Well, you hardly ever see them on this board so I figured I'd put some up. The Lebel has the interesting providence of having been brought back from Afghanistan. I actually do have the papers for it.
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Well, you hardly ever see them on this board so I figured I'd put some up. The Lebel has the interesting providence of having been brought back from Afghanistan. I actually do have the papers for it.
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Nice. We seriously need a French forum.
I agree, a French forum is needed. Other than the odd 49/56 French military arms almost never turned up around here and since ammunition was even scarcer I had no interest in them until recently when PRVI began producing 8x50R. Seems they're coming out of the woodwork every where now, a buddy was at a gun show last weekend and reported quite a few wandering around. I'll be adding a few more later on but for now here's a peek the two I have:
8x50r? Is that the same as 7.5x54? I had not know it was available that way. I had only ever shot the surplus.
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Test your knowledge of French cartridges:
what rifle uses the clip of five rounds ?
second photo: what is the large cartridge next to the 8x50 Lebel ?
1. Berthier M1916,
2. 11mm Gras?
I need that 11mm Gras.
Wrong answers
MikesM44, no the 8x50R is not the same as the 7.5x54. World of difference. The 8mm is a big fat rimmed and rather weird looking round with a compound tapered case body. It's basically a shortened, necked down 11mm Gras case.
Okay thanks. I had no idea what you were talking about at first.
so far, the weapon that would use the five round clip has not been identified
on the second photo, an additional photo of the headstampsAttachment 51384Attachment 51385
11mm Vickers balloon gun cartridge. Now do I get a see-gar?:D
correct on the Vickers 11mm Balloon gun cartridge. Remember the Berthier did not use a five round clip until almost the end of WW1 - what other French rifle used a five round clip that would not interchange with the Berthier during WW1
French RSC 1917 semi auto is the only other 5 rounder I can think of.
Correct answer it is for the RSC 1917 semi auto which had a production of somewhere around 86,000 rifles
Add one more vote to the French forum total.
Well, finally after having these rifles for months I got a chance to go out and shoot them. The bottleneck was finding ammunition. Anyway, both rifles did very well. They were very accurate and had no functionality problems. The scope for the 49/56 actually proved rather easy to zero in. Here is some video of the rifles plus a few more. French Arms Range Day - YouTube