We are usually familiar with the Standard Rifle of World War I and World War II, such as Mauser's 98 Series, Lee Enfield Series, Mosin Nagant Series, etc., but may not be familiar with the first generation of metal fixed-loading rifles. Buddies who have played Battlefield One should know the Martini Henry rifle and the Boldan rifle, which actually belong to the standard first generation, and this article dog also simply introduces the generation of rifles by country.
Germany – Mauser 1871 rifle
This gun was a new rifle that the Germans had tendered after the end of the Franco-Prussian War, feeling that the Dreiser needle gun on hand was too outdated. Moreover, in 1871, the metal fixed ammunition also had technical reserves, so the Mauser 1871 also became Germany's first metal fixed ammunition, singles, breech-loaded rifle.
This gun also opened the Mauser era, the biggest highlight is the achievement of Mauser-style flying wing insurance and pre-shell bevel (the specific details I will open a separate article at that time)
The 11.15mm caliber black powder cartridge has a initial velocity of 440m/s, a warhead weight of 25 grams, and a kinetic energy of 2420 joules.
Enfield Schneider, England - 1867
At first glance, the gun looks like an old-fashioned front-loading gun, especially the hammer is still a traditional external bird's beak.
Because this Enfield Schneider rifle was based on the Enfield P53 breech gun, but the breech gun was obviously obsolete in the late 1860s, and the British looked at a large number of old P53 rifles and were reluctant to lose it, so they simply opened a hinged trap in the breech and changed the P53 breech to breech.
This batch of guns fired 14.7mm black powder bullets, the warhead mass was 31 grams, the muzzle velocity was 370m/s, and the kinetic energy was 2120 joules, because of the large caliber, so the ballistic trajectory was relatively ugly.
At that time, the British mainly used the paper shell + metal bullet bottom of the .577 Schneider bullet in the picture above, and the gas-holding effect was there, but it was still afraid of the tide. But then they changed to all-metal.
British Martini Henry rifle - 1871
The British themselves knew that the Enfield Schneider rifles upstairs were only transitional products, so they began to develop new rifles while equipping Schneider, which was Martini Henry.
Martini's latching structure is largely a reference to the take-off and landing bolt of the Peabody rifle during the American Civil War, with excellent latching strength and built-in hammers.
In addition, this gun uses an angular polygonal rifling (the designer is called Henry, so this gun is called Martini Henry), and the air-holding effect is also very good
The bullet caliber is the same as Schneider's, it is 14.7, the warhead quality is the same, but the Martini bullet is slightly larger, and the gun is excellent in air containment, so the initial speed is 410m/s and the kinetic energy is 2600 joules.
French Grasse rifle - 1874
This is also a bolt-action rifle, in fact, earlier in the Franco-Prussian War, the French ticket paper-wrapped Shellerbo rifle performed very well. Because Shassebo's bolt head has a rubber seal ring, so the air containment ability is very good, than the German Dreiser did not know where to go.
However, weapons still have to follow the times, and France naturally has to improve after the advent of metal fixed ammunition. However, because the structure of Thexabo itself is not bad, the French only modified the bolts of the Sesebo.
Above the picture is the Shasserbo bolt, below is the Grasse bolt, you can see that Grass canceled the seal, and the nose is much shorter. There is a shell hook on the head and a crank groove on the side of the bolt, which allows the large bolt to let the firing pin spring ready when the lock is rotated.
The 11mm Grass warhead weighs 25 grams, the muzzle velocity is 455m/s, and the kinetic energy is 2580 joules.
Russian Bolden II rifle - 1870
Boldan was actually an American, but at that time, Tsarist Russia was not able to design its own guns, so he sent people around the world to find help.
Bordan originally designed a trapdoor-type rifle with a built-in hammer, that is, the Bordan I type, but Maozi later felt that the trap hinge was easy to loosen, so he later changed it to a bolt-on type. It was also Maozi's first metal fixed-loaded rifle. It was even the first bolt-action rifle in Europe to use metal fixed-loading bullets.
Bordan fired a 10.66mm caliber black powder cartridge with a warhead of 24 grams, a initial velocity of 430 m/s, and kinetic energy of 2218 joules.
Austro-Hungarian Wendel Rifle – 1867
The brain circuits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are a little different from everyone else, and this gun looks like it was a breech gun, but in fact it is a newly designed gun. But why do I have to use such an old-fashioned bird's beak hammer to make me scratch my head.
Its breech latch is a latch block that can be flipped, and this pattern in the picture is open, exposing the chamber for manual loading. However, this structure cannot have a pre-shelling device, although it has a shell ejection, but if the bullet is fired after the breeching is serious, it will become very difficult to shell.
His bullets are 11.15mm caliber, warhead 24 grams, initial velocity 440, kinetic energy 2323 joules.
Italian Vittley Rifle - 1870
The gun was not designed by the Italians, but the Swiss. Moreover, the Swiss Vitelli 1869 adopts a tubular magazine with a capacity of 11 rounds, which can be said to be one of the earliest rifles in Europe. But when it came to the Italians they felt it was a waste of bullets, so they changed it to singles one...
Although Vitelli is a turning bolt, there is something about the latching system. At that time, Mauser and Grasse were still only pulling the handle and hanging it on the receiver as a locking support. Vitelli, on the other hand, completed the latching by two symmetrical convex falcons at the rear of the bolt, a design that even influenced rifle latching in the smokeless gunpowder era.
Vittley caliber 10.35mm, warhead weight 20 grams, initial velocity 440, kinetic energy 1936 joules.
Of course, this article is only a rough introduction, and it is not introduced completely, for example, I did not talk about the United States (because the development of firearms after the American Civil War is best brought out separately), nor did I make a more detailed explanation of the causal relationship and structural characteristics of each gun, but we will talk about it slowly later.