Guedes M1885

About the Guedes M1885

The Guedes M1885 (Espingarda Guedes-Castro) was a single-shot falling-block military rifle designed by Portuguese officer Luís Guedes Dias and manufactured by ŒWG Steyr in Austria. Chambered in the 8×60mmR Guedes black-powder cartridge, it used an internal-hammer dropping breechblock similar to the Peabody-Martini. It is often called the last European single-shot military rifle adopted, as smokeless-powder repeaters rendered it obsolete almost immediately.

Adopted by no nation's regular army for long, the Guedes was obsolete the moment it was finished: France's 1886 smokeless Lebel changed everything. Portugal paid a cancellation fee, and Steyr quietly dumped its unsold rifles on the arms-hungry Boers, where they ended up fighting the British in the Second Boer War.

Guedes M1885 specifications

Portugal cancelled the contract in favour of the M1886 Kropatschek repeater. ŒWG sold much of the surplus stock to the Boer republics around 1888–1896, where many examples carry ZAR (Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek) markings.