At the Fall 2021 meeting of the American Society of Arms Collectors, I had the opportunity to make a presentation on the development of French military repeating rifles. The story begins with the Mle 1874 Gras, and proceeds through three different patterns of tube-magazine Kropatschek type rifles (the Mle 1878, 1884, and 1885) before arriving at the Mle 1886 Lebel.
Bolt Action Rifles
Repurposing Obsolete Rifles: The Lebel R35 Carbine
Get your “Only Dropped Once” shirt here, and do your part to push back against the stereotype of the French soldier! The French military had investigated the possibility of a Lebel carbine in the 1880s, […]
Light MGs
Mythbusting with the .30-06 American Chauchat: Reliability Test
Everyone knows, of course, that the Chauchat is the worst gun ever, and can’t normally get through an entire magazine without malfunctioning. Well, let’s try that out…and with an ever worse culprit; an M1918 Chauchat […]
Bolt Action Rifles
MAS-36: The Backup Rifle is Called to Action
There is a common assumption that the MAS-36 was a fool’s errand from the outset – why would a country develop a brand new bolt action rifle in the mid 1930s, when obviously semiautomatic combat […]
Nicely done Ian. Very interesting lecture.
Outstanding history lesson sir. Thank you!
Omelette du Fromage.
The same General Boulanger who tried to overthrow the Republic in 1889, and later killed himself at his mistress’ grave in 1891.
Busy fellow…
I found this one of the most interesting videos you have posted for a good while. I like your stuff, but I am interested in history first, and guns a long way after.
I already knew everything you said from watching you, and http://www.candrsenal.com , but just having it said again a bit different seemed to work very well for me. Thank you.
Great job Ian, always great when the video is a French weapon!!
Congratulations on your arrival!
just goes to show you that there are people out there that never work a day in their lives because they get paid doing what they love. at least, thats the case now for Ian anyways.
You feel that you have wasted 50 years in France when you listen to such an interesting expose as this and from an american in America.But then Ian’s charisma and internet have certainly changed peoples ideas of french military weapons
Great historical info, love the small digressions that you add to your presentations, they add texture to what otherwise could be dry history!
This talk brings to mind the idea of a lecture or series on Interarms / Samuel Cummins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Cummings: so much history passed through there …