Kropatschek Mle 1878 Marine

About the Kropatschek Mle 1878 Marine

The Kropatschek Mle 1878 'Fusil de Marine' was a bolt-action, tube-magazine repeating rifle designed by Alfred von Kropatschek and adopted by the French Navy to replace the Chassepot. Chambered for the 11mm Gras cartridge and fed from a seven-round Winderless-style brass tubular magazine in the forestock with a magazine cut-off, it was the first commercially successful Kropatschek design and the direct ancestor of the French Lebel Mle 1886. Roughly 25,000 were built by Steyr in Austria.

Delivered 'in the white' with bright polished steel rather than blued, the naval Kropatschek pioneered the tube-magazine repeater layout that France would later wrap around smokeless powder to create the world-shaking Lebel rifle.

Kropatschek Mle 1878 Marine specifications

Distinct from the single-shot Fusil Gras Mle 1874; the Kropatschek 1878 adds a tubular magazine making it a repeater. Its action and magazine layout directly informed the design of the Mle 1886 Lebel.