Where to next? Well I will do a few more cleanings to see if some of these rust spots will even out a bit more with the pits and eventually may get a electrolysis bath going if I think it will produce more results. You could give a Gurkha one of these alone and expect him to hold a hill until he died of old age. I found one that was valued at a Rock Island Auction (where many of these images come courtesy from) a while back at $1500-$2500.Īnd of course has a needle point. It was marketed as a light but effective small game and target rifle to the modern velocipedestrienne of the day in the same vein as the Marlin Bicycle rifle. The Liege, Belgium-made gun weighed in at 4.5-pounds flat, was 37-inches long overall, and cost 150 francs in pre-WWI France.įurther, it was a take-down design, meaning it could be easily broken down into two pieces each about 17-20 inches long for easy carry. You could also lock out the self-loading feature and cycle the weapon manually via the more traditional lever. However, once you loaded the first round into the chamber via the lever, each reload came semi-auto from the box mag. This Edwardian era little 6mm centerfire had an 8-shot detachable magazine but still used a modified Martini short-throw lever action, just like the old-school Francottes of the 19th Century. The Model 1910 La Francotte-Automatique carabine One of which is among the oddest ducks I have ever seen: With my recent acquisition of a Francotte-style rifle ( my poor beat down Nepalese 1878) I have spent some time researching other Francotte firearms. A few more years in storage probably won’t hurt them.
I rather like it and may pick up a few more just to have.
#FRANCOTTE RIFLES PATCH#
A generic leather patch knife sheath ($10, eBay) fits it like a glove.Īll in all, not a bad blade for a total of about $40 and a half-dozen hours of sweat into it. You can trim fingernails with this bad boy now. I used water stones with a 1000/6000 grit to get first a bevel, then a fine edge– though not so thin that the edge would roll. I had to do a small repair on the butt cap as it separated from the handle during the cleaning process, but some replacement brass nails and epoxy corrected just fine. Patina on a weapon means it’s seasoned, right? I mean this little pot sticker is 150~ years old, or so the story goes. This is what it looks like after a good TLC with Ballistol, green pads, and the like, with the brass parts touched up with Brasso. It was in unissued condition and the blade had never been used (or sharpened– it was a total butter knife). Like the rest of the Katmandu stash, it had sat in a wooden palace for generations open the elements and was covered in a thick layer of soot, yak butter, and Nepalese flotsam. The knife came without a scabbard, is 7.5-inches long with a 3.75-inch slightly drop point carbon steel blade, one-piece carved bone handle and brass furniture. They list it as a “ Gurkha Officer’s Patch Knife” for $25 (!) and bill it as “most likely carried in kukri pouches by the elite Royal Guard of Bhimsen Thapa”– Nepal’s military minded prime minister, in the early 19th century– the chap that owned Lagan Silekhana. However, at Atlanta I also found this bad boy:
It currently shaves forearm hair (knife fighter mange) and shreds paper with no problem.
I’ve continued to work the blade and, thanks to a tip from a reader (thanks, Robert!) picked up a new replacement sheath for the old man that fits it like a glove. Maybe it resulted in some people saving some of these old knives. Well, that post got picked up by The Truth About Knives, which is cool. Like the Francotte and its bayonet, the $89 Bhojpure Kukri came from IMA/Atlanta Cutlery’s 2003 purchase of the entire Royal Nepalese Arsenal, then located at the semi-ruined palace of Lagan Silekhana in Katmandu. Gahendra Rana’s “kami” cottage gunsmiths in the 1880s (more on the rifle and bayonet here.) A couple months back I posted about the Nepalese Gurkha Kukri Bhojpure fighting knife that I bought to go with my semi-cleaned Nepalese 1878 Martini-Henry Francotte pattern short-lever rifle and bayonet as created by Gen.