https://youtu.be/KVt0qeG1Wu4
Poor Bavaria got the rug pulled on its infantry rifle program a solid three times in only about 20 years. With the development of the self-contained brass cartridge, they run a new rifle trials program and adopt the Werder M1869 – the fastest-firing and arguably most advanced of all the single-shot military rifles of the era. It is going into production as the Franco-Prussian War begins, and rifles are sent out to units as fast as they can be made. Field reports show that Bavarian troops love the guns; they are fast and accurate and particularly better than the clunky Podewils-Lindner converted muzzleloaders also in Bavarian service.
The standard Werder lasts for barely a few years before the establishment of the new German state requires a standardized rifle cartridge. Bavaria has to adopt the Prussian 11mm Mauser round, and they do their best to adapt the Werder to this round – but it is tricky, because the Mauser round is substantially longer and more powerful than the Werder cartridge. After some efforts they move to just build brand new Mauser-chambered Werders from scratch – and that’s the M1869/76 that we are looking at here today. But this rifle too lasts barely a few years before the Bavarian state replaces it with the M1871 Mauser.
“This video has been removed by the uploader”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reCXaWwUnko seems to work.
I will mention that Bloke on the Range has a video on this weapon and Monsieur Le Chap therein has fabricated a see-through frame for the mechanism, in which you can see it working with springs! (I believe he also shoots it, mad minute indeed!) Mr. M has done a fine job demonstrating without, though, and we expect Bruno at C&Rsenal to get his graphics program’s clutches on this eventually.
Le Chap shoots it indeed and he makes 11 shots in a minute. Maybe with more training it could be improved but it looks on par with let’s say a Martini Henry, so 20 shots per minute looks like an overstatement, at least in regular combat conditions.
That said, I could be wrong.
At end of the usage of the Springfield Trapdoor rifles the US Army came up with a modification to continue its overall design, very much like this with a pivoting ramp. Push the hammer forward hard to pivot the ramp, eject the spent cartridge and open the breech. Pull the hammer back to close the breech and cock the hammer. I have held one of the prototypes. Seems like the force needed to shove the hammer forward would quickly tire, and bruise, the shooter’s hand. But by this time, single shot, breach loading rifles were obsolete. The Krag-Jorgensen was the next rifle adopted by the Army.
On that note, it’s worth remembering that Britain used the same [Peabody] basic breech mechanism as this, with an operating lever 2-3 times as long; decided that was inadequate to extract cartridges from blackpowder-fouled chambers, and adopted one with a lever 4-5x as long.
I am fairly sure that the US mechanism would fail to eject a fouled chamber. No real leverage could be applied with it.
I agree completely! I’m speculating that the Werder – as slick as it may have been at the practice range – would probably be similar in action. It looks like the Martini-Henry minus the combat experience (and math).
I’m forgetting my sources (pretty sure it was horseradish)…
wasn’t there some account by a British born officer who’d served in the Ottoman army, to the effect that th Ottoman martini action rifles didn’t have an extraction problem with sold drawn brass cartridge cases
and that the British extraction problem was probably due to the coiled brass foil cases?
like I say, I’m very rusty on that one
Keith,
That is an excellent point / likely explanation for the longer lever, especially since most single-shot and lever-action levers are much closer to the short-Martini lever length than the long. OTOH, the fact that they are all much longer than the Werder’s – even now in the era of smokeless powder and much more consistent brass – still calls into question the adequacy of the latter.
No and no. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmMPQDlIB80&t=19