we have covered a number of antique single-shot rifles dug up for the war but today's gun will reveal the origin of what was the world's largest arms producer [Music] hi I'm Matthias and this oh this is the vernal 1860 777 the infantry on the Jaeger Gewehr the tabernacle rifle let's get it over the light box with an overall length of 50 and nearly 1/2 inch and weighing in at 10 pounds this is a heavy single-shot black-powder rifle that chambers the 11 by 58 millimeter 1877 Vernal cartridge and is a mite dated for the Great War today we get to finally go back in time far enough to see the birth of the largest arms manufacturer before the Great War that would be the austro-hungarian powerhouse Oh aww gee four letters that appear in nearly one-third of our episodes so far in this series so let's get started at the beginning this is Leopold Verndale a drill Smith who started his own home workshop in 1821 and with a focus on efficiency and cost control eventually expanded into owning his own factory this was no small feat to achieve and steyr during the early 1800s at the time Thuringia over in what would some day be germany had taken over much of the export market for iron work still more impressive leopold continued to expand his sales in to ramrods Lance tipped barrel bans bayonets knives and more he bought a sawmill and built a water-powered workshop for making barrels which he could cast instead of rolling them making them much stronger within just six years he was one of the most successful businesses in Upper Austria much of this came from the production of the Lorenz muzzleloading rifles for the austro-hungarian Empire a gun that certainly benefited from Leopold's attention but could still be made with old-world craftsmanship now as we know the old guild style of manufacture was not going to last in the face of the latter Industrial Revolution and Leopold well despite his success he just did not see what would be the next step luckily one of his sons would Joseph vernal born in 1831 was the second of an eventual 17 children despite such a large family he would stand out if only because attrition was high his preceding brother remained frail all his life and never took over the family business a further eight of Joseph's other siblings never made it past early childhood so a lot of hopes were pinned on healthy Joseph early on he attended the local school for basic education and later went on to Vienna and 1844 in order to apprentice as a gunsmith and father Leopold had sent him to Austria's greatest Ferdinand forth we have discussed this before actually as eventually we will see through its own son develop an early repeating rifle one that would be taken in by the younger Rundle years later and serve as an inspiration for the crop a check from our prior episode but for now young Vern doll would simply serve two and a half years learning the trade of gunsmithing from the elder forth taking in the best practices of the old world craft went on to the prague arms factory where he was happily soaking up more knowledge until his father recalled him home at the family factory he was further instructed in filing and specific machine skills but young Vern doll felt these were dated practices he wanted to modernize his father's work that did not go over so well feeling stifled he left and joined the austro-hungarian army in 18-49 where he became a light cavalry man his technical skill however was not easy to ignore and he was put to work in the Vienna Arms Factory and it was there that he took particular note of the emerging American system of manufacturer with an emphasis on machinery in interchangeable parts unfortunately being in the army did not put young Joseph outside his father's reach since he produced parts for the empire he simply requested the presence of his son as a representative of the army at his factory this meant that his help was indispensable and so boom he was placed there again he found his father's methods dull and then 18 fifty-two young veranda left again this time traveling to the United States where he worked for some time at Remington and especially cold taking in the latest technology just to give you a sense of timeline this would have been about the time of the rollout of the colt Ranger later known as the Navy in 1853 Verndale would return home with a suitcase full of technical drawings and a firm understanding of what was needed to achieve interchangeable parts production just a reminder this is not some magic secret that somebody just thought up it's a methodology heavily reliant on tools machinery planning and inspection the need for interchangeable parts was understood long before the ability could be developed but Vernal was entering the game just on the cusp of its technological realization and he knew being an early adopter would be extremely important of course convincing his father wasn't going over so well instead of waiting he married bought a home and set up his own workshop to strike it out on his own endeavor but in 1855 his father died unexpectedly only at 58 years of age from cholera this left the family business - his mother Josefa who called on her sons Joseph and of course Franz who was two years younger and mostly handled the financial side of the business until 1863 when he would leave to found his own factory which would focus on steel work everything from nails to barrels so for the most part Josef Warrell found himself in control of his father's business and like the old man he saw opportunity everywhere it took a few years for him to settle into the role but during that period a stroke of luck in 1858 a railway station was established in nearby Linz linking the region to Vienna this dramatically aided growth of exports in steyr in 1859 the second Italian War of Independence resulted in a loss for austria-hungary and saw food prices rising and internal turmoil but for the arms industry it was actually quite profitable knife and gun makers were in demand and workers would pour into steyr this resulted in the first of many housing crises for the region I won't go into me your detail about it but the book we reference for this show does Han stag Mueller covers a lot about Joseph Randle's political beliefs and personal attempts to stem issues from the constant boom-or-bust nature of arms manufacturer at that time where thousands may be hired or fired in a weeks notice depending on wars around the world really it's a complicated issue how legislature government purchasing and other random factors really affect the longevity of a labor force in critical fields but sadly a topic for another day instead I will point out that by 1861 Joseph Randle had mastered his father's business and was on to making improvements specifically wanting to introduce interchangeable parts assembly to austria-hungary that old dog well of course simply manufacturing guns that were designed without this sort of feature in mind that's no real test his company would need his own gun one that would come with the help of one Karl Holub born January 29th and 1830 in Stratton eighths which is present-day Czech Republic he was the son of a farmer young Carl would attend the local village school eventually moved to Prague where he apprenticed as a locksmith from there he joined the austro-hungarian army and likely met Joseph burned awhile assigned to the state arms factory in Vienna where he also attended lectures on mathematics and mechanics at the Polytechnic Institute he was dismissed from military service in 1857 due to a workplace accident I'm unsure the details there he would move on to steyr and work at Johann right mares nail factory until 1861 which is when he joined Verndale Waffen fabric his previous experience and likely already friendly relationship with vernal earned him the job of Foreman that same year would mark the beginning of the u.s. Civil War this conflict which no one can ever make a single joke about would prove to be profitable for arms makers in Europe and it said that about the same time either vernal or Holub where sure who found literally divine inspiration while at mass one of the pair suddenly took interest in the revolving tabernacle and was struck that such a system could be put to use on a breech-loading firearm but just having an idea wasn't enough Vernal needed a whole gun highly advanced rugged and made with interchangeable parts that's the key so in May of 1863 he packed up his bag and his Carl Holub and took both off to the US once again he took Carl straight to colt to show him the latest in manufacturing and the pair would go on to order machinery from Pratt & Whitney now joseph would return home and late july he had a business to run but Carl Halle was left behind to study production technology and manufacturing processes while still in the u.s. he worked at night on the tabernacle rifle sending updates to steyr by this point however Rundle was starting to lose money he had invested his American Civil War profits in American equipment and while it was certainly still a war on the sales in steyr were mysteriously drying up you see as a region they had fallen behind in the iron market and we're being beaten in terms of price versus quality by other suppliers in Europe so much of that once-great burned old factory had to be shuttered employees laid off thankfully Carl would return home in the late autumn of 1863 ready to get that new rifle up and spooled for production despite the recession just if wormdo would gamble at all sinking personal savings and taking out loans in order to build a new factory for his not even finished gun this would house his new American equipment and form the heart of his modern rifle production he just had to get that gun ready and sold before he went bankrupt and we will see he technically failed so yeah steyr arms makers are going silent many shuttering permanently workers are being laid off and Virgil is spending money investing in new equipment this investment made vern --dl the king of a small hill and allowed him to produce large lots of barrels bayonets and other fittings for Vienna Belgium Russia and the Ottoman Empire also requested things from vernal certainly helpful but not enough to pay down the debt that was still mounting hope was forming though in April of 1865 Vienna Arsenal would look at the lidner rifle a percussion cap breech loader while the results were not super inspiring it did lead many to realize the days of the muzzle loader were numbered so yeah vernal is burning his money trying to prepare for the invention and of course subsequent production of a breech-loading rifle for an empire that wasn't really biting this is not looking great his salvation would come though from a war with a traditional Austrian ally Otto von Bismarck leading the effort to unify Germany would pick a fight with Denmark and win in settling the spoils he reached an impasse with austria-hungary and used their quarreling as an excuse for another conflict the austro-prussian war would pump up arms sales and for brief period during the fight money was flowing again but as you history buffs know this was known as the seven weeks war so it did not last too long part of the Smackdown laid on austria-hungary came from the German Thrace a needle rifle it hadn't done a lot at long-range but close in the rapid-fire breech-loader was terrifying allowing smaller mobile groups of Germans to outmaneuver the Austrians additionally unlike the Lorenz it could be reloaded and fired in a prone or crouched position whereas the muzzle loader demanded a standing position while an overall superior rifle it wasn't perfect the Prussians picked their battles carefully and brought in Italy to split the austro-hungarian forces this is what really made for the defeat one that was very sound and humiliating for the hapsburgs and while this would result in a number of measures to modernize the army the one we care about was a sudden and very keen interest in a new breech-loading rifle that pre-war commission was already looking at two objectives ones we have seen a lot in this show can we convert the Lorenz rifle in to breech loaders for cheap and should we develop a wholly new rifle well they also briefly weighed out whether or not the use of a paper cartridge would be advantageous but luckily they settled on the then brand new metallic based cartridge this is a very smart idea a series of trials would kick off but I will save you the usual routine of details austro-hungarian officials were panicked and so launched a new rifle regardless of being able to convert the old stock so it will be no surprise when I say that they adopted yea the Remington specifically the Remington rolling block and eleven point five millimeter rimfire cartridge was selected in 1866 to pair with this American gun the license in Austria was held by Edouard a Padgett we touched on this in a previous episode and thankfully for Vernal there was a slow fumble Remington took a hefty licensing fee which made the cost pretty high Padgett was taking quite a while to cool up and apparently did not really appreciate the difficulty of producing a modern breech loading firearm with interchangeable parts that key word again add on a solid treaty with Prussia and Austria Hungary was not as panicked as before so they slowly reduced their initial 50,000 rifle ordered down to just two thousand which were going to be given to a Jaeger battalion for further testing heck I'm not even sure that those two thousand were ever made meanwhile question number one was solved with the Vonzell conversion this was a simple inexpensive method that was able to convert tens of thousands of Laurens muzzle loaders into a 14.5 millimetre rimfire cartridge interestingly Vern doe would produce 70,000 of these guns that really took the pressure off for a moment and gave austria-hungary time to think and the more they looked at the Remington the more worried they got production was not moving and the cost was very high luckily someone came forward with an alternative you see Vern DeLong Holub had applied for a protection on their rifle finally I don't have it handy but this is nice enough the rotating breech rear loading metallic cartridge rifle was a lot cheaper to produce and they were already tooled up to start the initial production they also had Archduke Wilhelm's attention he stood behind the design and took it to Vienna not a bad vote to have in your favor Vern will sent along three configurations of the gun with various lengths and features to an rimfire and one in the then very cutting edge Center fire metallic cartridge the usual extreme tests were performed with endurance rust sand those of you who watched the show you know the drill with this sort of thing and the gun excelled particularly the center fire model the Austrian officials were so impressed with its accuracy simplicity of operation the rate of fire that averaged 20 to 22 shots per minute they were blown away and honestly the most outstanding feature referenced time and time again in domestic and foreign journals the strength as a matter of fact a London Times reporter actually wrote home about Virgil's rifle after the usual tests of dipping the walk and water smearing it with dirt and sand etc and then firing hair Vern dole took the gun and out of the window of the first floor from which we had been practicing pulling it repeatedly over the lane on a piece of hard stony ground beyond it was brought up again fired over and over having suffered no damage beyond a few bruises from pebbles on the stock the fact is that the barrel and back piece being of one piece of steel and supported moreover by a very strong stock there is nothing to break our friend crow patchak who at this point still worked for vienna not Vernal remark that the gun was not as elegant as the rolling block but was much more natural to the untrained and possibly panicked soldiers along with the usual compliments towards its robustness now by this point I should say that Vern dole was taking on more more work from international orders I don't want to stop the story every time a new major or minor contract walks in the door but from here on out we will see you know guns being ordered in fits and spurts which results in a rollercoaster of hiring and then firing employees of building worker housing and then having to deal with the assets when the work ran out at every other step of the vernal story just imagine that you have to keep this giant behemoth moving constantly forward or it will suffocate under its own weight anyway the Austrian commissioner was simply blown away by the vernal hole of rifle mostly just referred to as the vernal though at this point it would not fail to fire it would not break it was dead simple and the unit cost was very cheap so it was recommended for adoption in July of 1867 the order would come through for 100,000 rifles in August of 1867 at a price of 29 golden fifty cruizer each that's not the guinea-pig vernal himself was due a 100 thousand golden bonus from the government but he waived that in order to secure the contract he even paid Holub two hundred fifty thousand golden out of his own pocket now buying September vernal had eight hundred workers in his factories many entering the one just established for this new rifle but that would not be enough as he had agreed contractually to a very aggressive rearmament schedule he was on a calendar one that he blew twice over now we're finally to this gun right we can talk about it which I got in my hands it's 1867 it's been adopted you know what that means on this show it means it's time to get up close and personal so we're gonna take a little zoom on it now technically this rifle was updated in 1877 as we'll see in a moment but no big difference is that you can see from the outside until we get to this site so let's just go ahead and start there and through the other way this is a standard ladder style sight and these really would have been originally sighted for I believe 16 sure it and in this case this one's been bulked up because of a conversion to a later cartridge talk about that in a moment if I get this guy all the way to the rear we see very long rifle side mount bayonet and you know sort of an open top attachment here we've got a midpoint sling swivel walking down there is our rear sight which is fairly far forward on the barrel but it's so long we still get a good sight radius as we keep coming back big ol trigger guard very reinforced tang I mean look at this metal reinforcement through the wrist that's very strong look at this lock work coming through the wrist although this is only adding so much rigidity because it doesn't go all the way through but still a very deep tang at the back of the action this is a very robust wrist and very thick by the way this is a huge gun even for my meeting mitts so walking back rear sling swivel metal butt plate you guys get the idea a pretty standard rifle stuff what's exciting is here because this thing looks like a mix of old and new I mean we have an external hammer and lock assembly and we'll get a look inside here in a moment but this thing comes off and it's just like the old flintlocks I mean there's not a huge difference in terms of modern technology but the exciting part right here the tabernacle so what we can do is make sure we're in frame and flick that open that's very positive by the way so let me get my own hand all the way it's gonna be a bit tricky listen to that flick flick there's a positive click and what that is coming from actually this flat sided dowel and this component here is actually a spring I'm gonna see if I can get it where you can see it so you go over Center and then boom pops down over Center so we're at that precarious squeaky bit and then as we get over it's like that spring locks us into the open or closed position very positive snap and either place that the gun stays locked when it's locked that way we don't have any problems with you know explosions in our face and then when we want to load it there's no flapping around when we're trying to get a cartridge in there so that it gets pinched and sure enough you do load this by just tossing your cartridge all the way into that hole thumbing it forward and closing the action then we pull the trigger and I'll actually I shouldn't say we pull the trigger at this point we're in half-cocked that's for loading we'd go to full [ __ ] there we go and then we're able to pull the trigger I'm gonna let this down easy boom that strikes the firing pin that strikes the cartridge and then we get our shot once we fired the gun you'll note you can't open the action hammer actually serves to seal it up even further there's gonna be no problems here until we go to a half cocked position at the half cocked position we can open the action and you may be able to see down in there you know what let's see right up on this left side online guys I'm fighting together there we go there we go you can probably see it just there little make sure she's in frame this little bit of metal right in here if I thumb this over you should see it popping out that is our extractor and essentially ejector so you even get my big net all the way see it wiggling in there so that guy does both things it pulls that cartridge straight out and then kicks it down this way give her a little pop back and she'll come flying right on your way you can throw your next one in there so very simple system I mean think of the manual arms on this we we're gonna open her up throw one in close it full [ __ ] fire she's locked up shut you can't accidentally play with her and then half [ __ ] all the way open cartridge in closed at this point by the way in half [ __ ] we can't drop that hammer there can be no accidents of loading this and sort of playing with the trigger so when you take this up to shoulder that's when you go for full talk and then that way it's very safe to operate this gun online with fairly poorly trained or educated soldiers fairly idiot-proof if a little bit slow very cool idea though now I will not be disassembling this on from the camera anyway because it really wasn't designed to be filled disassembled this is a whole assembly as it is as a matter of fact the geometries to reassembling this gun can be a little tricky if you don't know what you're going in for it's better discussions served by safe mark or somebody else but realistically we will get a look inside in just a moment but first let's talk about accessories bayonets the initially onigen style would be the same as developed for the remington rolling block with a blade length of nearly 23 inches in 1870 a lightened version was introduced same general size but hollow ground to reduce weight the cartridge was an 11 by 42 millimeter centerfire designed by Martin will Berger of the artillery it would actually be adopted after the initial rifle production started thankfully the necessary machining could be saved for last now here's the thing I want to show you this gun in detail but by what War one we are talking a whole other cartridge as you may have heard me mention this has a lot more heat on it so just keep that in mind as you watch the animation in May subsequent presentation that in 1867 this would have been a much duller cartridge than what we're showing today first let's just cycle through one round to get a feel for this gun [Music] the lock is just a simple cylinder which houses the firing pin the hammer must be cocked manually first to the half-cocked position to open the action and then after loading around to the full [ __ ] position in this 1867 version the hammer spring also serves as the trigger spring making for a very heavy pull through [Music] the hammer falls and strikes the firing pin in that cylinder shoving it into the primer and discharging our cartridge we then get a half [ __ ] allowing the pin to spring back and we open the cylinder which has a camming surface that engages to practically wrap around extractor if we just open the cylinder to its neutral point we don't really get much extraction instead the user must push it over center to get that extractor to really pop if you have a stuck casing you can also repeatedly bap this paddle until it's cleared the two resting points of the cylinder are held by a flat spring down the wrist of the gun this acts on two flat spots machined on to the central rod running through the cylinder causing it to snap into either the open or closed position this gun was certainly more complicated than I bet you expected but at least you understand it now so let's get it over to May for live demonstration [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you know this is a pretty straightforward rifle kind of hard to get it wrong as the shooter alright so mace gun demonstrated and last we left off vernal had to make one hundred thousand of these particular guns now austria-hungary wisely sought to have another manufacturer or maybe two produced the vernal as well one hundred fifty thousand of them but searching the world over they just couldn't find as good a deal as Joseph himself was offering in order to take on all the production he would reduce his prices eventually down through twenty seventh floor and thirty-three cruizer per gun and took the additional 150,000 making for two hundred fifty thousand total pieces again he swore to an aggressive schedule the expansion that would be costly however and he requested in advance of seven hundred thousand Florin now the long rifle here from hell that was meant to satisfy both the infantry and the jaegers those are the light infantry we've talked about before but there were other units in need of specialized shortened carbines the first was for the cavalry so no bayonet and a sling swivel at the front of the trigger guard these were actually offset a little to the inside to help with carrying up on the back and then we have the extra core the usual short rifle for anyone who is not frontline infantry Yeager or cavalry you can spot one by that rear sling swivel attached under the butt instead of at the trigger guard these guns still had no bayonet lug but instead were paired with a simple socket style poker this remained unchanged through subsequent models something wildly interesting about these carbines they were not chambered for the same rifle ammunition instead they were fitted with a bullet that was exactly the same but a milder charge and smaller case that makes this an 11 by 36 millimeter straight wall centerfire cartridge these lighter loads were meant for shorter ranges and easier handling and they were also part of an effort cavalry onto a single realm you see the Vern doll was not just going to be marketed to being the Empire's rifle and carving it was going to be their pistol as well we will talk more about that in whatever took it in trials another day but it does mean that austria-hungary for time had a combination carbine and pistol cartridge this is something that we actually usually see in the American West anyway 25,000 shortened guns cavalry and extra core are ordered from further than through worth which would mean Verna would not be the sole manufacturer well until he bought them out in 1872 this man is the Ludwig love of Austria everybody now Vern dole is on the hook for 250,000 rifles and he has deadlines to make so he bulks up the company buying new factories and hiring scores of workers swelling to 12,000 total to further aid him he would request help in the form of a dedicated military representative one he had known before that's Otto schannauer who like crow patchak would also later come to work for Vern doll and we have seen in a previous episode okay nice bit of aid there but believe it or not we are still not done adding rifles the Hungarian government would request that Vernal produced 72,000 more this time for the whole hood on the condition that he set up a factory in Budapest which he did this would actually operated a net loss over a few short years before it was shuttered the Hungarian government would lease the property for barracks afterwards and eventually they bought it outright at that point they converted it back into a factory buying tooling from Ludwig lova in order to reduce the Mon liquor 1888 returning to 1869 however Vern dalla had finally bit off more than he could chew despite the contracts and the employees and the advances he had spent everything and the bank was not happy about missed payments it was all threatening to come crashing down and at this point he did the only thing he really could do he sold the company well sorta he set up a publicly traded company with six million golden in capital and then divided it into 30,000 shares Vern des would keep 13,500 of those for himself and so Joseph and Franz Vern de land company Waffen fabric and saga mule that would become all stutter akasha Waffen fabric guess shelf soft in August of 1869 bought up for the price of 5.2 million golden Joseph's window would become the general manager and Carl hold of the director let us put some perspective on this by the way Oh aw gee now has nine factory buildings ten residential buildings six magazines a machine in boiler house 10 water wheels and various other equipment in stired in nearby des Letton they have eight factory buildings nine Residential's three magazines a sawmill in thirty-one water mills not including the works going up in budapest that would later be abandoned with the reforming of the company more assets were put under Virgil's control and by 1870 Oh aw gee swelled to 2,900 employees making it the largest arms manufacturer in Europe now a lot of this had to do with producing guns for other nations and again we saw these in each of their respective episodes but dang this is a huge endeavor off of one gamble so there's initial 250,000 Verndale rifles they were wrapped up in June of 1870 several months late but thankfully the government understood some of the unavoidable delays like waiting on American deliveries various worker strikes in oh you know one of the factories burning out and having to be rebuilt further orders would follow as many as 200,000 for the home fed in ninety thousand more in Austria there were a lot of these guns six hundred seventy-two thousand assembled rifles for Austria and Hungary are on record with eleven thousand additional carbines kind of weird how uncommon they are now long hard lives I suppose now the wanza land the Vern dole served together for some years until the latter production could completely displace the conversion gun and it's dated rimfire cartridge the first front line east of the Verne doll would be the austro-hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 although I doubt it was widely issued at that point and interestingly that would be its only conflict as the primary arm of the jewel and pyre somehow the Habsburg would stay out of trouble long enough for another gun to be adopted but that does not mean that there were no lessons learned and no improvements for this particular rifle and tons at all ski yes the wacky magazine guide took particular interest in refining the initial 1867 model he tried to make it simpler to produce and easier to repair and also more durable and it seems he succeeded as a matter of fact there were a number of little improvements that they needed to put into this gun a lot of requests from the jaegers and so that makes this hmm the Rundle model 1873 77 an improved Tabernacle rifle light box still fifty point four inches long and now only nine and a half pounds this rifle by the time of the war also chambered that 1877 cartridge this guy really just embodies some basic changes to the Vernal a wishlist of improvements made whole in November of 1874 now in particular this rifle was decommissioned with extreme prejudice there's some weld marks and some other little things that are wrong with it let's not get that in our way so I'm gonna take this aside and despite its in Opera bility we are still going to take a closer look alright some pretty glaring differences right away but let's go for the little stuff first so all the way at the front of this thing by the way there was a cleaning and clearing rod for the other gun this is very similar it's just that this one happens to still be here we would have seen it on the previous one if it was complete same side mount bayonet lug but look at this we have a totally different attachment for that front barrel ban this is much more modern we've got a nice spring steel here this is looking pretty good they must have had some problem Walker back usual midpoint barrel bandwidth sling Walker back same lower barrel ban insane Genoa over your site these will be adjusted depending on the cartridge now as I get back here we start to see a pretty major difference in terms of the appearance I got this little guy right here and me it's probably gonna be very happy about that because that's so that we can get in here and pull this right into our shoulder get some good control as if we had a semi pistol grip stock but we don't have to blow all that effort of picking out the better grained wood and doing all the shaping I mean just bolt this sucker on and also it's still adding that nice rigidity all the way through the system this most likely came at the request of the jaegers because they really miss this little feature from prior guns now if I walked back again same for your sling swivel same general butt plate and let's just walk back to Center this a heavy boy yeah the overall action is the same okay I'm in half [ __ ] I open her up I put it on a cartridge I close her up I go to full [ __ ] which is very sticky on this gun so or she's in bad shape there we go this can't eat some work so then we fire and then she comes apart because as I said this thing is in very poor shape this is not even the correct screw so please forgive any little problems with this gun it is here as a representative of its class it is not going to obviously make it to the range as a matter of fact they're gonna hold that shut so I can do that okay so let's get back in the frame as funny as that was that is a serious if you mark would be very pleased to see this thing so you may notice that the big differences are we now have an internally set hammer this takes off the side less likely to snag and take damage moves it in the centerline of the gun a little bit more nice and shrouded same general operation a little bit more modern although we're still using an external hammer on a rifle like this now at the rear you're gonna see that hole spring assembly is gone remember that flat spring that was back here instead this guy's plugged in now I unfortunately do not have the ability to get this out very quickly and it's really boring on camera so I went ahead and disassembled and took some photos for you I'll prompt those now but basically what we've got is a central rod with the flats cut into it that then goes into the actual cylinder and then there's a plunger and spring in the cylinder that interact with that and cause it to click into its various places much more compact and I assure you it is way easier to get in and out of this gun in that particular configuration and by the way while we're playing with pictures they also improve the trigger ever so slightly if you look at this 1867 in this 1873 side plate you're gonna see that there's an additional spring specifically for the trigger so that you're not pulling against the incredibly heavy mainspring when firing now coming back to our video we're gonna see we have these big side plates lots of extra metal on here to really reinforce the action and this may be because they were considering a stronger cartridge option doesn't come for a few more years though overall much more modern in presentation but still you know this is a vernal right you're not gonna have if you're a soldier you almost never noticed the difference between the two guns as a matter of fact here let me just go ahead you probably never noticed the difference I mean operationally exactly the same it's just that the the way it functions is entirely different in terms of that spring position and also just some general reinforcements of the action I have these guys because it's so hard to show the closeup take a look very carefully I only get them closer to my face that foots in the depth of field the rear sight it's a little bit close to the shooters eye so they're trying to get an improved sight radius on this gun and pretty hard to tell from there let me get you back in the improved these guys are heavy and long and I'm on my own in here there we go the improved tang so this is the old thing look how thin they used to get this wrist now so all that thickness can go away because we no longer have to bed all of this and have the extra thickness of wood here we can just have solid wood all the way through with the metal reinforcement underneath very good you know simple but direct upgrades to this particular gun fantastic really alright so make some room here now I'm in the fact that this was probably designed for an improved cartridge with all this extra reinforcement that's because there was a big push for you know a more powerful cartridge for Vernal one that would reach out a bit further require modification of the design just a teeny tiny bit this idea however was rejected and instead the 1873 stayed with the original 1867 load although it appears they did switch from Tom back to brass cases and reinforced the base that case a little to improve the extraction and more reliable primers now new rifle means new bayonet shorter at eighteen point six inches and with a push button at the same time all previous bayonets were ordered to be shortened four inches to conform to the new pattern again a carbine an extra core guevara would be produced with the same sling differences these embodied all the same improvements of the action a very slight uptick in the cartridge power as the handguns by this time had taken an entirely distinct path now I know what you guys are thinking why did a Cius introduce the 73 if he wasn't going to shoot it well originally we were expecting to be able to run this gun on the range for you but obviously it came in in interesting shape and did not happen so instead I'm gonna have to just set it down and point out that we do have this the Vern doll 1873 77 extra core Gewehr not only thirty nine in a half inch long and weighing in at seven point three pounds this is a much handier shoulder arm the chamber is the smaller 11 by 36 millimeter carbine cartridge and honestly outside of the cartridge it's just the same as the rifle but you know as usual oh good lord let's take a closer look so I set this guy back down I'm gonna put this one where you can see it so if any of you are truly eagle-eyed I'll point out that these components back here actually came straight off the 73 long rifle actually the other way around that's 73 came in missing parts and we wanted to be able to show it to you so we borrowed some off the carbine that is how interchangeable these are you could just take parts off of the put it on the long rifle even though the chambering is different this is the Verndale method being able to produce one thing over and over and over again alright so let's take a look with that in mind obviously it's gonna be just the same as the 73 I mean identical through here until we get into that smaller chamber and shorter barrel and overall length we've got our sling swivel up front dangling and we would have had a cleaning / clearing rod in a channel under here that's just absent on this particular example as I walked back we have a shorter rear sight that would have originally been for all of 600 shrit although with the upgraded cartridge this one's been bumped up more on that in a moment and as I get her back same internal hammer same everything else except if we look under here at our trigger guard we've got a little hole right there right now they produce the same trigger guard for all the carbines and just did not use this hole unless it was a cavalry model at which point at that final step of assembly they would just go ahead with Boop put a sling swivel in there if it was cavalry or if not they would go ahead and inlet the rear of the stock like on this one and put in this loop back here that means that this was an extra cork of air alright so with all that covered I think it's safe to get this little guy over to May you I'm not gonna watch this might have taken the prize as the cutest rifle we have shot for this series but let's get back to some history turning back to the overall 1873 series we have some production figures that we need to cover 400,000 of these guys would be made for the Home Army and 100,000 carbines in extra core rifles in 1880 Montenegro would also take in 20,000 long rifles and an 81 Iran ordered 18,000 rifles in 10,000 carbines now those latter dates come after austria-hungary finally took the advice given to them way back with the 1873 that would be the 1877 improved cartridge the case length was increased with powder to match and it hooked the bullet faster and further this is what we have been shooting for the whole episode this new ammo would require some modification the rifles however nothing too extreme they just needed to remount the chamber give it a bit of give to allow the cartridge to fit and also modify the shape of all this tray plus you had to change out that rear sight from well in the rifle 1600 maximum shrit to 2100 and with that blammo the 1877 bundle which was accepted in March of 1878 previous 1867 and 1873 were converted to this pattern I'm honestly not sure what the delay was because if they had jumped on the initial offer to beef up the cartridge with the original 1873 long rifle they would have not had to come to convert so many of them later on but oh well more money for Vern dole from the land Maryland vet at least the kaeun decay got theirs done at the state Arsenal and vienna production of the 77s would last until 1884 with all previous guns updated austria-hungary now has the 67 77 and the 7377 in service and Titanic numbers by the way there would also be an updated carbine cartridge and at first the Tom Bakk was retained but in the - this also went to brass the overall case length was the same so the old IMO could still be used there is also some splitting here from the pistol cartridge but more on that another time carving sites were updated from 600 to 100 4000 shrit this is an extremely ambitious setting for this very minor update so now we have the long rifle and the carbines updated and they really are quite reasonable guns for their era they stack well against their neighbors just as powerful and perhaps more robust with similar fire rates and now while the dual Empire had caught up in small arms tech I mean nothing really stands out as inferior to anybody else and yet there are no real major conflicts I mean the next bit of combat would be the Boxer Rebellion in 1899 and by then we have seen several models come and go the mon liquor 1886 88 and 1890 the 1890 carbines and finally locking on to the 1895 rifle and their carbines and to be fair we have covered them all before austria-hungary panicked reaction to smokeless powder resulted in hundreds of thousands of surplus repeating rifles sure the cartridges were a bit dated but they were good enough as a backup once war were declared all right let me let me put these guys aside because well that 73 is loose and this carbine really wasn't all that President as we'll see in a moment all right let's get this guy out the 67 these are in a lot of the photos all right so funnily enough austria-hungary was so big that even at the beginning of the war they had tons of spare mon liquors that they could dig out and still needed more guns on top of them that meant dusting off the vern Dalls records indicate some 118,000 we're still in the inventory in 1914 no real mention of the carbines though and to be honest I think I found like maybe one photo that had one present and that might not even have been from World War one I can't confirm I kind of doubt they were fielded rifles though well they were worth digging up the moniker 1886 also still in large reserves used the same ammunition so it wasn't a huge bother to leave both in rear line service they mostly stayed with a lundström these were reserves made up of men aged 34 to 55 and they should have been kept from direct combat but the radical changes along the Austrian fronts and desperate need of men and equipment pushed them right up to the front line relatively often in from photos we can see the rifles came with I also have found Vern Dalls in the hands of the Polish artillery Corps specifically although they more commonly had Mo's ins or dated mon liquors at least from other photos I have also unearthed another reason we know the Vern dualsaw World War one use is because not one but two air SATs bayonets were cooked up and they are awful there was a spring styled knife not unlike the 1895 air sets this was okay and this monstrosity a spike that simply coiled around the barrel obviously that latter one did not like remaining snug in combat outside of the usual duty verbal rifles were also cut down and converted to explosive marker launchers these were blank fired devices that would pop a cloud of smoke about 50 meters or so above a given area now I honestly did some research and couldn't turn up quite why I thought that would be something that's pretty apparent I suspect there are a number of good uses for this like setting artillery or communicating with troop movements but I just could never pin down exactly what they were doing with it I still lean towards artillery so yeah that is about it another old black-powder rifle drug into the first truly modern war and we have seen this before the French with the remington rolling block or the gras 74 the italian vet early 7087 or the germans dragging out the mauser 1870 ones always in limited desperate use but also freeing up more modern rifles for common duty at least in the case of the vernal it really did get caught up in the front on occasion and well that's a testament to its durability I'm not sure I would be very happy if I was issued one of these things at the front turning back to the inventors Joseph indle did not have the easiest personal life his wife would suffer from what was then known as mental derangement before passing in 1878 in 1882 Joseph Randall would go on vacation for a nervous attack and in 1883 his only son died of lung disease at only 27 years old in 1885 carl hullick would resign from a AWG citing differences of opinion with management this may have come from the fact that he was a conservative man and Verne Doyle was a social liberal who still managed to avoid unnecessary pay races though Carl would stay on in steyr serving in various civil service positions until his death in 1903 despite losing his immediate family and good friend Joseph Wordle kept working over his life he had earned high honors from Prussia Italy Romania Iran and Portugal and at home he was awarded the Order of the iron crown third-class this actually had an option to apply for knighthood receiving a tax exemption in changing his name into a formal titled name Vern toll however was a humble man at heart and when asked about never flexing the honor he replied as Vern d'lai was born as burned alive on to die and he would in April of 1889 succumbing to pneumonia he was actually well remembered for caring about his workers and community I mean he built housing formed fire brigades started worker education programs swimming schools and donated land and money to poor houses these were not popular things after repeated hirings and firings he supported pension programs and other benefits of course there were limits though I mean he fought demands for raises and strikes when they usually arose at the worst times when no work was coming in still he was generally remembered as a businessman who brought prosperity to the entire region and used his profits generously in the pursuit of well philanthropic ideals in the end he would pass away due to pneumonia like I said but looked a pretty full life before that anyway before I wrap up if this seemed like a long episode for such a really basic gun you're right but here's the thing all of this plays into a history that we see over and over and over again the number of guns that Vern dole factories produced later branded as OE w/g of course that were involved in the Great War is simply staggering I mean a significant portion of the whole system of small arms throughout Europe came through steyr and we just keep hearing the name in episodes past ending stories we haven't even got to yet Joseph's learned or is on one gun and in the end he made millions arming like I said half of Europe just before a war that changed everything heck this scroll by does not even include the neutral powers incredible what one man's determination and chance can do and yeah it's grim but in fairness there would always be some other merchant of death alright let's focus back on these particular rifles and get them over to May for her opinion all right once more we have made room for me and you know we film these in sets so we just talked about a very modern machine gun and now we're talking about if I'm here you ancient rifle so let me put this in your hands because I don't know if we could talk about any two radically different things being fielded in one more as that so we have the Verne doll a single-shot black-powder Austrian rifle and in a lot of ways being a single-shot metallic cartridge it's still dated like it really does have the appearance of a percussion cap rifle so I can't wait to get your opinion on the ergonomics of this particular gun yeah for reals guys this feels and looks absolutely dated let's get into it so it is incredibly heavy the balance point however not too bad it actually isn't isn't too far off from under the sights unfortunately the stock is very short here in terms of like it just it's not very deep so when I'm wrapping my hand around it I just I naturally almost want to wrap around to grab metal so just bear that in mind when you're shooting that one make sure you hold it in tight and just keep your fingers wrapped around out that towards the bottom it is a straight wrist and unfortunately this wrist is incredibly fat too it really is very uncomfortable so pulling it into my shoulder yeah it feels like I'm just not really getting a solid purchase on that like I'm not able to get a full wrap around with that one unfortunately the action you know I'll get into the shooting part of it because that's kind of with loading and unloading that I'm gonna get more into detail but if it wants to flip over just fine it's just there are some issues with restriction that I ain't want to get into a little bit later I'm not a huge fan of the external hammer I really do feel like as a thighs to saying it kind of looks like a percussion cap rifle at this point with that feature but I mean it it's a solid hammer there's a good bit of heft to it so just expect to you're gonna want to get a good like purchase on that with your thumb or like I did in the video I just used my two fingers when I lift it up to my shoulder to actually [ __ ] the hammer back but yeah ergonomics wise I feel like I'm I've got a super data piece compared to everything else I've shot in this series this looks the most dated yeah I'm not gonna lie always like you hunted Napoleon with that thing no it's nicknamed the tabernacle rifle because that rotating closure so if you haven't heard me playing with it 16 times over it does click right into position pretty smart free sharp I liked it I don't know that I want to fight you with it but it's fun it's really fun to play with it's like it's like a revolver usually it's absolutely fun to play with but the problem is is that you get one shot at a time you got to make that shot count so let's talk about shooting so you have to load ready and fire this rifle has a very unique setup do you want to walk us through that absolutely so in order to load this gun like I said it is single loaded you do have to flip the action open thumb the cartridge in and by the way folks this can't be hammer down the hammer has to be cocked or you actually do have the ability to do this at full [ __ ] as well I just recommend doing it at half [ __ ] that just feels safer and better to me then you need to make sure you close the action line up your sights at that point you're gonna want to [ __ ] the action like I said I use my two fingers or three fingers or you can use your thumb whatever is easiest for you and unfortunately these sights on this gun are extremely like they're extremely wide but they are not tall they are insanely tiny which is a really unfortunate thing and then look how far four they are they could have honestly dropped these sights further back just to give me a little more a sight radius but nope that's not gonna happen that's definitely gonna happen but more on this particular gun no that's true we'll get into that in a moment though and then the trigger on this gun it is the heaviest trigger I have handled to date for the series and honestly it's kind of interesting I it was hard for me to put into perspective how heavy this trigger was because of all the things I've shot so far that it took oath eyes pointing it out actually on range that he was like goodness gracious and we haven't shot anything quite that heavy before for me to fire it again and be like oh no wait that isn't insanely heavy trailer I'm gonna point out that may is broken because she's the only person out of everybody that handled this gun to load it ready it pull the trigger and then go is the safety on is there a seat like everybody who first fired this gun when something's wrong because it's that heavy it is so heavy this one however as long as she can crank down on it with her big meaty mitts she was just like oh okay boom never thought the second thing of it I think I had one of the strongest index fingers of the world yeah some of the double action revolvers are gonna get into might beat this gun out in the long run but this is a single action extremely I mean I jokingly call it thirty pound trigger like it is it is impressive now the reason for that is because the hammer spring is the trigger spring like the triggers on the other end of that spring that is a lot to crank down yeah that's a good idea yeah so there's no take-up but it's just boom so alright Requa cuz you haven't said that but you actually pulled the trigger it's very heavy we get that but what happens once you pull it now there is actually a decent amount of recoil i was fairly surprised about that it definitely was a it definitely wasn't something I was anticipating at all because I'm thinking I've got the weight of the gun behind me I'm thinking you know with the cartridge itself was it's not the most modern cartridge so everything about it was screaming that the recruit wasn't gonna be that bad but no there was still a good bit of climb with muzzle on that one no they don't forget this is the 67 77 they had cranked up to the Magnum version of the cartridge it's still a big 11 millimeter bullet a big case full of black powder and it's got you know it's a little freight train coming at you I mean I don't want to get hit by one I think it would spin you around maybe take you on a date or two and then let you retire slowly in Florida it wouldn't call you for a third date though yeah so this gets us like we're moving we're trucking but this there's not a lot to say it's a single shotgun in terms of single shots I should say we've shot the remington rolling block we've shot the mauser 71 we've got some stuff how does it rank among the single-shot rifles do you mean specific opinions in terms of would you prefer this over a rolling block or any others you know actually I found that with the gras and the Mauser theoretically you can just throw around in you can close the action she's good to go with this one unfortunately you have to thumb it all the way in and it's not like with the Remington rolling block where I could like put it partially and close her up and she's good to go no you actually got to push all the way up make sure the rim is fully seated in there and then close the action and if you do not push it all the way in by golly folks it will let you it will not close yeah I found to be very slow like I know people were impressed because it wasn't a muzzle loader at the time but you having looked at the rolling block I agree with you it's like I you know the rolling block seems weird to me overall because there's no tray you have to actually aim at the hole so there's a little bit of fine manipulation right so when we look at like the Mauser 71 you bolt it up and each throw it in a tray and then you close the tray oh it's there to close the bolt across the tray and it picks it up that's the easiest possible way that we've seen so far and I always thought the rolling buck is a lock word because I have to aim it and put it in there and get it most of the way in there before I flip up the lever but then I came across this thing where you have to like throw it even this kind of a tray but then it healthy it helps you a little bit it like guides you to the hole but you're something your thumb sucks to go all the way forward all the way and then you get to rotate it across I found that to be a little weird and it does take some time like it's definitely not a speedy gun yeah alright so all that said I'm gonna assume that you're gonna give this high praise in World War one as a weapon of combat in that particular conflict it would stand toe-to-toe with everything else you've seen so far correct you know I think this tops I think this goes over the Vickers gun and everything else like I feel like that's really up there no folks come on seriously this can't possibly be good eh yes because this is probably I mean I haven't timed it and I guess someone's gonna go back and time it and then totally tell me huh huh you were wrong but I'm fairly certain this is the slowest loader out of all the guns we have shot so far to date so and well aside from the Reichswehr over we go sir what like putting the revolver system the right revolvers fastnesses yeah got it just might be but ya know putting all that aside this is definitely not something I want to take into battle yeah I mean by the way a lot of that time on camera you may notice didn't come up just from the loading slow it kiss you got kind of fasted that you got a rhythm but you spend a lot of time on target because that is just a half to that trigger so trying to make sure that you actually hit what you're aiming at while fighting that big heavy single stage trigger it was pretty wild and then I'm not sure if it was this particular piece or all of them in general but extraction on this one was not the best so in case you noticed there were a few times where I definitely had this land this action open and pop it a few times just to definitely make sure it had ejected that cartridge out so yeah that's another reason why I wish we had done to actually shoot this guy who's sadly broken and missing some pieces but this is the 7377 this has a reinforced receiver and some other fine features does anything about this gun I know you didn't get to shoot it but let me hand it to you does anything about that gun actually stand out let me set this down as a real improvement you know already it's definitely a higher gun ranking for me because it's got a thinner wrist it's got a semi pistol grip now a meadow which is fantastic so I'm really able to seat this into my shoulder well it's perfect the sights are pulled further back extending my sight radius which is fantastic and the the side here it definitely feels more modern in that the Hammers not internal instead of external so I'm not really having to worry about it snagging on anything let's call that recessed because it's still out there it's just not it's it's out here but like it's definitely not gonna catch on my clothing very easily I agree with you though it's just so much easier to control because you can thumb over this when I even with my big hands I could not thumb over the other one it was it's too awkward and what they've done is they definitely dialed it back down in giving you a little comb and you can get down in there and actually hold the gun you could pull the gun and with the finger and now your sights are much closer to your eye I feel like this is a much easier gonna use these are little things that make a big performance improvement so when people laugh because we always say oh this is a straight wrist or this is that it matters it matters a lot like they did these are big change it with little changes with a big sort of consequence in terms of combat and speed so we did not get to shoot this though so I'm going to set it aside I know that's a disappointment for everybody but we did get to shoot its little brother because this is a 7377 extra core Gewehr which in our eyes is a carbine it's very small but this has all the improvements of the other gun it has the recessed hammer and then most importantly as May will probably tell you this has a trigger upgrade so before you comment on this as a carbine what can you tell us about using the 73 action regardless of the recoil the cartridge differences is the 73 action a little bit better honestly it is almost exactly the same but that trigger is way better it's way lighter you can tell the difference on that is absolutely beautiful the recoil on it it's definitely an improvement to though but that's because of different cartridge yeah so this is the carbine it uses what was going to be a handgun and carbine cartridge that got passed over to a certain well a certain revolver that we're gonna talk about in some very you know upcoming episode but where are we at in terms of this being a carbine is it an improvement over the rifle to you in any way it is an improvement in terms the manoeuvrability and in terms of the action it's like I said with that trigger that's just absolutely beautiful yeah other than that unfortunately the sights on the carbine are a little bit smaller and somehow they are still not any taller they are still very t tiny so yeah there's still some definite improvements here but unfortunately this these aren't improvements worthy of taking it into battle so because I still got the slow loading that I have with the previous with the rifle there's just no taking away from that so you're you're also shootings on its kind of equivalent to 4440 like you're getting into like handgun cartridge range not quite as you know it's not quite that low powered but still this is not the beef I've definitely downgrade in terms of cartridge here in power so now I will say can you imagine shooting the rifle cartridge out of that little thing honestly that would be hilarious but the recoil on that would be insane yeah I like this concept by the way you know it's one of those things where people say that there's no new ideas Under the Sun you know you're talking about the m1 carbine where the US sort of radically stepped away from having the 3006 cartridge and they said look let's make a car me that does not use the same rifle cartridge austria-hungary already did that back in 1867 they said let's have a rifle cartridge and a carbine cartridge which will also be a handgun cartridge which is even weirder but again that's another story so I think it's fascinating I haven't been able finding real evidence of these being in the war so I guess you really don't have to answer that question even though you already did which is that now this is not going to be something that you'd want to carry out it's just not something that I could see defending myself with considering I got a slowly load one route at a time okay it's a pistol cartridge practically so I have a challenge if you had to pick if you were going to get into a fight and you had to choose between these two would you go with trying to lug this thing around and still having the range in the power or would you just try to be maneuverable and get away with it with that little guy mine over almost and get away with this little guy simply because I feel like that's maneuverability for the war was definitely a hire like that was something that was more important for me I would think I would almost choose the carbine on the basis that the noise that this thing makes is outstanding even on a battlefield yeah I would definitely agree beautiful the whole shooting this gun so that's gonna cover the Vandal for today did you have any additional notes for anybody at home no I kind of want one so well yeah that thing is probably the most fun I think this one's ours right we did find that one I found that one at a gun show so we lucked out for once so yes well gets you some ammo loaded for once your dream is true you can actually go shoot the gun on the range now how about a Vickers no we don't own that okay so thank you everyone for tuning in and we'll see you next time bye guys you [Music] well we are doing the messy selfie update because I remembered it only as we started to compile the episode for tonight I'm gonna be dead honest with you guys it has been a very stressful month I started to write a list of everything that's gone wrong between guns coming in broken and ammo not working and parts coming and then we need to fabricate and then not know and I used a car trouble and people trouble and parts trouble you get the idea and they just you need a big circle like every time I get one thing the next one comes up but the big one that a lot of you may be aware of is that there's some drama with patreon some people would like to no longer use the service I understand that if you are a patron supporter of ours and you would like to stop using patreon that's obviously your call I do not currently have an alternative we did try subscribe star they are currently not processing payments so SMS if you are willing to stick it out please do though because we just blew through every bit of leftover funding and took on another financial risk by having may come over full time so that we could knock out a super secret project for January that should release in February apparently when I you know decided to play my Hail Mary that's when everything has to come on undone but we'll get there so I'm sorry this is so scattered but I'm gonna turn this off plug in my phone throw it on there compile it and then immediately start doing six other things so wish me luck alright bye
