Original French Model 1866 Chassepot Needle Fire Rifle Dated 1873 - Matching Serial No Q 9550 Crimean War and really took me for

and really took me for a spin down memory lane

During World War 2 production resumed again

While the wood stock bears a military inspector's cartouche with what appears to be dated as 1880 (however the serial number dates this to early 1881)

their barrel tangs were marked with a T for transformed

Original French Model 1866 Chassepot Needle Fire Rifle Dated 1873 - Matching Serial No Q 9550 Crimean War and really took me forOriginal Item: Only One Available. Despite the fact that the French needle fire Chassepot rifle was far superior to the needle fire Prussian Dreyse rifle, the French took a swift and decisive beating in the war of 1870 71. In fairness to the French, the defeat was due to Napoleon III's foolhardiness in allowing himself to get captured at the Battle of Sedan and the show was then over. The Chassepot rifle of 1866 was a single shot bolt action rifle and