Remington Mle 1907-15 Range Trip

[Bundook303]

Headed to the range today with my recently acquired Remington Berthier 1907-15 for the first time together with a box of 200 gn Prvi Partizan 8mm Lebel ball measuring .323" and a couple of three-round en-bloc clips sourced from eBay.

I have no idea if this rifle had ever been fired; it certainly didn't look like it. It came with just a few handling dings and a bolt head that needed the gentle attention of a nylon punch to rotate it free from the body in order to remove the bolt from the rifle. It seems the bolt assembly was "glued" together with what was once-upon-a-time oil.

The bore was pristine and although I hadn't previously slugged it, the muzzle measured .315/.327 (4 grooves so easy to do). In deference to the conventional wisdom regarding the reasons for the French rejection of the Remington rifles, I took the first few shots with the rifle rested and the action covered in sandbags. The fired cases showed no obvious signs of distress; no splits or excessive powder residue. Comparing fired with unfired cases indicated very little permanent deformation; maybe a more clearly defined start to the first taper half way up the case and maybe a slight nudge in the shoulder. Compared with the abusive forming my 303 cartridges suffer in some of my Lee Enfields, the Remington seemed to handle these Lebel cases pretty gently. The fired case necks were still capable of gently retaining a bullet and the fired primers looked normal. So everything felt good and I proceeded to put a few groups down range.

I thoroughly enjoyed shooting this rifle; it fed and extracted flawlessly and deposited the little steel clips on the bench with a satisfying Garandesque "ring". Now here is the issue I have with this rifle and a couple of questions to the Berthier shooters among us: As you can see from the photographs, the front sight is offset to the right and quelle surprise, it groups to the left (about 4 MoA). Why is the front sight so obviously offset on this rifle? The front sight blade seems to be pinned to the sight base which is itself dovetailed to a block on the barrel. It is difficult to see but there seems to be traces of silver solder or similar in the dovetail. Does anybody have any experience with adjusting the windage on these rifles by moving the front sight base? There is no windage adjustment on the rear sight. I would really like to shoot this rifle in my club's 200 yd service rifle match but I would rather not resort to Kentucky windage if I don't have to.

Merci!
Bundook
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Information

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[jmoore]

The rifle's front sight offset looks rather less than what's found on the carbines. I don't know what the French did to zero their rifles, perhaps they swapped out rear sights?

Thanks for the range report! I need to hit the rifle range with something besides revolvers (and the occasional rimfire squirrel rifle) at some point this year.

[butlersrangers]

'Bundook303' - It would be interesting to see how and where your beautiful Remington 1907/15 groups at 100 yards (or meters), with the same sight setting and picture. The off-set front sight blade must be to compensate for bullet drift at longer ranges.

My Chatellerault 1907/15 has the later wide front blade with shallow groove. The rifle, with Prvi ammo (200gr. FMJ) at 50 yards, shoots nice groups that are centered but 6-7 inches above point of aim. At 100 yards, the ammo makes 2 1/2 inch groups, that are 12 inches above and 3 to 4 inches to the right of 'point of aim'. (This is with the rear sight folded forward to the 250 meter 'battle sight' position).

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[Bundook303]

Thank you Butlersrangers, you raise an interesting point. I was wondering about drift compensation, but the rifling is left-hand twist in this Berthier. I remember that when zeroing my L.39 on the 25m zero range for long range shooting at Bisley years ago, I was taught to zero the wind 1 minute left of the aiming mark for that rifle's right hand twist. The idea was that the clockwise-spinning bullet would fly back in to the right over longer distances. I'm certainly no "aerodramaticist", but I would therefore expect an anti-clockwise spinning bullet to veer left over long distances. If the berthier was printing a minute right then it would seem likely that the designers had compensation in mind, but I am skeptical. However, I never tire of being proven wrong, so I will certainly see how she performs at 100 and 200 yds and report back.

Cheers

PS - In the spirit of Remembrance - here's a poppy. Lest we Forget!