As Gary showed some old iron, here is some more. Russian army "Krnka" rifle.
Lets start from the beginning. After the Crimea war in the middle of the 19th C., the Russian Empire needed a new gun for its army. To cut a long story short, they accepted the idea of the Czech weapons specialist Silvester Krnka. It was also the cheapest way: Russia had huge ammounts of old capsule guns with front filling /loading/.
And in the Russian weapons plants, they cut the back end of the barrel and screw there a bronze receiver for a single bullet shot. The spring mechanism remains the same, just the hammer is modified, to hit a firing pin, situated in the closing part of the receiver /I hope I used the right names for the parts/.
Even Belgian made rifles-muskets were reworked to Krnka.
The conversion was made from 1867, to the early 1870's. Half a million front loading capsule guns were converted just in time for the 1877/78 war with the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans had Peabody-Martini-s made in the USA, as well as Winchester, again purchased from the States. The Krnka was maybe a bit less reliable than these, but after all it won the war.
So, here is my early /the firing mechanism is dated 1858/ Krnka, from the Tula weapons plant. Unfortunately the stock of these guns is made of silver birch, which rarely survives the time, but still looks quite good.
Lets start from the beginning. After the Crimea war in the middle of the 19th C., the Russian Empire needed a new gun for its army. To cut a long story short, they accepted the idea of the Czech weapons specialist Silvester Krnka. It was also the cheapest way: Russia had huge ammounts of old capsule guns with front filling /loading/.
And in the Russian weapons plants, they cut the back end of the barrel and screw there a bronze receiver for a single bullet shot. The spring mechanism remains the same, just the hammer is modified, to hit a firing pin, situated in the closing part of the receiver /I hope I used the right names for the parts/.
Even Belgian made rifles-muskets were reworked to Krnka.
The conversion was made from 1867, to the early 1870's. Half a million front loading capsule guns were converted just in time for the 1877/78 war with the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans had Peabody-Martini-s made in the USA, as well as Winchester, again purchased from the States. The Krnka was maybe a bit less reliable than these, but after all it won the war.
So, here is my early /the firing mechanism is dated 1858/ Krnka, from the Tula weapons plant. Unfortunately the stock of these guns is made of silver birch, which rarely survives the time, but still looks quite good.
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