Interesting Berthier

Bought this Delaunay Belleville 1907-15 today. Its interesting.
First off, seller said he believed it was a Vietnam bring-back. No papers, but you buy the rifle, not the story.
It is a long rifle cut to carbine length. It definitely has that 'dragged through the bush' look to it. Crude crowning, no front sight,
It is an all matching example. Stock, bolt, everything matches.
Decent cartouche left on the bolt. Not 'N' marked. Forward sling swivel is on the wrong side, and looks to have been for a looong time.
Its an interesting piece, but the really interesting bit are the markings on the underside of the butt..I've never seen these on a Berthier. Cyrillic??

I agree that they look like Cyrillic letters but perhaps they are the Greek letters phi and pi as Greece received Berthiers from France during the Great War and I have read that they cut them down to carbine length in the early 1930s. Your rifle is certainly rough enough to have been in SEA but of course rust has no borders and if it does have a Greek history I don't know how it would have made its way to Vietnam. Someone here must know more than I about this. Anyway, very interesting firearm. Tom

Does it appear safe to shoot? I wonder about the accuracy ( or lack thereof) with the general condition - and lack of a front sight....

Offhand it seems to be mechanically sound, but as stated above, it is not 'N' marked. Right now it's disassembled, needs a quick cleaning..absolutely filthy. I have doubts about the Vietnam story. Its full of very fine sand. More along the lines of rifles I've seen brought back from Afghanistan or Iraq.

---------- Post added at 01:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:07 PM ----------

A friend who is Greek just got back to me and said it was indeed 'Phi Pi'. Can't make out the other.

Fine sand could mean it visited North Africa or somewhere like Syria. The Foreign Legion were quite active in such paces. See also Cambodia for a "rough time".

Unless you have enough sand for a friendly soil scientist to analyze, you may never know.

Did not the French have out posts in SEA could it not have been with one of the natives ??

This one is most likely a Serbian Berthier .