Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on Forgotten weapons dot com I'm Ian McCollum and today
we're taking a look at a Dreyse light rifle or a Dreyse model of 1907 carbine a
Couple different names for the same gun as best. I can tell it doesn't really have a formal designation
There's nothing written on the gun and there's no really good
nomenclature in the very little documentation that exists on this carbine
What we do know is these were manufactured by the Rheinmetall company which at the time was tied to Dreyse and
Dreyse was a fine and industrialists financier who had ties to a lot of gun designers and gun companies and in particular
Louis Schmeisser worked as his chief engineer and designer
So it was actually Schmeisser who designed this little carbine also designed the Dreyse
1907 pistols if you're going to try and search for information on the carbine you will get a lot of information on the pistols because
The pistols are also the model of 1907 and in fact. They are absolutely related. They have a lot of similarities
They break open in the same way. They pretty much operate in the same way as well now the carbine here itself
There's very little information about them out there to the point of I couldn't even guarantee exactly what the year was
I've seen 1905 1906 the most common designation is 1907
I haven't found any good information on how many were made although it certainly wasn't all that many this would qualify as not a commercial
success as
for use
I've seen one source that says these were used by the police in Saxony prior to World War 1
Haven't found any confirmation of that and honestly. I'm a little dubious of this being a police gun
It just doesn't seem like it has the finish and the furniture and the styling of a typical police gun now
it's possible that they manufactured a bunch of these and found themselves unable to sell them and
Offer the batch to the police at a really good price. Maybe something like that happened to me
This is really primarily like a small game little short range hunting rifle sort of
Garden, rifle type of thing I should mention. This is chambered for 765 browning aka 32 ACP
It's this really cute little pistol cartridge has a detachable magazine holds six rounds and just a simple blowback action
So why don't we go ahead and take a closer look at the gun itself?
I'll show you how it comes apart and the similarities to the 1907 pistols
And then we're gonna go out and put some ammunition through it
So there are at least two different styles of markings on these carbines
This one is simply marked Rheinmetall. That's it which doesn't tell you a whole lot
However, there are a number of other examples out there that are marked Dreyse and then
Rheinmetall somewhere down, so we know they are Dreyse carbines although this one isn't marked that way
The only other markings we're going to find on here are a pair of German Imperial proof marks
Here on the right side of the receiver
That's a crown over N. And that was the German proof mark that was used from 1891 until 1939. There's another one on the
top of the bolt block there
So this doesn't really tell us anything about the dates that these were manufactured
Controls are very simple we have a safety right here forward as fire a rearward is safe
We have a magazine release on the very bottom, so you push that forward and you can pull out the magazine
This is interestingly a double-stack magazine
this is
Compatible with basically nothing else it kind of looks like some Bergman magazines
Which does actually make sense given that Dreyse was very much involved with the Bergman pistols as well
Schmeisser of course designed them
So these are pretty scarce magazines to find in there an unusual and interesting style of magazine for a carbine like this
We have a nice checkered grip very
small low-profile forend very basic fixed sights just a simple notch in the rear and
a
Post in the front we do have sling swivels on the gun
Which would be kind of typical for a civilian sporting gun
I think this would make a very nice little brush rabbit sort of gun and
Then lastly for disassembly we have this button on the side, and if you push that button the gun breaks open
With it broken open here
You can see the sear that is going to drop down when you pull the trigger and then comes back up
So semi-auto only and
Then to take out the bolt all you have to do is pull it forward or pull it backward lift up
And it comes right out
Inside of this we have a striker back here
You can see the firing pin coming back and when the striker is cocked
It does protrude out the back of the bolt face
And you can very clearly see that from the outside of the gun the rest of this is here basically just to provide mass
since this is a
simple blowback gun the
More mass you have the longer it stays closed
and you just have to balance that to have the right amount of mass and
Spring tension behind it to open the gun in the proper time frame
I should also point out this little thin here
we actually have two springs in the bolt this one in front is the actual recoil spring and
There's one in the back here that is the striker spring so when you have this locked in the gun
this and see that
compresses like so
To that backs as the recoil spring and that fin is
Held in place in that little slot right behind the ejector so when the gun is when the the whole thing is hinged closed
That locks this
Fin in place which forces the recoil spring to compress every time you fire
Now just for comparison's sake we have the carbine hinged open, and if we take a look at the pistol
there is a latch on the back of the pistol push that to the side and
the pistol also hinges open like so and
The pistol also has a very similar operating mechanism where it's just simple blowback with a long
Basically a mass up here attached to the bolt
There's that and when it's cocked you can see this extending out the back to tell you that it is cocked
All right, let's take this out to the range
So first off just to point out how simple disassembly is I?
Can pull the bolt out without even having to set the gun down on the ground
So if there was a bore obstruction or I wanted to check anything clean anything
very easy to do and
Now it's back assembled and ready to go
So the magazine holds six cartridges if you put in five you can seat it
successfully with the bolt closed with six rounds I can't
however, that's not really important because
Once the magazine is seated you actually can't run the bolt back the bolt gets caught on
One of the on the top cartridge so in order to load it you do actually have to pull the bolt back
Seat the magazine and then drop the bolt
So now it's ready to fire
You can see that we have our the firing pin or the striker sticking out the back that acts as a very obvious cocking indicator
and
32 ACP coming out of a barrel this long is really quite remarkably quiet
Which is pretty cool
Like I said I believe this is actually a hunting rifle something for small game
rabbits that sort of thing
And it would be a very pleasant gun to shoot without your protection as they did at the time compared to anything larger now
One thing in fact. Let me empty the magazine and then I'll show you a
safety tip with this rifle
All right now
Notice that the cocking indicator comes out back here, don't put your thumb right here, or you will get
Or you will or the cocking indicator will hit your thumbnail and break a part of it off and hurt
Don't ask me how I found that out
magazine releases on the bottom and pull that out do one more magazine
(bleep censor)
Did it again
So thumb over here on the side, that's important
Look one little malfunction
Very pleasant little gun to shoot as long as you don't shoot your freaking thumb with it geez ah
Anyway, handy light obviously very low recoil
relatively quiet which is something we don't think about today because
We have it totally ingrained in us to always wear ear protection, but of course that wasn't the case
back in the day so
very cool little gun
So whatever the original
purpose of these guns they are today both quite rare and
Actually quite a lot of fun to shoot as long as you're careful of your thumb
Um hopefully you guys enjoyed the video if you do like seeing this sort of thing on the net
I would hope you would consider taking a look at my patreon account it
Is folks supporting me there for a buck a month or or more if you like the perks that are available
Its those folks that make it possible for me to travel
To places like Sweden where I am right now to bring you cool guns like this one. Thanks for watching