Lebel 1886 M93 project

[gurn]

When a friend of mine offered this fixer upper to me at a nice price I jumped on
it. It had years of thick grime all over it. As I started disassembling and cleaning I was amazed how nice it was . Even the dirty bore cleaned up to be sharp and shiny. Found a replacement butt stock but still need a butt plate and sling swivel.

[gurn]

After a cleaning and replacement butt stock.

[gurn]

Few more

[Junk Yard Dog]

Cool rifles, I have one like it along with some carbines, lot of history in these. This is the world's first military rifle designed for smokeless powder cartridges, also a world first. The Germans promptly stole both and designed the Commission 88 and their own smokeless powder cartridge to go in it. Heavily used during the Great War, but it had issues with mud in the action, the Berthier was the answer to that. The only time in history that I know of were a carbine was made into a rifle, and not the other way around, at least with military rifles. One of my Lebel carbines came out of Vietnam, many were used there during Frances long involvement in that country. Nice job saving it.

[millman]

[awalker1829]

Cool rifles, I have one like it along with some carbines, lot of history in these. This is the world's first military rifle designed for smokeless powder cartridges, also a world first. The Germans promptly stole both and designed the Commission 88 and their own smokeless powder cartridge to go in it. Heavily used during the Great War, but it had issues with mud in the action, the Berthier was the answer to that. The only time in history that I know of were a carbine was made into a rifle, and not the other way around, at least with military rifles. One of my Lebel carbines came out of Vietnam, many were used there during Frances long involvement in that country. Nice job saving it.

The Germans upgraded the GEW 88 to the Gew 88/05, adding a filler plate to the magazine well, cover for the opening and did away with the packet clip. The French updated many of their three shot Berthier carbines to the M16 standard. The French were no slouches when it came to developing rifles-they were the first nation to widely field semiautomatic battle rifles with the RSC1917 and 1918 in the Great War (over 80,000 units produced combined).

The Lebel was an interesting animal as far as weapons development went. It went from concept to final design in only 5 months due to a deadline from the incoming French Minister of War to produce a working smokeless powder rifle and cartridge. The tight timeline did not allow for time for a new cartridge to be designed from a clean sheet. They literally necked down the 11mm Gras case to take a 8mm bullet and modified the 1885 Kropatschek rifle to take the new cartridge. They met the deadline but ended up with a cartridge that presented challenges being adapted to semiautomatic rifle use due to the geometry of the double tapered case. The Germans did not rush development and ended up with the 8x57 Mauser cartridge which is a superior design to the Lebel.

The Lebel is a nice rifle to shoot. Mine has three serial numbers on the receiver, two of them being lined out. That means that the receiver was picked up off the battlefield and sent back to the arsenal for rebuilding twice. That makes one wonder what happened to the first two soldiers who carried it into battle.

[gurn]

Would anyone happen to know if a butt plate from a 1907-15 Berthier is the same size? I saw one online for sale.