- [Voiceover] Well, here we go.
The running gun that I have been dreading for a long time,
but has been requested by you guys quite a lot.
So, I guess give people what they want and here we are doing
the running gun with an 1886 Lebel rifle.
The Lebel rifle is truly one of the greatest innovations
in firearm history.
You had smokeless powder introduced with this rifle.
And the French, all of a sudden, had the best rifle
the world had ever seen.
These are strange now, but at the time,
were absolutely incredible.
You had new cartridge and a new rifle that doubled
the effect of range of all black powder rifles
and it sent everyone into a frenzy.
Not to mention it just had smokeless powder,
but eventually they introduced a spitzer bullet,
which is a pointed bullet.
It was not introduced with the cartridge originally,
but it was added later.
And if you'd like to learn more about this, I'm sure that
a thing could learn you.
But they do have a tube magazine.
You might wonder how to store pointy bullets
in line with one another.
You can see that the French put a recess
around the primary pocket so that
you could store the pointy bullets in line with one another.
Now, to load the Lebel is really not pleasant at all.
You open the mechanism, and then, it's almost like
loading like a shotgun, but from the top.
You basically click the rounds into the magazine,
one by one,
so there's no way to quickly load it
like as a Mauser, or something with an in-block click,
which most of the major powers in World War One had,
so I would make the case that during World War One,
this rifle was already obsolete.
So, let's try this running gun, I guess.
We're gonna fire the tube magazine and then single-load,
as I guess that's the only way to make sense,
and I'm going to fire some single shots on a run,
like you do if you're running across a trench line
and you didn't want to not ammo.
So, 70 yards, 24 shots, here we go.
Alright guys, here we go with
one of the most requested rifles for this.
That's gonna be a Lebel.
Basically, I'm gonna fire the entire tube magazine
and then just single-load because in World War One.
Well, in World War Two, French troops probably
wouldn't have taken the time to sit
and reload if there were enemies charging at them.
So, here I go, and I'm ready to embarrass myself.
(ammo loading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
(ammo reloading)
(gun shot)
Alright guys, that's it.
Let's go talk about it a little bit.
Okay, so that was probably the weirdest
running gun I've ever done.
When I used to single shot rifle, the Rolling Block,
at least, you know it's a single shot rifle,
so, you're kinda prepared,
but with this gun, after you run out of rounds in a magazine
it's just like regressing back to a Chassepot,
or something like that.
So, it's very strange and as you saw,
it didn't eject the shell all the time,
so I had to really kinda muscle it out
to make them leave the gun,
and often, I was kinda flipping it out of there,
but, I fired a total 24 rounds, normally it's 25.
I guess I forgot to load one extra in the pouch,
but I can't say that it is pretty dang accurate.
The sights are very simple, but I believe I've landed
24 out of 24 hits.
I'll count the pings and put the total hits
versus misses here.
But, I can say with some confidence
that when the Lebel was introduced,
it was the best rifle in the world.
But, it held on to that title for maybe a year and a half
or two years.
So, let's go back to the room and talk about this
just a little more.
Alright, so that was probably the least graceful running gun
I've ever done.
I will admit it, it was probably the most interesting one
I've ever done, because in World War One,
if you heard the whistle and you had to charge
across no man's land, then you fired your magazine,
and if you were still alive,
you obviously just didn't stop and reload.
You'd threw a round in there
and hopefully fired it at the enemy,
and that was a daunting task to say the least.
I would much rather have a Berthier or an RSC 1917 I guess
if I was really lucky.
But, I hope you guys enjoyed this one.
I can't really say that I did,
but at least I kinda got a feel for how crude these were
come World War One.
I'm sure in 1886, everyone was happy to have one,
but I would really, really had rather had pretty much
anything else in World War One.
Anyways guys, thanks for watching
special thanks to Ventura Munitions
and we hope to see you next time.
(gunshot)