WW1 Era French Berthier Rifle Mle. 16

[Gildwiller1918]

Here is my WW1 Era French Berthier rifle, model of 1916. The Berthier was introduced to replace the M1886 Lebel rifle, which at its time of introduction made a lot of countries arsenals obsolete, however by the turn of the century, the Lebel was not cutting edge anymore, however it did continue to serve for quite some time, and it made an excellent platform for VB grenade launching due to its split stock design. The Berthier started out as a carbine in 1907, and underwent a lot of modifications. During WW1 the rifle most commonly seen is the o7/15 model which looks almost identical to mine but it help only 3 rounds internally on a en bloc style clip. The French wanted to level the playing field, so they modified the 07/15 into the model 16, which held 5 rounds on the same style clip. However most model 16 types did not make it to the front lines until late 1918. 

[Fritz]

Very nice, I used to have one of those, still have the two bayonets, earlier and later, I also had quite a few live cartridges, found on the Somme, they were outwardly heavily oxidised, but cleanable, of course, I left them as they were. I didn't have the sling.

[Gildwiller1918]

Nice Fritz! I am looking for a decent 07/15 model as well, and a Chassepot. I will post as I find them.

[Gildwiller1918]

A lot of these rifles were also made by US firms under contract from the French, and since the Model 16 came out towards the end of the war, a great many were surplus. They can still be easily found on US markets. The same goes for the 07/15 model. The carbines can be a little harder to find, depending on the variant type. Slings are still fairly easy to find as the French did not change the pattern for decades. Early bayonets with the quillon are hard to find and are getting expensive, the later models are somewhat easier to find. There has been a lot of imports recently from African countries such as Ethiopia for pre-WW1 through WW2 weapons. The Lebel I recently purchased came from there, where they had been sitting in storage for decades.