Lebel Model 1886 rifle
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| Lebel Model 1886 rifle Fusil Modèle 1886/M93 |
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 Lebel M1886 |
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| Type | Bolt-action rifle |
| Place of origin |  France |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1887 to 1936 (Official) Used later by French resistance members during WWII |
| Used by | France, Belgium |
| Wars | Boxer Rebellion, French colonial expeditions, First World War, Second World War |
| Production history | |
| Designed | 1886 |
| Produced | 1887 to 1920 |
| Number built | 2,880,000 |
| Specifications | |
| Weight | 9.73 lb (4.41 kg) (loaded with 10 rounds) 9.21 lb (4.18 kg) (unloaded) |
| Length | 4.28 ft (1.3 m) |
| Barrel length | 2.62 ft (0.8 m) |
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| Caliber | 8 mm Lebel 4 grooves, right to left twist |
| Action | Bolt-action |
| Muzzle velocity | 2,000 to 2,300 ft/s (610 to 700 m/s) |
| Maximum range | 3,500 to 4,500 yd (3,200 to 4,100 m) |
| Feed system | 8 round tube magazine |
The Lebel Model 1886 rifle (French formal designation: Fusil Modèle 1886-M93) is an 8mm bolt action rifle which entered service in the French Army in April 1887. Colonel Nicolas Lebel designed the full metal jacket bullet only ( "Balle M" or "Balle Lebel" ), not the Mle 1886 rifle, nevertheless his name was informally retained at the time to describe the complete weapon. The Lebel rifle has the distinction of being the first rifle designed to use nitrocellulose-based (Poudre "B") the first practical smokeless gunpowder which had been invented by Paul Vieille in 1884. The Lebel was also the first military rifle to introduce, in 1901, a boat-tailed bullet (" Balle D ") as standard ammunition. "Balle D"'s improved ballistic performance extended the extreme range of the Lebel rifle beyond 4000 yards. The Lebel M1886 rifle had a 10-round capacity (eight in the forestock tube magazine, one in the transporter, and one in the chamber) and also mounted a spike bayonet. It was developed at MAC (Manufacture d'armes de Châtellerault), manufactured at MAS (Manufacture d'Armes St. Etienne), and at MAT (Manufacture d'Armes de Tulle) until May 1920. The total number of Lebel rifles manufactured adds up to two million eight hundred and eighty thousand (2,880,000). The Lebel rifle remained in partial service in the French army until 1940, although its rimmed ammunition and its tube magazine had become outdated features by 1900. Plans to replace the Lebel rifle by a more advanced, clip-loaded, 7mm semi-automatic infantry rifle (the Meunier rifle) were interrupted by the onset of WW-1 in 1914.
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[edit] Development
The Lebel rifle was developed as a result of the first successful smokeless gunpowder, invented by French chemist Paul Vieille in 1884. The nitrocellulose-based Poudre B (Powder B) was three times more powerful than black powder for the same weight and left very little residue after firing. At about the same time in 1883, a Major Eduard Rubin of the Swiss Army had invented copper jacketed lead cored bullets that could be fired at very high velocities without melting in a rifle's bore.
Shortly thereafter, in January 1886, the French War Minister, General Boulanger, requested the urgent application of these breakthroughs to the design of a new infantry rifle. He instructed General Tramond to complete the project within less than a year. It was decided to redesign the Gras cartridge case into an 8mm case, a transformation Captain Desaleux carried out. The bolt was designed by Col. Bonnet to include dual opposed front locking lugs. The base of the bolt handle also functioned as an additional third lug. The overall appearance and design of the new rifle was proposed by Col. Gras and some of the details, such as a magazine cutoff, were designed by Controllers Close and Verdin at the Chatellerault arsenal. The 8mm full metal jacket flat nosed projectile ("Balle M") for the new cartridge was designed by Lt. Colonel Nicolas Lebel, who led the infantry's marksmanship school, and after whom the rifle (and the calibre) are named.
Colonel Lebel protested during his lifetime that Gras bore more responsibility than he did in the new rifle, but to no avail—his name, which was used to designate the "Balle M" bullet (Balle Lebel), stuck to the entire weapon. Later, in 1893, the Lebel's bolt was improved for ruptured case gas venting, and the designation of the Mle 1886 rifle was changed to Fusil Mle 1886-M93. The Lebel followed the bolt action 11mm Mle 1874 Gras and Mle 1878 French Naval Kropatschek rifle designed by an Austrian, Alfred von Kropatschek, and shared the latter's tubular magazine in the forend. This same arrangement was also widely used in contemporary lever-action hunting rifles made by Winchester, Marlin and others. Two transitional repeating infantry bolt actions, still chambered for the 11mm Gras black powder cartridge, followed the Mle 1878: the Mle 1884 and the Mle 1885. The latter already incorporated the two-piece stock and a massive steel receiver and thus closely resembles the Mle 1886 Lebel. Over 20,000 Mle 1884 rifles had already been issued when the decision to adopt the Mle 1886 Lebel rifle closed down their production line.
The Lebel rifle was manufactured by three government arsenals: St-Etienne, Chatellerault and Tulle, and featured a two-piece stock and a massive receiver to accommodate the higher pressures developed by the new smokeless powder-based cartridges. Tulle arsenal continued to produce Lebel rifles during World War I and closed the last assembly line in May 1920. A limited-run version made by shortening surplus Lebel rifles to carbines, as the Mle 1886-M93R35, was introduced in 1935. The total number produced between 1887 and 1920 exceeds 2.8 million units. The Chatellerault arsenal alone produced 906,760. Some of the specialized machinery used from the beginning of mass production had been purchased in the USA. All Lebel parts are fully interchangeable regardless of place of manufacture. All the key parts on a Lebel rifle, including the wooden stock and forend, bear the same serial number.
When it first appeared, the Lebel's smokeless ammunition allied to its longer range and flatter trajectory brought a revolution in infantry armament. A soldier equipped with a Lebel could outrange troops with black powder rifles and could carry more, lighter ammunition. The early 231 gr (15 g) jacketed flat-nosed, lead-cored Balle M bullet had a maximum range of 3,500 yards and a muzzle velocity of 2,000 ft/s (610 m/s). The flat nose of Balle M precluded any possibility of accidental ignition of the preceding rounds in the tube magazine. However, the 197 gr (12.8 g) solid brass spitzer, boat-tailed Balle D bullet was adopted for the Lebel rifle in 1898 and placed in generalized service after 1901. Desaleux's Balle D had an extreme range of 4,500 yards with a muzzle velocity of 2,300 ft/s (700 m/s) and necessitated a re-calibration of the Lebel's sights. It also became the first boat-tailed bullet adopted for infantry service by any army. French government-issued 8mm Lebel ammunition has always featured mercury fulminate primers since 1886. Those are non-corrosive, hence the usually bright and shiny bores found today on these old rifles. Mercury fulminate primers, however, can become inactive after several decades of storage.
In order to avoid accidental ignition of sharply pointed Balle D ammunition in the tubular magazine, a large circular groove was formed on each case head, around the primer pocket, in order to receive the bullet tip of the cartridge that followed. The spring-loaded follower inside the tube magazine was also redesigned in 1898 to accommodate the new Balle D bullets. Lastly the primer itself on each Balle D round was protected against accidental percussion by a thick, convex primer cover that was also crimped in after 1912 (Balle D "a.m.", for amorcage modifie (modified primer)). This disposition provided in effect a double primer cup.[1] Because of the standard double primer cup protections existing on all French military issue Lebel ammunitions, those are safe inside a Lebel's tube magazine. But all ammunition other than French military issue, such as Remington 8mm Lebel ammunition or reloads made with commercially available Lebel brass (e.g. Graf), are potentially dangerous in tube magazines since the primers are unprotected. The last type of Lebel military issue ammunition to be introduced was the Cartouche Mle 1932N, using a cupro-nickel-jacketed, lead-cored, spitzer boat-tailed bullet which was only suitable for Lebel and Berthier rifles marked "N" on top of the receiver. Manufacture of this ammunition, originally designed to increase the range of the Hotchkiss machine gun, ceased in France during the late 1960s.
Following the adoption of the Lebel rifle by the French Army, most other nations switched to small-bore infantry rifles using smokeless ammunition. Germany and Austria adopted new 8mm infantry rifles in 1888; Italy and Russia in 1891; and the U.S. in 1892 with the Krag rifle. The British upgraded their .303 Lee-Metford with smokeless cartridges in 1895, resulting in the .303 Lee-Enfield. The Lebel was not dispersed by the French Government onto foreign surplus markets until the old rifle was finally declassified as a service weapon after World War II. On the other hand, brand new military-issue 1886 and 1886–93 Lebels are featured on catalogs of the French mail-order firm Manufrance printed until 1939. A sporting version of the Lebel called the "Lebel-Africain" was also offered for sale by Manufrance during the pre-World War II years. This sporter featured a shorter barrel, a turned-down bolt handle and a slimmer, better finished stock. Finally a Belgian firm even transformed surplus Lebel rifles into shotguns under the brand name of "Centaur".
[edit] Service use
The Lebel was a reliable and sturdy, if rather long and heavy, service rifle assembled from oversized parts showing a high degree of finish. The Lebel's durability served as a pretext to keep it in service far too long, well into the late 1930s. During World War I, it equipped most of French infantry while the Berthier rifle was issued mostly to colonial troops. Furthermore, due to its massive construction, the Lebel became the weapon of choice for firing the VB rifle grenades. The Lebel rifle was potentially a very accurate weapon with standard Balle D boat-tailed ammunition. Consequently, APX Mle 1916 and Mle 1917 telescopic sights were issued in quantities for the Lebel rifles (one for each infantry squad), during the latter part of World War I. Those telescopic sights were 3× magnification and adjustable to a maximum range of 800 meters. Regrettably, the Lebel's iron sights, while adequate for target practice, were too small too low and too narrowly notched for combat situations that demanded rapid fire. The ladder sight was rarely used and could easily become loose. The top of the barrel was not covered by a hand guard and thus could burn the shooter's hands. Above all else, the Lebel's tube magazine was too slow to reload. Consequently, in terms of sustained rapid-fire capability in combat, the Lebel was thoroughly outclassed by rifles like the British Lee-Enfield, the German Mauser of 1898, the Russian Mosin-Nagant, and the M1917 Enfield rifle, among others.
The negative legacy of 8mm Lebel ammunition was also the geometry of its rimmed bottlenecked case. It adversely affected functioning in vertically stacked magazine firearms (first the Berthier rifle and later the Chauchat machine rifle). The problem was well known to French ordnance as early as 1900, and consequently, at the eve of the First World War, the French military was planning to replace the Lebel and its ammunition by the entirely new semi-automatic 7×59mm Meunier rifle, as the Fusil A6. It was officially adopted in 1910 but its manufacture was placed on hold because of impending rumors of war. Later, during World War I, a small series (1,000 units) of the Meunier rifle was manufactured in 1916 at Tulle arsenal. However, French ordnance finally chose to adopt in 1917 a "modification" of the Lebel (actually utilizing only the stock, foregrip, trigger guard and barrel) into a gas operated semi-automatic rifle (not unlike the experimental conversion of the Canadian Ross into the Huot). The French semi-automatic Fusil Mle 1917 RSC (for Ribeyrolles, Sutter and Chauchat), in 8mm Lebel calibre, was manufactured in large numbers (85,000) during 1918 and widely issued to select soldiers in line infantry regiments. It was soon criticized by its users for being too heavy, too long and too difficult to maintain by the average soldier. It also needed a special five-rounds clip. Its improved and shortened version, the Mle 1918 RSC, which used the standard Berthier five-round clip, finally gave "complete satisfaction" during the Rif War in Morocco. The Mle 1918 RSC's were also used in very limited numbers by the German Army, as captured weapons, during WW-2 .
[edit] Replacement
Because of neglect at high levels, notably by Marshall Philippe Pétain who was War Minister during the 1930s, the slow pace of the French Army to modernize its infantry rifles did persist after World War I. For instance, the bolt action 7.5x54 French MAS-36 was adopted a full seven years after the official switch (in 1929) to modern rimless 7.5mm ammunition. Furthermore, a thoroughly tested and well-designed 7.5mm semi-automatic rifle (the MAS 38-40) was ready for mass production before the German invasion of France in June 1940. It should have entered infantry service in 1941, but France fell under German Occupation. The MAS 38-40 semi-automatic rifle was shelved, but eventually returned to production at St. Etienne immediately after World War II, albeit in a slightly modified form with a detachable 10 round magazine. The French Navy adopted it under the name of MAS 44, while the French Army finally adopted it as the MAS 49, which remained in service with the French Army and French Foreign Legion until 1979.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Huon, 1988.
[edit] References
- French autoloading rifles. 1898-1979 (Proud promise), by Jean Huon, 1995, Collector Grade Publications. ISBN 0-88935-186-4. This volume (in English) contains a detailed technical chapter describing the Lebel rifle and its ammunition. This volume primarily describes all French semi-automatic rifles since 1898, notably the Mle 1917 and Mle 1918 semi-automatic rifles, the Meunier (A6) rifle as well as the MAS 38-40 to MAS49 and 49/56 series.
- La Manufacture Nationale d'Armes de Chatellerault(1819-1968), Claude Lombard, 1987, Brissaud, 162 Grande Rue, Poitiers, ISBN 2-902170-55-6. This illustrated volume (in French) contains the production statistics for the Lebel rifle as well as complete technical accounts on the Gras, Kropatschek, Lebel, and Berthier weapons and how they came to be designed and manufactured. This is regarded as the fundamental research volume on the subject. The author is a retired armament engineer who spent most of his career at Chatellerault and had full access to all the archives and the prototypes.
- Military rifle and machine gun cartridges, Jean Huon, 1988, Ironside International Publishers,Alexandria, VA,ISBN 093555405X. This volume (in English) provides a detailed description of all the types of 8mm Lebel ammunition,including the Balle D (a.m.). The 7x59mm Meunier cartridge (for the semi-automatic A6 Meunier rifle) is also illustrated and described in detail.
- Standard Catalog of Military Firearms, Ned Schwing, 2003, Krause Publications, ISBN 0-87349-525-X. Contains an informative and detailed page dedicated to the Lebel rifle (by David Fortier).
- The Chauchat Machine Rifle (Honour Bound), Gerard Demaison and Yves Buffetaut, 1995, Collector Grade Publications, ISBN 0-88935-190-2. The 10 pages illustrated appendix at the end of this volume (in English) exhaustively describes all the 8mm Lebel ball ammunition, plus the less well-known blank, tracer, armor-piercing, incendiary, dummy, and proof rounds. This appendix was documented and authored by internationally-known cartridge expert Dr Ph. Regenstreif.
- Bolt Action Rifles, Frank de Haas and Wayne Van Zwoll, 2003, Krause Publications, ISBN 0-87349-660-4. An illustrated chapter in this volume reviews in depth the Lebel and Berthier rifles (and carbines).
- France's Wonderful Rifle; Great Performances of the New Small Arm for Infantry, New York Times, October 15, 1889, page 3.
| Preceded by Fusil Gras Modèle 1874 |
French Army rifle 1886–1936 |
Succeeded by Berthier rifle MAS-36 rifle |
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