The history of rifle development in the short-lived Austro-Hungarian Empire

Short-lived Austro-Hungarian Empire rifle development history

Austro-Hungarian Empire this country in our Chinese eyes do not have much sense of existence, but in modern history it is in the continent of Europe dominated by a huge empire.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire, as its name suggests, was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which originated from the Austro-Hungarian compromise program established in 1867, ruled by the Habsburg Kingdom, and was a very strange dual monarchy. But we're not talking history today, so let's just dish the guns.

In 1867, rifles had pretty much reached the age of the wire-bore, breech-loading, metal-set load. Austria-Hungary's rifles were still significantly behind other countries, such as the army's main standard rifle or oakley sunglasses lorenz

While it had been fired with a firecap, it was also a line-bore gun. But it's still a muzzleloader, and the .54 caliber cartridge isn't even a Mignon. It still has to have a circle of oil-soaked paper wrapped around the end of the cartridge if it's stuffed through the muzzle. It was very slow to fire.

While they did convert some of the Lorentz rifles to breech valve closures at the time, it didn't help much. The split firecap and this cartridge were out of date. Austria got hammered with these by Prussian Dreiser broadsides during the Austro-Prussian War Liang Qiaojia dispute.

When the Austro-Hungarian Empire was formed, of course they couldn't stand the dregs of the Lorentz, so they designed the Vorndel rifle.

It was a Doktor rifle that fired an 11×42mm metal fixed cartridge (later changed to 11x58mm), with a flip-locked breech and pin-fired. Other than that, the locking ability from the metal fixed round alone would have hung the Drexel. These Werndels were still in use in small numbers into the First World War.

By 1886, a number of European countries were experimenting with this repeating rifle design due to the influence of the American tubular magazine rifle (prior to that, almost all rifles were singles). However, Austria-Hungary considered that the tube magazine, while having a large capacity, was too slow to reload, so they designed a Mannlicher M1886, which was the first rifle to use a magazine feed. And it was a straight-pull action, which was a first at the time.

But it was a bit of a 2 with this receiver, not a turn-bolt closure, but a cartridge take-up and take-down. That's not a very good latch for a manual rifle.

However 1886 was a watershed year for light weapons.

The French came out with the first smokeless gunpowder-fired Lebel 1886, and Austria-Hungary had barely warmed up to the Mannlicher 1886 before they came out with the Mannlicher 1888, which fired an 8x52mm smokeless gunpowder cartridge.

It wasn't that different from the 1886 in terms of its construction, but the 1886 was a black-powdered rifle. Its cartridge landing can withstand black powder, but not so much for smokeless powder. So the Mannlicher 1888 has a poor latch and poor safety to follow.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire had no choice but to modify the gun again, changing the cartridge landing into a rotary lock. And the finished product was the Mannlicher M1895.

Because the two previous Mannlicher's used a straight-pull action, the 1895 operated as a straight-pull despite the rotary closure in the nose. The rotation is accomplished by means of slanted guide slots in the frame and receiver.

But this straight-pull construction is pretty much impervious to dirt, sand and dust get stuck in the guide grooves and are prone to bugs, and it uses a leaky clip, which has to be thrown out from underneath the magazine after a clip is shot. So the underside of the magazine is empty and prone to getting dirt in, which further worsens reliability. So this mechanism and leaky clips were not much used after WWI.

And then it was gone, Austria-Hungary hung up after fighting WWI. That said, they did make a batch of Steyr M1912s in 1912, copying the Mauser Gew98, shooting 7x57 Spanish Mauser rounds (Mauser all real mess...)