the cartridges in the store should have been kept until the command "open frequent fire."
Scheme of the bolt and feeder of the Steyr-Kropachek rifle cartridges 1886
In 1877 and 1878. in France, tests began on store structures of Kropachek, Gra-Kropachek, Krag and Hotchkiss. As a result, a reworked Gra-Kropachek magazine rifle with a 7-round tube magazine was adopted, and a total of 9 rounds could be loaded into it (one in the suppressor and one in the chamber). The magazine was loaded through a window in the receiver from above with the bolt open, but the switch, of course, had to be opened. It was filled one cartridge at a time, which took about 20 seconds. All 9 rounds could be fired in 18 seconds, but without aiming. The weight of the unloaded rifle was 4, 400 kg. Alteration of Gras rifles was hastily begun by French arms factories, and immediately began to enter the troops.
“Our Brand” is the hallmark of the Steyr-Kropachek rifle.
However, the progress of military affairs proceeded so quickly that already in 1884, at the arms factory in the city of Chatellerault, a new sample of a converted magazine rifle was proposed, called the Gra-Kropachek 1884. Its barrel was shortened by 75 mm, and the capacity of the under-barrel magazine was increased, so that only in it has now become possible to load 10 rounds. The weight has also decreased to 4, 150 kg. It was immediately decided to urgently remake all the other rifles according to the model of 1884, and the model from 1874 to 1878. remove from production. But then their production was also stopped, since an even more perfect model of 1885 appeared - Gra-Wetterli, in which, instead of a metal pipe, they simply made a channel for cartridges in the stock. And, finally, in 1886, the 8-mm Lebel rifle was adopted by the French army, which is a slightly modified Gra-Vetterly system, all also with an under-barrel magazine, which served … two world wars!
In 1915, almost all of the available stock of Gra rifles - 450 thousand pieces were sold to Russia. There were also Gras rifles in Greece. The Greeks used them in Crete during the landing of German paratroopers, and after the end of the war, the ELAS partisans fired them at the British occupiers.
And this is how this rifle looks in the hands of a person.
As for Kropachek himself, he did not remain at a loss. Since his rifle with an under-barrel magazine, model 1886, also, as they say, "went" into business, and it turned out to be a very unusual and interesting example of small arms, in many ways even more perfect than the French Lebel rifle. To begin with, at this time there were already cartridges with smokeless powder, and he developed this rifle specifically for them. Moreover, it is already chambered for 8-mm cartridges, and not 11-mm as before.
Cartridge feeder.
She received the designation Steyer-Kropachek and became a very unusual weapon also because the rifling in her barrel was designed for both a lead shellless bullet in an oiled paper wrapper and a bullet in a copper or tombak jacket. He put his shop on this new rifle, which was produced only … a year (all rifles have the date 1886) at the Austrian Steyer plant, which to this day is distinguished by both the high quality of its products and numerous innovations in the arms business. It is interesting to compare the design of Lebel and Kropachek M1886. The first rifle has a stock cut with a metal receiver. The second has a solid, wooden bed, pleasant to wear. The store switch is very conveniently located in the form of a pyramidal "button".
Shop switch.
The rifle itself lies comfortably in the hands and does not seem heavy, although it would be necessary to "hold on" for Lebel in order to resolve the issue of "convenience". However, a solid wood stock, in my opinion, is always better than a split stock. Moreover, when it comes to a rifle …
Open bolt rifle.
Brands.
Yes, well, what has to do with the epigraph, "about the Portuguese" … After all, for some reason he was needed ?! Yes of course! After all, these rifles then got to where? Yes, to Portugal. And the women there were waving their hats to the Portuguese soldiers, who, with these rifles behind their shoulders, went to the Portuguese colonies in Africa to shoot "purple Negroes" there!
Bayonet handle for the Gra rifle.
But I had to get acquainted with the bayonet for the Gra rifle as a child. In addition to the Winchester, my grandfather also had this bayonet behind the boards in the shed, and for a long time I pretended to be a musketeer, wielding it like a sword. He was given to his grandfather to … a hard drive, but, naturally, he did not climb on it, and he wore it on his belt. Basically he chopped wood for them. Personally, I was very surprised by his T-shaped blade. But, apparently, the French thought it was better this way.
* It is known that of the 37,000 rifles loaded from the muzzle and subsequently found on the battlefield at Gettysburg, 24,000 were loaded; in 12,000 there were two charges, driven into the barrel one on top of the other, and often vice versa - a bullet under a charge! In 6000 there were three to 10 charges one on top of the other. They even found a gun loaded 23 times in a row! One can imagine what a stressful state the soldiers were in, that they forgot to put on the capsule and “fired” over and over again with imaginary bullets, and at the same time did not understand that they were only producing the appearance of fire, and did not see or hear the shot itself!
