Deact French Lebel Model 1886 rifle

This is a real deact French Lebel rifle that was brought home from a German officer in WW II with him. Sadly it was deactivated to make possession legal. Anyway it is a old-spec deact so the trigger works, the gun can be cocked and the hammer falls. The thing that makes it rare is a stamp "Deutsches Reich" on the stock, declaring it as Beutewaffe (war booty). It is 1,30 m long and 4,2 kg heavy. It is just a decoration on my room's wall right now. Sadly I can't tell more details as I am not familiar with this type of bolt action rifle. anyway I think it has a story to tell.

I hope deacts are allowed in this section, but I think so. Please enjoy the pics.






















Always sad to se a deact, but better than having a rare gun destroyed and totally lost ...

That is awesome, Mike,

The stamp in the stock makes it very collectable - to me at least.
I would LOVE some German war booty, I have allied war booty, with letters, but the German equivalent would be COOL.

Don't fret about the deact status, it's less of a safetyconcern having a deact on the wall - I have to keep all my real guns locked away; except for one, I keep for unpleasant visitors and door to door salesmen.

I really don't think you would be shooting this rifle much even if it was capable, those old cartridges are expensive.

Really nice rifle, thanks for sharing the pics.

I added some more pics of my German collection, in the general firearms discussion, too.

The 8mm Shoei ammo displays great with the FG42 - thank you again, BTW!



JJ
Quite enjoying the ante-bellum German weapons too.