A friend of mine who knows I like old rifles got in touch the other day asking if I knew of any reference books in English devoted to the Lebel M1886 rifle.
I had to admit I didn't and I wasn't aware of any (something a cursory Google search appeared to confirm), which struck me as odd considering pretty much every other rifle used by a Major Power between the 1870s and WWII seems to have at least one book devoted to it.
Not so with the Lebel, it seems - I couldn't find anything. I know there's plenty of info on them floating about on forums like this one and the various "Great Military Firearms"-type books we all have, but nothing specifically devoted to the Lebel M1886.
Does anyone know if there is a reference book in English on the rifle?
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No, there is no English language book on French rifles, let alone the Lebel. Doesn't make any sense to me either but I've been looking for 4 years and asking the fellows that have 500 different gun books at the shows. I know of THREE for Italian Carcanos and at least one for Austrian Mannlichers and several for Arisakas.
There is however an excellent book on disassembly of nearly all military rifles.
"Military Rifle Disassembly and Re-assembly"
Has nearly anything I'm likely to encounter and has been well worth the $20 or so it costs.
Last edited by Aragorn243; 06-22-2015 at 07:57 PM.
I'm really interested to discover there's no dedicated books on the Lebel - seems like an odd oversight. I wonder why it is? No interest in the guns? No primary source information available?
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