French Chassepot 1866 "Needle Gun"

French Chassepot 1866

“Needle Gun”

French Soldier with Chassepot 1866 Rifle

French 1866 Model Chassepot “Needle Gun”

The Chassepot, officially known as Fusil modèle 1866, was a bolt action military breechloading rifle, famous as the arm of the French forces in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and 1871. It replaced the obsolete muzzle-loading Minié rifle. It was a great improvement on the military rifles previously in use and marked the real commencement of the epoch of bolt action, breech loading, military firearms generally. It was very easily converted to fire metallic cartridges in 1874 (Gras rifle), a step which would have been impossible to achieve with the Dreyse needle rifle. [2] It was mainly manufactured by MAS (an abbrevation of Manufacture d’Armes St. Etienne – one of several government-owned arms factories in France)

Needle Gun Bolt mechanism (1866)

French Infantryman with Chassepot Gun

History

It was so called after its inventor, Antoine Alphonse Chassepot (1833—1905), who, from 1857 onwards, had constructed various experimental forms of breechloader, and the rifle became the French service weapon in 1866. In the following year it made its first appearance on the battlefield at Mentana on 3 November 1867, where it inflicted severe losses upon Giuseppe Garibaldi‘s troops. It was reported at the French Parliament that “Les Chassepots ont fait merveille!”, or loosely translated : “The Chassepots have done exceedingly well.

In the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) it proved greatly superior to the German Dreyse needle gun, outranging it by 2 to 1. Although it was a smaller caliber (11 mm vs. 15.4 for the Dreyse), the chassepot ammunition had more gunpowder and thus faster muzzle velocity (by 33% over the Dreyse), resulting in a flatter trajectory and a longer range which was 1200 yards (1100 m). The Chassepots were responsible for most of the Prussian and other German casualties during the conflict.

Le fusil Modèle 1866 dit”Chassepot”

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