Firearms & History

[S.S.]

Some requests have been made in some of the posts
to get a little more history of surplus firearms.
Well I'm a History Fanatic and a surplus firearm fanatic,
so I am going to post come interesting "NOTES"
as I can remove the brain dust from them.
I'll start with one of my favorite Rifles of all time
the S.A.F.N (or F.N. Model 1949) . A Belgian arms designer
by the name of D. Saive (1889 - 1971) actually began design
work on this rifle in the early 1930's. He was granted a patent
for it in 1936! This is where it gets interesting to me!
As the Germans were getting ready to begin their march
across Europe, Mr. Saive was actually an object on their
"To Do" list. The Germans made an effort to take certain
Plants and personnel intact to be put to use
"For the Greater Good of the Fatherland". Mr. Saive was going to
have no part of this and actually escaped with all his work
to Great Britain and successfully kept Hitler from getting this
great weapon. Saive went to work for the Arsenal at Enfield
Lock in Great Britain and continued work on his rifle.
Due to the manufacturing process in creating the S.A.F.N.,
It was expensive to produce. And Saive could not interest the
British War Ministry in it. The fact that it didn't have a Quick
detachable magazine (Loaded From Strippers) did not
help it to sell there either. The S.A F.N. was created in
seven different calibers (Known)  6.5mm - 7.5mm - 7.62mm
were created as prototypes only. 7mm Mauser  - 30-06 Spg. -
7.65 Mauser and 7.92 Mauser chambered versions were adopted
by the military of several different countries.
The "49" (Came from the year the Belgian adopted it).
Mr. Saive also had a big part in the creation of the Browning
High Power Handgun, and as the S.A.F.N is the direct parent
weapon of the Famous FN-FAL, (Which the British made quit a bit
of use of and had no problems adopting it!) I think that Mr. Saive should be remembered as one of the worlds great firearms designers!

[savageT]

S. Sumner,

Thanks for the great story!  That's what I'm looking for....lots of history.

Jim

[Wijbrandus]

I too am a great fan of history.  One of the rifles that has always held my interest is the Martini-Henry single-shot that the British troops used in South Africa.  The battles of Isandlewana and Rourke's Drift showed off the power of these rifles, as often the bullet would kill two or three Zulu's in a single shot.

Does anyone know some good historic information on these?  I've done some internet research, but I've only found some crappy sources that don't even really report the dates right, let alone any accurate information on the rifle.

And if anyone knows where I could get one, I'd love to have a piece of that history on my wall.

~Robert
 Denver, CO

[1911crazy]

The overall view is the FN49 gun was side tracked so many times by redesigns and the war it was finally outdated by the true assualt rifles like the German STG44, Russian AK and the Spanish Cetme. Too bad the end came so quickly it was suppose to be better than the garand and the tokarev too. They sure aren't cheap on the surplus market though. I see the 06's hitting $1200 and the 8mm's around $600 to $800.    BigBill

[S.S.]

The History of these weapons is why I collect them
in the first place! You can directly trace "why" something was
invented most of the time.
Heres ya another one just for the heck of it!

In a place called Plevna on July 30, 1877 a huge (P)Russian army
Decided they whey would attack a WELL defended Turkish position.
The Russians were armed with Berdan (Yes Berdan Primer Inventor)
Rifles. The Turks, in a stroke of genius were armed with 2 weapons each!
The first was a Peabody-Martini and I'll tell you the second in a minute.
The Russians advanced across a relatively open area and the Turks
fought them in a relatively traditional manner! Until the Russians
had advanced to about 150 yards. The Turks then set their
P.-M. single shots aside and picked up their Model 1866 Winchesters
in .44 cal. Rimfire. (Approx. 30,000 of them holding 13 rounds each)
The Turks proceeded to decimate the Russian army.  
Not learning from their mistake, the Russians decided to attack
again the following day (with the same results).
In 1879 An American by the name of James Paris Lee (Lee - Enfield fame)took notice of the carnage that these repeaters had administered and set about designing the Box Magazine that could be used with the more powerful military cartridges & rifles of the day. (Levers could not withstand high pressure cartridges in that day). Then Ritter Von Mannlicher created a rifle that made good use of this box magazine. He also designed a "Packet loading" system (Similar to a stripper clip) in 1885.  And the magazine fed bolt action repeater was born!    

One more quick one then I gotta go!

After the Battle of Gettysburg, There was 12,000 rifles found with
2 unfired charges in the barrel, 6,000 with more than 3 and one
with no less than 23 unfired charges in the barrel !  
Poor Fella's never knew their guns weren't firing & just kept loading!
So in theory, there could have been 42,023 more casualties
at Gettysburg if those guns would have fired!  If one of those casualties
would have been one of your Great Grandpa's you would not be here!
So some of us can credit our existence to a mis-fire!
Man that is a deep thought for a friday afternoon!

I'll Get you some history on the Martini,
Ya'll Have a good weekend

[savageT]

Great Stuff!!!!!!!!!!

Keep it Comin'!