Question about 1886 Lebel

[Aragorn243]

Royal Tiger Imports has a shipment of Lebels from Ethiopia for $1250-1500.

French 1886 M93 Lebel Rifle

---------- Post added at 10:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:36 AM ----------

I bought a Berdan from them and was very happy with it. A lot of people don’t like them much. Condition will be well worn.

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[Kyle M.]

Royal Tiger Imports has a shipment of Lebels from Ethiopia for $1250-1500.

French 1886 M93 Lebel Rifle

---------- Post added at 10:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:36 AM ----------

I bought a Berdan from them and was very happy with it. A lot of people don’t like them much. Condition will be well worn.

Thanks for the info, I’ll look into that. I’ve heard good and bad about RTI, might end up looking for something else. There’s a lot of empty spaces in my milsurp collection to fill. Maybe I’ll have better luck finding a Ross rifle.

---------- Post added at 10:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 PM ----------

Matching numbers on Lebels are rare. Finding a Lebel these days is tough. When I was hunting for one a few years ago they were tough but still showed up from time to time. I haven't seen one for sale in a long while at gun shows. Best bet to see one is probably Gun Broker. I'd also keep an eye out at the larger gun auctions in your area. With online bidding with sites like Hi-bid, you can also check auctions nationally. Problem with these is descriptions are almost non-existent. These got real popular with Covid shutting down the physical auctions. I had hoped they were temporary but I expect they are here to stay now. Makes it a lot harder to get deals at auctions.

I got real lucky with an R-35 at a physical auction. The auction house had the action messed up so it was inoperable. I knew enough about them to know it was fine but apparently no one else did so I got it cheap.

I got my K31 that way last summer. The shop that had it only wanted $375 to begin with. They didn’t know what it was, the tag said “Swiss? 7.62 NATO? $375. “

Someone had pulled the bolt out and the charging handle had come off. Apparently neither the shop owner or anyone he’d talked to could get it back together. So I got it for $250! It’s a 1945 gun, all matching in about 98% condition complete with troop tag.

I’d been looking for a K31 for years and the one I bought was only the second I had seen in person the first one was back when they were $99. The K31 was a slippery slope that led to a very clean 1889 Schmidt-Rubin.