Carabina de Artilharia 8 mm m/1886/91

About the Carabina de Artilharia 8 mm m/1886/91

The Carabina de Artilharia 8 mm m/1886/91 is the artillery-carbine version of the Austrian-designed Kropatschek m/1886 bolt-action repeater adopted by Portugal, chambered for the 8x60mmR Portuguese (8mm Guedes) cartridge and built by Österreichische Waffenfabriks-Gesellschaft (OEWG) at Steyr. Like the other short Kropatschek variants, it takes the standard m/1886 infantry rifle and shortens it into a handier weapon for gun crews and support troops who did not need a full-length rifle, retaining the distinctive Kropatschek tubular magazine running through the forestock and a magazine cutoff so the reserve could be held back and the carbine single-loaded. The '/91' in its designation marks its 1891 pattern within the Portuguese Kropatschek family, which by then had spread across infantry, cavalry, caçadores, treasury-guard and artillery service.

Portugal fielded one of the widest families of a single rifle pattern of its era, breaking the Kropatschek m/1886 into distinct infantry, caçadores, cavalry, treasury-guard, colonial and artillery models — the artillery carbine, marked m/1886/91, being the last of the line to be adopted.

Carabina de Artilharia 8 mm m/1886/91 specifications

Carbine-specific barrel length, overall length and empty weight for the artillery pattern were not confirmed against a primary source at time of writing and are left null rather than estimated. Magazine capacity for this specific variant is likewise unconfirmed and left null; the related cavalry carbine used a reduced five-round tube against the infantry rifle's eight. The 400 m effective range and 535 m/s cartridge velocity are family-level figures for the 8mm Portuguese Kropatschek round.