Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we are going to
take a look at the Lebel R35,
the last gasp of the Lebel system in military usage.
Now, back in the 1880s, 1890s,
when the Lebel was first being manufactured,
the French military did want a carbine version like this.
By the way, R35 means shortened, or "Raccourci" 35, 1935.
The military had originally wanted a carbine version like this,
and they experimented with it, and they ended up turning it down for a couple of reasons.
They thought it was too heavy, which is a little odd, in the carbine form it's really not all that heavy.
Presumably there were also issues with the tube magazine,
... it's a time consuming thing to load when you're an infantryman on the ground.
It's really complex and difficult if you are trying to ride a horse at
the same time you are trying to stuff rounds into the tube magazine of a Lebel carbine.
So ultimately they ended up developing the Berthier carbines instead.
If you are interested in the development of the Berthier, well,
I have a whole bunch of videos documenting that whole series, so check those out.
However, by 1935, or really kind of 1936, things had changed, priorities were different.
At this point the French military was looking for ways to,
... first off they wanted to do something with the massive, like hundreds of thousands
of Lebel rifles that they still had in storage. These were completely obsolete rifles.
The new 7.5x54mm cartridge had rendered the 8mm Lebel cartridge obsolete.
But the French were still working on trying to get enough
rifles in production in the new 7.5 cartridge to equip everybody.
And ... politics were starting to look a little bit tense in the late 1930s.
And so the idea was, "What can we do to make use of these obsolete rifles that we have,
and allow the modern new rifles, primarily the MAS 36 rifles, to go to as many troops as possible.
Let's get everyone on the front lines equipped with those,
so let's come up with some other rifle that we can give to the guys
... like the artillery crews and the engineers, who maybe don't need
the newest, greatest rifle, but they need something."
So, hence the R35 was born.
Now these were all manufactured at the Tulle Arsenal,
and in the decade before, in the 1920s,
Tulle had spent a lot of time trying to develop a 7.5mm conversion for the Lebel.
So they knew the ins and outs of working on these rifles intimately.
Tulle had also been the arsenal that was responsible for
assembling new Lebel rifles during World War One.
They were the only arsenal that worked on them during World War One.
And so really that was the place to work on Lebels, so that's where this project went.
Now, ... four different major companies contributed to the project by making barrels.
And the barrels are all marked with the production company's name,
so they don't all say Tulle, but Tulle is where these were all actually put together.
Anyway, what they did was basically shorten the barrel, obviously,
it was shortened down to 450mm, which is 17.7 inches.
The magazine tube is correspondingly shortened, along with the handguard.
The magazine in this configuration will hold 3 rounds, plus 1 in the elevator,
which I don't believe was actually French Manual of Arms to use,
they just had 3 in the magazine tube.
If you are shooting it today, well, you can stick a fourth on the elevator if you so choose.
The rear sights were changed, so the sight is basically a copy of the Berthier carbine sight.
Which makes sense because the barrel is now basically the same length as a Berthier carbine.
And you are not going to be shooting out to 2,400 metres with these,
like you could with the original Lebel sights.
The bayonets were also shortened to fit the pattern of the rifles.
These do still fit standard Lebel bayonets though,
so if you come up with an old 1886 pattern 20.5 inch long bayonet, it'll still fit on these guys.
And that's pretty much it, this was a very simple conversion, and it was done for simple reasons,
"We don't have enough MAS 36 rifles coming into service,
and we want something a little shorter and handier to give to these second line troops."
So, these were first adopted in January of 1936 under the designation R35,
deliveries began in April of 1937.
They were able to get the conversion assembly line up and running.
... The French military ordered 100,000 of them to be converted.
Ultimately only about 45,000 were actually delivered,
as I mentioned, with barrels manufactured by four different companies.
We'll touch on those in just a minute.
And production ramped up from early '37 until 1940, clear to the Armistice with the Germans.
So, there are a couple of details we can take a look at here,
a few other minor changes that were made, and
two different versions of rear sight. So let's take a look at those.
So the way these conversions were done
was to bring in a Lebel rifle that was going to be converted.
And of course they would be putting a new barrel on,
however they actually reused the serial number of the original rifle being converted.
They would take that and they would inscribe the serial number into the new barrel,
and then they would go through and remark any parts on the donor rifle that weren't matching.
The French arsenals had not necessarily made a point to force match repaired guns
in the intervening years after World War One.
So anything that wasn't matching when these R35 conversions were made
... the numbers were scrubbed and they were force matched.
So, we are going to start with markings on the side of the receiver here.
As typical for a Lebel, we are going to have "Manufacture d'Armes",
and then either, Châtellerault, Saint-Étienne or Tulle. This is a Tulle gun.
And then the M93 mark is removed here, and has been replaced by R35.
There is our serial number, it's an FH block.
And there is no such thing as a database, or a comprehensive series, of R35 serial numbers.
... In fact there's a lot things that can be weird about these guns,
because the serial number would have carried over from an original Lebel.
They didn't take a specific batch of guns to be shortened
into the R35 pattern, it was just whatever was available.
So serial numbers are basically going to be at random.
And then you will also find serial numbers
that would have originally come from any number of specific arsenals
paired with receivers that could have come from different arsenals.
In this case, Tulle did not originally manufacture a gun in the FH serial block,
that would have been a Saint-Étienne gun,
which at some point would have had a repair that required a new receiver.
Hence it gets a Tulle receiver, probably sometime during or after World War One,
and we end up with this real mishmash of information on the gun.
However, they did follow standard policy on the barrel markings.
Namely, you'll have the manufacturer's name, and the date that the barrel was manufactured.
So, while these guns were all assembled at Tulle, ... that's where the conversion was done,
the barrels were manufactured by four different arsenals and private companies.
This particular one is a Châtellerault barrel, made in 1939.
You'll also find them from MAP, which is Manufacture d’Armes de Paris,
from MF, which is Manufrance, the commercial firearms manufacturing facility at Saint-Étienne,
and you'll also find SACM.
And here is an SACM example from 1937, that is Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques.
It is a private company, they [were] also involved in the manufacture ... of the 1935 pistols.
So as far as the conversion process goes, the back end of the gun is left completely intact.
In this case, we still have the original serial number that matches the original barrel,
so nothing had to be changed there.
This example, however, had a replacement buttstock at some point with a different serial number.
And so they have cut it out and put in a new inlay with a serial number that matches the barrel.
Moving to the front end of the rifle.
Obviously the barrel and magazine tube had been shortened, but the nose cap remains the same.
With the exception of a hole drilled on this side for the retention spring.
Because there is a retention spring on this side that holds in the middle barrel band.
You can see there is still a hole right there from when this was on an original full-length Lebel.
There is simply not enough space in this short bit of handguard
to have retention springs for both bands.
So the middle band is on the right,
and then they drill a new hole to mount the ... nose cap on the left.
The middle band is a new component,
on the original Lebel that would have had a sling swivel on the bottom.
And for these guys, because they are meant to be carried slung across the back,
cavalry style or artillery style, they added a middle band that has a sling ring on it,
like the M16 Berthier carbines and the MAS 36.
A few of the very early conversions were actually done with original Lebel barrel bands,
but those were, I believe, all taken back and retrofitted to this pattern.
The rear sight here is basically the 1920 "A" marked Berthier carbine sight.
It has a wide notch in the back,
and it has this very wide front post to match.
This is the style of sight that was developed during World War One to be more practical
particularly in low light, rather than the original very narrow post and narrow rear sight.
There are actually two versions of that rear sight. This is the standard pattern.
And then SACM actually made a small batch of slightly simplified ones
that don't have that middle cutout in place.
So you will occasionally find them like this.
As far as the finish goes, the guns were Parkerised, and then painted with a black enamel.
Which was typical for everything that the French were doing by the mid-1930s.
This one's in really good shape.
You can see more of the Parkerisation under the flaking off paint on this example.
As I mentioned earlier, the bayonets were also cut down,
just because you didn't need a ridiculously long bayonet on one of these short little carbines.
So, this one is just over a 14 inch blade.
And it's a much heavier cruciform because they took the original
20.5 inch long ones and cut about the front 40% off, so it's still fairly thick out at the tip.
The R35 would be one of the four primary small arms, rifles,
that the French military was issuing and making at the time of the German invasion in 1939.
So, there was this, the short little Lebel.
They were actually still making M16 pattern Berthier carbines up until at least 1939, if not 1940.
Then they were also using Berthiers converted to 7.5, that's the M34 Berthier.
And of course the brand new MAS 36.
They were trying really hard to get the semi-auto MAS 40 into production,
but that just didn't quite happen before the Armistice with Germany.
So, these are pretty cool guns, they are kind of like the Berthier carbines, they are rough to shoot.
They have quite a lot of recoil.
Especially if you are shooting surplus French ammo, that is the Balle N.
1932 N ammunition is really designed for long-range machine gun shooting,
and it's a potent cartridge.
So, personally I don't recommend using surplus French ammo,
in these or in any 8mm Lebel firearms.
PPU, Prvi Partizan, out of Serbia manufactures 8mm Lebel ammunition new.
It is safe to use in both N marked and non-N marked Lebel firearms.
And that's what I would recommend shooting if you are going to shoot one of these,
or any other Lebel or Berthier.
Anyway, if you enjoyed this, if you have a particular interest in French firearms,
well, you might want to get one of my cool "Only Dropped Once" shirts.
... There's a link below to the merchandise shop where you can pick one of those up.
And, of course, thanks for watching.