, Finland, Serbia, Mongolia during the reign of Bogd Khan (1911-1924)
Berdan rifle(colloquial) Berdanka) - common name two various systems single-shot rifles chambered for a unitary central ignition cartridge with a metal sleeve and black powder, which were in service in the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century.
The caliber of both systems was 4.2 Russian lines, which corresponds to 10.67 mm.
In Russia, two different systems with the following name: Berdan No. 1 (rifle model 1868) with a folding bolt and Berdan No. 2 (several variants of the rifle model 1870) with a sliding bolt. The second model is the most widespread and famous.
The 15 mm caliber Berdan rifle, which differed from the Russian Berdan rifles, was also in service in Spain.
Encyclopedic YouTube
- Berdan rifles No. 2 1870 (infantry, dragoon, Cossack and carbines) - 253,152 in service and 103,616 in reserve;
- Berdan rifles No. 1 of 1868 (infantry and dragoons) - 17,810 in service and 10,104 in reserve;
- Krnka rifles of 1868 (infantry and dragoons) - 413,297 in service and 192,866 in reserve;
- Albini-Baranov rifles 1868 (infantry) - 3691 in service and 6309 in reserve;
- Karls rifles 1867 (infantry) - 150,868 in service and 51,096 in reserve;
- Terry-Norman rifles 1866 (infantry) - 4126 in service and 7874 in reserve;
- 15mm Berdan rifle M1857/67- a Spanish rifle of the 1857 model converted according to the Berdan system into a breech-loading rifle, adopted for service in Spain; had a folding bolt, like the Russian Berdan No. 1, but with a conventional rotating trigger, borrowed from the capsule lock.
- 4.2-line Berdan rifle rifle No. 1 model 1868
- 4.2-line Berdan rifle No. 2 model 1870- produced in several versions
- infantry rifle- for arming infantry; The rifle is about 53 inches long, with a 73-inch bayonet.
- dragoon rifle- for arming regular cavalry; differs from the infantry mainly in length and weight: its length is about 48½ inches, with a bayonet 68¼ inches, weight 8¾ pounds without a bayonet and 9 5/8 pounds with a bayonet.
- Cossack rifle- for weapons Cossack troops; has no bayonet, is 48 inches long, and weighs 8¼ pounds; The weight reduction was achieved by shortening the barrel of the dragoon rifle by ½ inch and the absence of some metal parts (no trigger guard), as well as replacing some of these parts with horn.
- carbine- for arming artillerymen.
- Various Russian "conversion" rifles based on Berdan-2. The most famous models are:
- repeating rifle Kvashnevsky model 1883- Berdan-2 rifle with an under-barrel magazine that could hold 9 rounds (in the infantry version) or 7 rounds (in the dragoon version). Military trials the model did not pass - when the rifle fired under the influence of recoil, the cartridge lying on the tray of the feed lever could hit the primer of the cartridge next in line in the magazine, which caused the explosion to rupture the magazine tube and tear out the cover of the magazine window.
- Automatic rifle Rudnitsky model 1886- an automatic magazine version, “working due to recoil” (it is not known for certain whether this was a system with a stroke of the barrel, bolt or the entire rifle). Magazine size and rate of fire are unknown. The project was not approved, since it was considered that such a system would consume too much ammunition (only during the First World War did this point of view finally prove its inconsistency).
- Dvoeglazov self-loading rifle model 1887- a model of a rifle that had “decent weight” and a magazine for 20 rounds. The type of automation is unknown. For what reason the project was rejected is not known exactly, most likely for the same reason as Rudnitsky’s.
- a bottle-shaped brass sleeve with an annular protrusion at the base - a rim, a depressed bottom and an anvil protruding from it, against which the percussion composition of the primer is broken and from the base of which three holes lead into the sleeve to communicate fire to the charge;
- an internal brass cup, pressed inside the sleeve to strengthen the bottom, weakened by the kinks of the metal to form a flange;
- capsule - cups with a cake of percussion composition, covered with a thin tin circle;
- a charge of gunpowder;
- sealer - cups made of linen paper filled with stearin or squeezed out beef lard, intended for lubrication when the channel is fired, which makes it easier for carbon deposits to come off and lead avoidance to occur
- smooth lead bullet, wrapped in paper (white - infantry cartridges, pink - cavalry), 1 bullet wrapper and inserted into a crimped barrel.
- Russian empire Russian empire - after the army was re-equipped with a rifle mod. 1891 remained in service with state militia squads and in mobilization reserve warehouses, and was used during the First World War and the Civil War. In addition, after being removed from service, the rifle was used as hunting weapon, often in a converted smoothbore version.
- The main difference from the old Russian rifles became a completely new ammunition, four-line caliber. If we translate this into a measurement system that is more understandable to us, then this caliber will be equal to 10.7 mm;
- The cartridges for the new rifle became seamless. The first cartridges had brown smoky powder, later it was replaced with smokeless powder, since the use of smoky powder unmasked the shooter;
- The bullets were first traditionally cast, then switched to stamping technology, which significantly speeded up the production process;
- The bullets for the Berdan rifle were non-jacketed, which gave rise to the Germans accusing Russia of using inhumane weapons that inflict fatal wounds;
- Another feature of the Russian Berdanka was its tetrahedral bayonet, which, although seemingly quite thin and harmless, inflicted more terrible wounds than the wide knife-type bayonets used by the armies of other European states.
- The most numerous and widespread was the infantry version of the rifle;
- The Dragoon version had a shorter barrel;
- The Cossack version was distinguished by the absence of a trigger guard;
- The rarest was the carbine version. It was a special shortened and lightweight gun. The bayonet was not installed on it. The carbine cartridges had a lighter weight of gunpowder. After some time, the production of this carbine was considered inappropriate, so it was quickly discontinued.
- A small percentage of Berdankas should be left for military educational institutions;
- Some of the rifles will be transferred to the arsenal of security guard services and auxiliary units;
- It was decided to preserve the bulk of the rifles as a mobilization reserve.
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The Berdan rifle No. 1 caliber 4.5 line (11.43 mm) was developed by the American military man, the hero of the American Civil War, Hiram Berdan. It had a hinged bolt with a trigger forward stroke. Its use revealed some shortcomings: the shutter reacted sharply to dampness, the firing pin did not always fire, and if handled inattentively, the shutter could not close tightly. Two Russian officers sent to America in the early 1860s, Alexander Pavlovich Gorlov and Karl Ivanovich Gunius, made 25 different improvements to the design (not much remained of the original sample) and redesigned it to a 4.2 line caliber; They developed a cartridge for it with a seamless sleeve - in the United States it was called nothing more than “Russian musket”. It was adopted by the Russian army in 1868 as “ marksman rifle model 1868" - without mentioning the original and subsequent authors. Taking into account its excellent ballistics at the end of the 1860s - beginning of the 1870s, it was primarily armed with rifle units (organizationally separate from the line infantry, light infantry, mainly operating in loose formation firearms and avoided close combat). By the beginning of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878. About 37 thousand copies were produced.
Berdan rifles No. 2 began to arrive in the army in 1871, and as their production expanded at domestic factories, rifles of older systems were gradually replaced. As of January 1, 1877, the army had:
By 1877, they managed to rearm the Guards and Grenadier Corps, as well as all dragoon regiments. But most units still actually had old rifles; Berdan rifles were prepared in sufficient quantities, but were still in warehouses as a reserve [ ] . The command did not dare to send people on a campaign with weapons unfamiliar to them, so in the battles of the initial period of the war, Russian units had those rifles that they had at the time of its beginning and with which they practiced for at least a year, namely: Krnka systems on the Balkan front , Krnka and needle Karle in the Caucasus, Berdan No. 1 in rifle units and Berdan No. 2 in the guard. By January 1878, Berdan rifles No. 2 were in full service with 21 divisions, of which, however, not all were sent to the war zone.
Subsequently, it replaced the Baranov rifle, which was in service with the Russian fleet.
In 1910, in the Main Directorate of the General Staff, a special commission “on the distribution of artillery reserves”, having discussed the issue of the available 810,000 serviceable Berdan guns with 275 million completely reliable cartridges, came to the conclusion that if the designated militia units were supplied with Berdan guns, the remainder would be about 400,000 berdanks, which are uselessly cluttering already overburdened warehouses. Therefore, the commission proposed: Berdankas that were in excess against the norms should be removed from warehouses, using them by turning them into hunting rifles, for arming the Russian population on the outskirts and Russian rifle societies, and, finally, turning them into scrap metal.
By the beginning of the First World War, there were 4,652,419 three-line rifles and carbines (including reserves for replenishment of losses), as well as 363,019 Berdan rifles and carbines, among 4,900,000 army soldiers in troops and reserves. Berdan No. 2 cavalry carbines were the standard weapon for a number of mounted regiments, but a shortage of rifles during the First World War forced the use of stocks of Berdan rifles. At first, “Berdanks” were used to arm state militia squads, then to rear and reserve units, and from 1915 they began to arm combat units of the active army.
Mechanism
In general, the Berdan rifle No. 2 was a very advanced weapon in design at the time of its adoption (one of the first adopted mass weapons European army of rifles chambered for metal cartridges with a longitudinally sliding bolt) and subsequently looked quite good against the background of foreign systems until the very transition to repeating rifles chambered for reduced-caliber cartridges with smokeless powder. Compared to the Springfield Arsenal rifle of the Allen system with a folding bolt, adopted in 1873 in the USA, Berdan’s homeland, the Berdan generally looked the last word weapons technology of his time.
The design defects of the Berdan No. 2 system included, first of all, the locking of the bolt, which was carried out on the only lug by turning only 45 degrees. This, in principle, under a certain set of circumstances could lead to the bolt opening itself, after which it would fly back and cause serious injury to the shooter. In practice, however, this only happened with very worn weapons, usually after they had been written off and converted into hunting rifles, when obviously faulty weapons were sold to hunters by unscrupulous manufacturers and caused accidents. Secondly, a rather serious drawback of the Berdanka was that the hammer was not cocked when the bolt was initially turned by hitting the handle, as in more later systems, but directly by the shooter’s hand when retracting it and then moving forward, as a result of which it was necessary to use a weak mainspring and, accordingly, more sensitive primers in the cartridges. On severe frost, when the lubricant thickened, the force of the mainspring might not be enough to break the primer if the rifle was too generously lubricated. In the Gra and Mauser rifles that appeared later, the hammer was cocked by turning the bolt, which, if necessary, could be carried out by sharply striking the handle with the edge of the palm, and the mainspring was made almost twice as powerful as that of the Berdanka. In addition, the Berdan bolt safety was considered relatively unsuccessful. However, for a military rifle with manual reloading, the carrying of which with a cartridge in the barrel outside combat conditions is a rare exception, the safety can hardly be considered any significant mechanism: for example, French rifles managed without it, and this even applies to magazine systems, up to adopted shortly before World War II MAS-36. Also, the bolt sometimes fell out on cavalry carbines due to strong shaking due to the weakness of the latch holding it in the receiver, the ejector tooth was prone to breakage, and some parts of the bolt were considered at one time not technologically advanced enough for mass production. The modernized shutter designed in 1876 was supposed to correct these shortcomings, but its implementation was prevented Russian-Turkish war 1877-78, after which the military department focused its attention on the development of a repeating rifle.
Options and modifications
4.2-line chuck
The 4.2-line cartridge for the Berdan rifle (1868-1891), typical in design for its time, consisted of:
Operation and combat use
roma-komi 29-08-2009 14:14
I'm selling a 28 caliber 1928 multi-shot Berdanka, there is a spare 32 klibr barrel plus cartridges
Quiet-quiet-quiet 29-08-2009 14:29
figase be...... the berdanks went multi-charged, very rare, and the magazine is attached or in the butt....
swan_es 29-08-2009 15:05
NIGEROID 29-08-2009 16:25
Or maybe it’s just Frolovka from Mosinki, people also call them Berdankas.
Hanter Seb 29-08-2009 17:45
quote: multi-charged
With machine gun belt.
vovanfdf 29-08-2009 18:10
in which city and price
steed33 29-08-2009 23:55
Post a photo of this miracle.
Chernomor 31-08-2009 12:18
Spare barrels are interesting... Does the administration separately scan for each barrel and scan everything at once?
roma-komi 01-09-2009 12:39
3-round magazine in the butt. barrels with receivers are simple mechanics.
roma-komi 01-09-2009 12:41
price is negotiable and the city is Syktyvkar.
q123q 01-09-2009 14:56
Joker, hang up a picture so people can understand what you are selling. You yourself cannot understand that you have it.
Well, according to the forum rules, come up with a price.
Dimain 01-09-2009 22:43
exactly, you need a price, a city and a lot of photos to start with))
roma-komi 03-09-2009 21:09
how to post a photo? does not work.
q123q 03-09-2009 21:26
how to post a photo? does not work.
Rom, send it to me by email
I'll post it
Quiet-quiet-quiet 03-09-2009 21:36
IN THE BUT...
THREE.. CHANGES TOGETHER WITH THEIR OWN...
.bullshit.. is it really SHARPS BUFFALO
give me a photo ASAP...
Quiet-quiet-quiet 04-09-2009 11:29
Alas NOT Sharps, an ordinary frol...
.and the barrels are not spare, just one barrel is complete and the other is incomplete..
.AND WHERE IS THE APPLIED STORE IN THE APPLICATION....
.total...
price of the set, two bags of potatoes....
q123q 04-09-2009 11:34
quote: Originally posted by Quiet-quiet-quiet:
.naturally, everything left without gumaga, since gumaga will not be discharged for such a hodgepodge, which means it will be confiscated by the administrative authorities..
.total...
price of the set, two bags of potatoes....
Come on, it’s easy to fill out the documents for smooth registration at the local permitting office. Well, Quiet Man should know this....
But in any case, the seller must make the documents, in the absence of them. Because the storage of an unregistered smoothbore is administrative, and the sale is already a management company
Quiet-quiet-quiet 04-09-2009 13:29
ok, then two potatoes, a bag of onions and a watermelon.....
roma-komi 04-09-2009 16:40
gun price 15000
barrel price 5000
Mezhdurechensk 300 km from Syktyvkar
Meat Cutter 04-09-2009 16:52
Something suspiciously cheap.
Quiet-quiet-quiet 04-09-2009 17:35
okay, these are Kerenki...
roma-komi 04-09-2009 18:37
Well, I don’t know, they asked me to post the price.
I'll try to do it this week without documents.
rupzasto 04-09-2009 22:07
must be a good thing. successfully documented and sold! up!
roma-komi 13-10-2009 20:25
I was mistaken, these are 24-28 caliber barrels, sorry if anything.
Chernomor 13-10-2009 23:29
quote: Originally posted by roma-komi:
gun price 15000
barrel price 5000
everything original is in good condition
Mezhdurechensk 300 km from Syktyvkar
Just like asking for a used Tiger. Give everything for 7 pieces if the hardware is prescribed. What about the shutter handle? Where are the marks? Where are the photos of rotten trunks?
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In 1780, Catherine II the village of Ust-Sysolsk became the city of Ust-Sysolsk.
IN during the XIX century Ust-Sysolsk turned into a large shopping mall in the north.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Ust-Sysolsk was small provincial town with a population of 6.5 thousand people, 95% of whom are Komi. There were 14 small enterprises with manual labor in the city.
In 1930, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the granting of city status, Ust-Sysolsk was given the Komi name Syktyvkar, which means “city on the Sysol River.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nice city Syktyvkar...
In 1866, Colonel GAU (Chief Artillery Directorate) A.P. Gorlov and the clerk of the Armory Commission, Lieutenant K.I. Gunius was sent to the United States to select new weapons for the Russian army. At that time, American designers and industrialists took the leading positions in creating effective designs small arms were no longer in doubt.
During their business trip, Gorlov and Gunius drew attention to the Berdan rifle with a forward-swinging bolt, which was already purchased by Great Britain and Spain.
However, according to Russian experts, the rifle and cartridge needed significant improvement. The result was a 4.2-line (10.67 mm) cartridge with a solid case and a rifle with a bolt action and an internal linear moving hammer. In the USA they were called “Russians”, in Russia - "Berdan systems". And if this was applicable to the cartridge, then the rifle itself would be more correctly called the Gorlov-Gunius system. It entered service under the designation "Shooting rifle mod. 1868". At first, individual rifle units were re-equipped with the new rifle due to its excellent accuracy at that time.
Gorlov-Gunius rifle (aka "Berdan No. 1") ordered from the Colt plant, cartridges from the Bridgeport plant.
But the Gorlov-Gunius rifle did not manage to become an infantry rifle. Hiram Berdan, who arrived in Russia in April 1869, proposed adapting a longitudinally sliding rotary bolt to a 4.2-line rifle. The metal cartridge made it possible to reveal all the advantages of a longitudinally sliding bolt, which sent the cartridge into the chamber and ejected the spent cartridge case, simplified and accelerated the reloading process and soon became the most commonly used in small arms.
Rifle under the name "Rapid-fire small caliber rifle Berdan number 2" was adopted by the Russian army. Rifle entering service rifle units designated as "Infantry rifle of the Berdan system No. 2".
In the same 1870 and the following 1871, samples of cavalry rifles were manufactured, tested and approved: dragoon, Cossack and cavalry carbine, all of the same Berdan system with a sliding bolt.
Russian 4.2-line chuck He was the first to receive a bottle casing; the ratio between the weight of the bullet and the charge turned out to be well chosen (brown gunpowder was chosen for it). The bullet was made by casting, later by stamping, and in the cartridge it was wrapped in paper, the color of which indicated a full or weakened charge. The Berdanka, as the rifle soon became known, was equipped with a tetrahedral bayonet. According to its design and characteristics, the rifle mod. 1870 turned out to be one of the best for that time.
Berdan No. 2 was the last single-shot Russian rifle, which was in service until the 1890s, i.e. until a new large-scale rearmament of the army.
But even after him, “Berdanka” was destined Long story– after replacing with old rifles in large quantities were converted into hunting rifles, and others served in this capacity for many decades (and are still serving!).
In addition, most of the military schools of Imperial Russia retained a certain number of these rifles. Berdan rifles and ammunition for them were stored in warehouses and fortresses in huge quantities as a mobilization reserve. The destruction of old rifles was an expensive affair, which is why it was much more profitable for the treasury to convert them into civilian weapons, rather than recycling by melting down. However, such large stocks of rifles, even at a price of 10–15 pre-war rubles, clearly exceeded the potential capacity of the Russian domestic arms market, therefore at the beginning of 1914 there were a lot of Berdan rifles in warehouses.
Losses of rifles in the first battles " Great War“and the impossibility of quickly launching the production of Mosin rifles forced the GAU to remember old stocks. Initially, they did not intend to use outdated weapons at the front, wanting to limit themselves to rear use for guarding bridges, railways and warehouses in the depths of Russia. This use of Berdan rifles was a completely reasonable measure. Mosin rifles not used for combat purposes could be transferred to the front. But the rapidly growing shortage of weapons forced the use of outdated Berdan rifles on the front line, for example, during the defense of the Novogeorgievsk fortress, about half of the soldiers of its garrison were unarmed, and about a third of the armed defenders had Berdan rifles and only 300 rounds of ammunition per rifle.
On the front line, the situation with weapons was even worse. In such a situation, any weapon was considered combat-ready, even outdated single-shot Berdan rifles. Moreover, at first the Entente offered Russia “help” in the form of French Gras-Kropachek and Italian Vetterli-Vitali rifles that had been removed from service. With the meager quantities of ammunition supplied for these rifles, their serious combat use there was no question of it, although in terms of rate of fire they were superior to the Berdan rifle due to the magazine feed.
Black powder rifles did not stay on the front line for long: the smoke unmasking the shooter and the insufficient rate of fire did not allow the unit armed with them to restrain the enemy, much less fight successfully. In addition, the Germans, in their propaganda, hysterically condemned the use of non-jacketed bullets, citing the fact that the wounds they inflict are much worse than those caused by bullets from modern rifles, drawing a parallel with “dum-dum” bullets, which, of course, is technically incorrect . One way or another, the use of old black powder rifles was a forced and temporary measure; they very soon left the battlefields forever.
Berdan II, Berdan No. 2 arr. 1870
The Model 1870, or Berdan II, is a single-action bolt action with a distinctive short, pear-shaped bolt handle. The bolt handle serves as the only locking lug for the action, and when closed, it is upward at a 30 degree angle rather than horizontal. Berdan II was released in four variants: a marksman rifle, a lighter and slightly shorter dragoon rifle, a Cossack rifle with and without a trigger trigger mechanism and a cavalry carbine. Infantry and dragoon rifles were issued with tetrahedral bayonets. Initial production of the Berdan II was at the Birmingham Small Arms in England. Subsequently, the rifles were manufactured in large quantities Russian factories in Tula, Izhevsk and Sestroretsk. Estimated total production of all models is more than 3 million. The rifle was known for its accuracy, simplicity and reliability.
“The Berdana is a Russian single-shot rifle of 4.2 line caliber (10.67 mm), with a folding (Berdana No. 1) or sliding (Berdana No. 2) bolt chambered for a metal cartridge.
The inventor is the American designer Berdan. Adopted by the Russian army in 1868 (Berdan No. 1), improved by officers A.P. Gorlov and K.I. Gunnius (Berdan No. 2) so much so that in America it was called a “Russian rifle.” Belovitsky A.V. " encyclopedic Dictionary Russian life and history".
Start over.
Crimean War 1853–1855 showed the ineffectiveness of the Russian infantry rifle, which was loaded from the muzzle with a very low range and rate of fire compared to the latest designs foreign small arms of that time.
To rearm the Russian army from 1859 to 1864, over 130 foreign and 20 domestic models were tested. Some of these samples even entered the active army, however, did not completely satisfy the military and the search was continued.
At that time, the war between the North and South in America had just ended. And, as you know, any large-scale war leads to the improvement of weapons. And so it was. Just at that time in North America Several successful samples of small arms appeared. Seconded officers, representatives of the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU), Colonel A. Gorlov and Captain K. Gunius stopped at one of interesting developments Hiram Berdan.
It’s not a sin to talk about this person separately.
A gold miner and inventor, the creator of America’s first “sniper corps” and at the same time a desperate coward... Hiram was even convicted by a military tribunal for “leaving the battlefield as soon as the first shots were fired.” Colonel Hiram Berdan, after retirement, focused his efforts only on weapons design. In 1964, he presented the original 45-caliber rifle to the “public court.” And yet, despite the obvious design advantages, in American army Berdan's brainchild did not go well. Design feature rifles had a bottle-shaped chamber, a conical narrowing of the bore for more accurate shooting and original cartridge design. And it was here that fate brought him together with two Russian military experts.
To participate in the qualifying competition, Berdan and Russian experts developed a new modification of the rifle. The main difference of this modification is that for better “flatness” of the bullet’s flight, the caliber has been reduced from 45 to 42 (4.2 Russian lines).
Gorlov and Gunius sent a memorandum to the military department, especially emphasizing the huge for those times sighting range– 2250 steps (Russian length measure is approximately 0.7 m) and maximum – 4000 steps, as well as high rate of fire – 10–15 rounds per minute. Confidence in the experts sent overseas was so high that in Russia the Berdan rifle with a tilting bolt was adopted for service without much testing. They called it the “Berdan rapid-fire small-caliber rifle.” After a more “advanced” design appeared, the bolt action rifle was called “Number 1”.
The Berdan rifle was adopted by the Russian army in 1868. The first order for 30,000 rifles was placed at Colt factories. In the meantime, Hiram Berdan improved his invention, equipping the rifle with a more convenient sliding bolt, and he himself came to Russia to demonstrate his next “brainchild.” The military department liked the successful design so much that it was decided not to buy back some of the “number one” Berdan guns in America, but to immediately switch to the production of “number two.” And the “Berdan guns” that were not purchased by Russia were sold in America, where they were called “Russian rifles.”
Based on the “number 2” rifle (with a sliding bolt), a whole series of small arms was developed. For infantry, an infantry rifle with a bayonet, for cavalry a lightweight “dragoon version” with a slightly modified bolt design, for Cossack units there is their own “Cossack” version. Since in those days the Cossacks were armed with pikes, there was no possibility of attaching a bayonet to a “Cossack” rifle. The same tradition was preserved in the three-line rifle of the Mosin-Nagant system, which replaced the Berdanka. For support personnel and artillery who did not require long-range shooting, a short and convenient carbine was made. The rifle was even equipped with a safety cock and a special safety device against firing in the unlocked position of the bolt.
For its time, the Berdan rifle was one of the best examples of army weapons.
The rifle cartridge was also unlike other ammunition of the time.
The main feature of the cartridge was a long lead bullet wrapped in greasy paper. The bullet was wrapped so that the rifling in the tapering bore of the barrel, which twists the bullet when fired, would not become clogged with soft lead. Subsequently, the role of this paper wrapper was taken over by a dense coating of a copper alloy bullet, but for now...
Historical fact. It was this property of the wrapped bullet “to fly straight as far as you like” that distinguished the “Russian rifle” at all sorts of shooting competitions in America throughout last quarter 19th century. Many winners of shooting accuracy competitions have won this title using the Berdan gun.
At the same time, the cartridge for cavalry rifles was made with a smaller charge of gunpowder than for infantry rifle. For two reasons: the main one - mounted warriors shot at a much shorter distance than infantrymen, and to reduce recoil, since the horseman often shot with one hand. In order to distinguish these ammunition, which differ in their characteristics, the bullet for an infantry rifle was wrapped in white paper, and for dragoon and Cossack rifles - pink. The bullet weight for an infantry rifle was slightly higher than for the “mounted” modifications of the Berdans.
The single-shot rifle of the Berdan system served in the Russian army until 1891, until it was replaced by the multi-shot three-line Mosin-Nagant rifle, the legendary “Mosinka”.
To ensure that the huge stocks of Berdan rifles in military warehouses did not lie as “dead weight”, it was decided to sell outdated rifles to the public. At the same time, the main condition was the impossibility of using such a “civil modification” live cartridge. The barrels were either re-sharpened to fit a different caliber, or completely new ones were installed, preserving the wooden stock and bolt group. There were both rifled and smoothbore samples this unique weapon. Subsequently, any hunting rifle converted from rifles of the Berdan, Mosin or Mauser systems was most often called “Berdana” by hunters.
After the outbreak of the First World War, experiencing a severe shortage of three-line rifles and ammunition, the Russian military department allowed the use of Berdankas for rear units and the protection of fortresses. There are also known facts of the use of these rifles on the front line in 1915-16. There is an interesting connection to this historical fact: « It is curious that Russia's apparently forced use of Berdan rifles, which fired non-jacketed bullets, led to accusations from Germany of violating the Hague Conventions, which prohibited easily deformed bullets; at the same time, the Germans themselves at the same time used hollow-point bullets prohibited by the same convention.»
When most people hear the words “Berdank rifle,” they imagine the Russian winter and a hunter slowly wandering through winter forest with an old rifle over his shoulders. Not everyone knows that this weapon It was powerful enough that you could hunt a bear with it without fear. Since old hunters can find the old three-line Mosin rifle, it is also mistakenly called a Berdanka, but this is a converted hunting rifle of a completely different system, which has a magazine.
For most people, the Berdanka is an original Russian hunting rifle, which traces its ancestry almost from Kutuzov himself. In fact, it is an American development that came to Russia only in the second half of the 19th century.
How an American Berdan woman ended up in Russia
High Command tsarist army In the second half of the 19th century, Russia decided to carry out a large-scale rearmament of the army. The whole point was that the KRNKA rifles that were in service with the Tsarist Russian Army were already outdated by that time. Although they were distinguished by excellent fighting qualities, the power and, most importantly, the weight of the six-line rifle was excessive. Most armies in Europe have long switched to a smaller caliber, which significantly lightened the weight of soldiers' ammunition. In addition, the economic benefits of using a smaller caliber were obvious.
Since the Russian military command wanted to rearm the army with the best small arms available at that time, it was decided to send a delegation to America to select best example rifles and personal supply agreements. The delegation included Colonel Gorlov and Staff Captain Gunius, who knew very well what kind of weapons the Russian army needed.
Immediately upon arrival in America, the Russian military drew attention to the Berdan system rifle, which was distinguished by its reliability and excellent performance for its time. technical characteristics. Having met with the author and developer of the rifle, the Russians noticed that Britain and Spain had already acquired patents for the production of this weapon. In general, Russian officers liked the Berdan system rifle, as it was the best option that time.
A few words about the author of the famous rifle
The inventor of the rifle, Hiram Berdan, was a professional military man. He participated in the American Civil War, although he showed himself only on the bad side.
Hiram was not distinguished by courage, but was an excellent shooter and inventor. One day he came up with a special press designed for gold miners, for which he received a patent. Subsequently, he sold this patent for $200,000, which at that time was simply an astronomical sum.
Having money and position in society, Colonel Berdan created one of the first sniper regiments, consisting of professional hunters. Although they were called cowards in the army, snipers showed how effective their units were during full-scale combat.
Trying to equip your snipers with the most modern rifles, Hiram Berdan more than once encountered a number of shortcomings inherent in the guns of those years. The main problems with the Sharpe rifles used by Colonel Berdan's snipers were due to the use of paper cartridges.
Soon, Colonel Berdaa developed not only a rifle of his own design, but also a cartridge that received a bottle-shaped metal sleeve. This rifle turned out to be so successful that the patent for its production was soon purchased by several European states, including Russia.
Berdanka for the Russian Tsarist Army
Having carefully familiarized themselves with the design and features of the Berdan system rifle, Russian officers agreed to purchase a patent for the tsarist army, but put forward a number of mandatory conditions for the modification of the rifle and its ammunition. All comments were taken into account, especially since the American designers were joined by a whole team of Russian weapons specialists who adjusted the improvements taking into account the characteristics of the Russian weapons industry.
After making the necessary modifications, the drawings of the rifle, called the “1868 Model Rifle,” or, as it was called in the USA, “Russian,” were sent to the Colt factory for serial production first batch of weapons.
The new army rifle had the following features:
New Berdanka shutter and model No. 2
Colonel H. Berdan was very interested in the fate of his rifle, so in 1869 he came to Russia with new ideas to improve his creation. The most important improvement was the proposal to replace the rifle's bolt action with a bolt-action type. It is unknown why Berdan did not use this type of bolt when developing the first version of the rifle of his design, because this system was used back in 1841 on the Dreyse rifle.
Realizing the advantages of a new type of bolt in reloading speed, the Russian military command hastened to begin production of a modernized rifle, called the “Berdan rifle No. 2.” The advantage of the new bolt became especially noticeable after the complete transition from paper cartridges to solid metal ones, for the use of which the Berdan system rifle was originally designed.
Although the bolt-action system had been used many times before, it was the Berdan system bolt that showed the world what a rifle bolt should be like. Even most modern precision rifles have this type of design.
The fleeting military career of the Russian Berdan woman
The Berdan system rifle served as the main rifle Russian army enough short term, already in 1885, its mass replacement began with rifles of the Mosin system, which were multi-charged. Despite this, the military industry Tsarist Russia managed to release several modifications of the Berdan system rifle:
Various modifications of the Berdan system rifle differed in both barrel length and different types of wood used to make stocks and butts.
After all Berdan system rifles were replaced in the army with Mosin rifles, the question arose about using the huge number of Berdan rifles that remained in army warehouses. Since it was economically unprofitable to send such a quantity of excellent weapons for melting down, it was decided to proceed as follows:
After some time, rifles of the Berdan system were allowed to be sold as a set of parts for conversion into hunting weapons to the population and in batches to factories for factory conversion into weapons for hunting.
Handicraft production of hunting Berdans
The sale of kits for self-assembly of hunting rifles based on Berdan guns continued until the outbreak of the First World War. Moreover, parts of the weapon could be sold either as a set or separately. Many Tula craftsmen were engaged in self-assembly and conversion of Berdan system rifles into hunting weapons. The entire kit for assembling weapons cost 2 rubles 81 kopecks. A finished hunting rifle was sold at prices ranging from 6 to 14 rubles. Basically, the barrels were re-drilled for sixteenth and twentieth calibers, although guns of 12, 28 and 32 calibers were often found.
The most popular 20- and 16-gauge shotguns were often decorated with engraving, nickel-plating, or blue-plating of the metal. There was even a children's modification of a hunting rifle based on the Berdan system rifle. It came in 12, 16 or 20 gauge.
Since caliber 28 and 32 were quite rare, artisans made these guns only to order. Hunting berdanks of 32, 28 and 16 calibers, which are real works of art, have still been preserved.
Factory assembly of hunting Berdans
The main buyer of components from the Berdan system rifle was the Tula Arms Plant. At its base, a whole specialized workshop was organized, which was engaged in drilling barrels and converting Berdans into hunting rifles of various calibers. The plant produced hunting Berdans of the following calibers:
The most popular shotguns were 16 and 20 gauge (as was the case with artisanal guns). Shotguns in 28 and 32 calibers were mostly made to order, with 32 caliber shotguns being a real rarity.
Few people know that based on the Berdan rifle, hunting rifled carbines were produced chambered for Smith-Wesson and Winchester 44 caliber cartridges.
The last massive military use of Berdan guns
When the hunting market was saturated with weapons made on the basis of rifles of the Berdan system, a huge number of them continued to be stored in warehouses. As it turned out, the rifles were not stored in vain. With the outbreak of World War I, the tsarist command again had to use the old Berdan guns. At first, they were armed with rear units that guarded defense and strategic facilities, and then, when the enemy managed to capture and destroy part of the weapons depots, Berdan rifles were sent to the front line.
Soon the Russian military industry began to work in emergency mode, and the army received great amount Mosin rifles, which were enough not only for the First World War, but also for Civil War in Russia.
Currently, most of the surviving rifles and hunting rifles of the Berdan system are in museums and private collections. It is very rare in taiga villages to find miraculously preserved hunting rifles of the Berdan system, which were carefully passed down from generation to generation. Such guns are true hunting relics.
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