hi guys thanks for tuning in to another
video on Forgotten weapons comm I'm Ian
McCallum and today we're going to take a
look at a very rare version of the
French Lebel rifle this is the m27 or mo
defeat 1927 pattern and this is the
Lebel read chambered to the seventy five
point seven five by fifty four
millimeter French cartridge so in the
aftermath of World War one the French
army realized that this 8 millimeter
Lebel cartridge was a huge hindrance to
it and the first thing it had to do to
implement a program of completely new
small-arms was develop a new cartridge
they had to get rid of that rim tapered
horrible thing and so they did in 1924
they adopted a 7.5 by 58 millimeter
straight wall cartridge very heavily
sourced really from the German 8 by
57-millimeter Mauser now there was some
problems with this and namely the the 8
millimeter Mauser cartridge could
actually chamber and fire in a 75 by 58
French firearm and there was a bunch of
eight millimeter Mauser that was being
used especially in captured German Maxim
machine guns that were still in use by
the French army because hey we got all
these things as war reparations we might
as well use them and so there were
accidents and guns blew up and it was
bad and so by 1929 they had redesigned
the cartridge shortened it by four
millimeters to 75 by 54 that ended all
the problems now they have their
straight wall case and they can go about
developing a new batch of small-arms
well they already had at that point the
shuttle arrow light machine gun the m24
slash 29 and then there were three other
things that they had planned went three
things when it comes to shoulder rifles
the first part was they wanted to
convert existing weapons to seven the
new 75 cartridge they wanted to design a
new bolt-action rifle for second line
troops in 75 and they want to design a
self-loading rifle in 75 for frontline
primary combat troops so we're going to
address the other two parts of this plan
the bolt action and semi-auto
new rifles in separate videos in fact I
already have a good one up on the MAS 36
if you're interested check that out
what we're looking at today is one of
the two plans to convert existing rifles
so the two rifles types of rifle that
the French army had on hand in large
numbers were of course the Bertier and
the Lebel well the Sun Etienne Arsenal
got the job of converting the bear TA
and the Tula Arsenal got the job of
converting the Lebel and the plane was
basically let's see what comes out is
the best option because we got a lot of
both of these rifles to DES would come
out with the first functional prototype
of this in 1927
hence M 27 and at that point it was
actually still chambered for the 58
millimeter the 1924 pattern long
cartridge they would develop this they
tinker back and forth with it ultimately
until 1940 believe it or not
and around serial number 275 they hit
the new cartridge and they started
chambering all these in the new 54
millimeter cartridge however the early
ones
unlike the Bertier conversions which are
all 75 by 50 for the very early labelled
conversion m27 labelled conversions are
actually in that old cartridge and
that's something to be aware of if you
ever find one of these and want to shoot
it because you don't want to shoot
modern 75 French ammunition in one of
those long chambered rifles anyway I'm
getting sidetracked a bit in total
they'd make about 1500 of these and they
did quite a lot of experimentation in
things like Earl lengths and rifling
twist rates and configurations right
from the get-go there were three
different barrel lengths that were
seriously considered
there was an 800 millimeter which is 31
and 1/2 inches that's identical to the
original Lebel rifle
there was a 600 millimeter length
considered that's twenty three point six
inches and that's what they ultimately
decided was the most feasible most
practical so that's what they used here
and that's almost exactly what they
would use on the MAS 36 as well but they
did also consider a 500 millimeter
barrel which is just under 20 inches
that one they decided that with this 75
cartridge there's a little too much
concussion and blast and muzzle flash
out of a 500 millimeter barrel so that
got set aside they did also
with some sniper versions of these they
converted some to use optics as test
beds they actually converted a bunch of
these later on to pressure test rifles
to test ammunition Lots that was one
again I'm getting ahead of myself
most of these guns were manufactured
around 32 1933 and they were tested
against the Bayer ta the M 34 back ta
and the Barrett he had turned out to be
the better gun this isn't really a bad
rifle as a conversion but it was the the
troops complained it was a little too
heavy and they didn't like this
protruding magazine so a lot of people
when you see this magazine will think
wow that's cool it's got a detachable
box magazine in it well it actually
doesn't in order to convert this from an
original labelled receiver they had to
make an insert and because of the
internal volume of the receiver a
double-stack five round magazine had to
extend below the bottom of the action so
this is not removable but it does stick
below and it kind of looks removable so
in fact why don't we go ahead and take a
look at exactly what's going on inside
this gun as usual we'll start by taking
a look at the markings on the rifle
these are going to be pretty typical on
the receiver here we have the
manufacturing Arsenal which is tuta and
then the receivers are marked model 1886
modification 1927 everywhere else
however they're fairly different the
serial number is going to be listed up
here so this is number seven 56 and it
is also dated you can see the barrel was
manufactured at Tula m80 in 1933 and we
have that serial number repeated on the
bolt stem on the buttstock and on the
handguard as is typical with well with
the labelled rifles now this marking on
the top here is unique to the m27 and
it's an interesting aspect of the
experimentation that was going on so
this is its marked 75mm so seven point
five millimeter and then pas 235 G there
you go
get the reflection out of there that
indicates the rifling this is a one in
two hundred and thirty-five millimeter
too
right rifling twist so there are some
others from this period that are going
to be marked pas which is passe step
so that's iteration some will be marked
270 some will be marked 235 because
those are the two main rifling twist
rates that they were experimenting with
and boy you know you don't want to try
and look down the barrel and figure out
what the rifling twist rate is so they
marked that on the receivers some of the
earlier rifles don't have a marking like
this on the top at all because until
they got to the point where they were
trying different twist rates there was
no need to do that as for the mechanics
this block has been added to the rifle
this is basically a housing for a moving
ejector instead of the fixed ejector
that was originally in the Lebel the
sights have been replaced with a typical
a very modern tangent leaf sight that
goes from 200 out to 900 meters there
was some variation on this certainly
with the different barrel lengths but
the standard pattern of m27 the 600
millimeter barrel has a sight just like
this so that adjusts just like you would
expect they did go back to having the
original labelled style narrow front
post and one interesting aspect like I
said there's as I've implied there's a
lot of variation in these rifles and
this is an example this one does not
have the the tenon lugs on the bottom of
the barrel for a standard labelled
bayonet some do some don't
this one doesn't the action itself looks
basically the same and it's going to
operate the same open the bolt however
instead of having the elevator mechanism
and two magazine from the original
labelled we have a double stack Mauser
style internal box magazine let's take a
look at how these parts appear when you
actually take them out of the rifle
alright so up on the top here we have an
1886 m93 standard labelled tube feed you
know magazine spring there we have the
elevator mechanism in the trigger group
and down here we have an EM 27
disassembled and you can see on this
there is no elevator mechanism we have
no magazine tube in there so the main
problem with the m27 is there just
weren't a whole lot of parts that they
were able to use from the original rifle
without at least some modification and
in some cases they had to completely
scrap a lot of stuff and completely
manufacture new a lot of replacement
stuff let's start with the trigger group
and magazine system because that really
is the heart of the conversion they had
to move from the two mag to creating a
new box magazine so this is our original
1886 pattern and you can see we've got
all the bits here for the elevator all
that is just gonna get thrown away
because it has to be replaced by a
hollow magazine box so this whole box
has to be made new you can see here on
the original guns this trigger guard
came out here where it's screwed on to
this basically bottom floor plate well
that has to go away they're going to cut
the trigger guard down here the trigger
guard will now be connected by a screw
right there inside the trigger loop you
can see it's screw right there that
holds it on this one's a little bit
wobbly the trigger stays the same
but not a whole lot else you can see
that the sear here had to be modified as
well because we now have this block in
the back of the behind the magazine
where before there wasn't anything in
the way so really substantial changes
right here and of course the m27 also
required the fabrication of a new
follower and floor plate because
couldn't just have an open box you
actually had to have the internals to
make it work so that's a lot of new
fabrication right in there next up we
have the bolts and this is probably the
single best holdover because the entire
bolt body was able to be kept without
modification however the bolt heads did
have to be changed in fact they had to
make a completely new bolt head for the
7/5 obviously the seven five bolt head
has to have a smaller of case head
because the seven five case is smaller
doesn't have the rim like the eight
millimeter does the extractor is
different so a whole new bolt head
had to be manufactured and then we're
gonna get into some real issues with the
receivers so first off of course the
entire barrel and rear sight and front
sight assembly all that has to be thrown
away and made brand new there's a new
handguard retaining ring that has to be
added to the m27 because the original
LaBelle's did not have upper hand guards
I mentioned this earlier the housing for
the moving extractor or ejector that has
to be added if we take a look from the
top of the receivers you can see a
number of other changes they had to make
a cutout here in the side of the
receiver to allow you space for loading
a stripper clip they had to actually cut
the stripper clip guides into the rear
of the receiver you'll notice in here
there's a large amount of material in
the bottom of the receiver that had to
be cut out in the m27 to give space for
the new magazine so you know if we want
to look at the four main components of a
rifle they're going to be the receiver
the barrel the magazine and the bolt and
on the m27 basically two of those had to
be modified and two of them had to be
made completely new the whole barrel
assembly is brand new and basically the
whole magazine assembly is brand new as
well
the bolt head had to be new and the
receiver required not trivial amounts of
modification and so for that reason this
just was not an economical conversion to
do I forgot to mention this before I put
the rifles back together but even a lot
of the small parts on the Lebel where
you think oh no big deal little thing
and just reuse that well a lot of that
stuff they couldn't reuse for example
the barrel bands the nose cap here and
the middle barrel band and the reason
why is the original Lebel didn't have a
handguard so this barrel band is sized
for a stock plus barrel well they
decided to put a hand guard on the m27
now we've got extra space up here has to
have a brand-new barrel band and then at
the front on the nose cap this really
looks like it would be an easy fit well
the problem is the barrel on the seven
five millimeter gun is actually larger
in diameter than the one on the the
original eight millimeter Lebel so you
have to have a new one because the
original one just does
quite fit little stuff like that really
added up on this rifle ultimately as
you've seen the conversion from the
original labelled to the m27 in 75
millimeter just wasn't economically
feasible one there was just way too much
work they had to do to make it
worthwhile this one of these conversions
cost something like 2/3 as much as
making a completely new rifle that's not
cost-effective
they the French army ended up adopting
the m30 for birth d/a-conversion
instead that was a much more
cost-effective solution and they would
end up making tens of thousands of those
in the few years before the Germans
invaded in 1939 so if you're interested
in that conversion head on over to my
m34 Bertier video to check that out in
the meantime because these had been
rejected on several different basis they
were used for test beds for a bunch of
other things and ultimately the amount
of research and work that went into
these rifles wasn't wasted because
especially the ballistic experimentation
done on this with rifling rates and
barrel lengths all that would be used to
inform the mass 36 project so that
information did get used and it did go
somewhere valuable the m27 rifles
however not so much now today these are
extremely rare rifles to find they only
made about 1500 and a good number of
those were actually basically tested to
the point of destruction and thrown away
back in the 30s and 40s the ones that
did survive a great many of those were
actually basically looted from summit TN
and the various army bases on the
liberation of France in 1944 Maquis the
resistance units took that opportunity
during the liberation to scrounge up any
gun they could get out of government
warehouses to continue fighting the
Germans and a lot of weird prototype
experimental rifles were taken because
those that's what was in storage it's
not like the French Arsenal's in 1944
had a lot of really effective usable
guns those all would have been
distributed to the army before the
invasion were sequestered by the Germans
so as a result a lot of these
disappeared into the French countryside
never to be seen
again and fortunately a small number of
them ended up in the United States like
this one if you're a big fan of the
French military and French firearms in
particular you might want to take a look
at my awesome only dropped once shirt a
rebuke to the typical American
uninformed joke you can find a link to
the merchandise shop in the video
description below where you can pick up
a copy if you like and there's a bunch
of other cool stuff in the shop as well
if not of course thanks for watching