His service time was short, but he experienced the historical scene of Eight-Nation Alliance besieging Beijing. It has excellent precision and outstanding defects, and it is difficult to change the fate of being replaced. It's an American M 1895 Lee's straight-pull naval rifle.
Restore the history of aggression
This is a tragic scene in the modern history of the world-1900. Thousands of China civilians were besieged by tall and powerful foreign troops and navies. These foreign invaders came from eight different countries, namely, the United States, Britain, France, Prussia, Italy, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Japan. Among them, the US Navy and Marine Corps soldiers are equipped with a small-caliber direct-pull rifle-M18956 mm Lee Navy rifle, also known as Winchester-Lee rifle. Although this gun looks unremarkable, it has played a role beyond people's imagination in Eight-Nation Alliance's siege of Beijing.
An eyewitness described the scene of shooting with guns hundreds of meters away: some rifle-equipped shooters of China army hid in a big house nearly 100 meters away to attack the invaders. With several effective shooting, China riflemen became more and more brave ... In order to deal with these China riflemen, the United States sent six best shooters, of which 1 was equipped with binoculars, and the other five were equipped with M 1895 Lee's straight-drawn guns. Soldiers equipped with binoculars first use binoculars to locate all China riflemen, and then transmit this information to the shooter equipped with M 1895 Lee Navy rifle. The American shooter ran out of bullets, and the China rifleman was finally killed at the muzzle of the M 1895 Lee Navy rifle. ...
Many "firsts"
M 1895 The inventor of Lee's navy rifle was James Paris Lee. At that time, the US Navy put forward a plan to develop special rifles for the navy, and put forward specific requirements for the design of rifles. According to the requirements of the navy, James Paris Lee finally designed the M 1895 Li Haijun rifle after many revisions.
The production of the gun was undertaken by Winchester Company, and 1895 was adopted by both the US Navy and the Marine Corps. According to the first batch of supply contracts, Winchester Company produced 10000 rifles between 1895 and 1897. 1898, the US Navy increased the order for 5,000 rifles, so M 1895 produced15,000 rifles, of which 1800 were distributed to the Marine Corps, and all others were distributed to the US Navy.
M 1895 Lee Navy rifle was deeply loved by American soldiers during its service, and was widely sought after for its super high shooting accuracy, but its service life was quite short, only five or six years. However, during this short service period, it was used not only by the US Navy and Marine Corps in China, but also by the US troops in Cuba and the Philippines during and after the Spanish-American War. At that time, it was the smallest caliber rifle officially distributed by the US military; The bullet used is the first bullet named "millimeter" instead of "inch"; Moreover, the gun is the first rifle in the United States that uses a straight-pull rifle. Compared with the rotating rifle equipped by the contemporary American army, the operation is faster and more effective.
Overview of overall structure
M 1895 Li Haijun rifle is durable. The total length of the gun is 12 13mm, the barrel length is 7 1 1mm, the total weight of the gun is 3.8kg, the butt of the gun is walnut, and the back is a butt plate made of steel plate. There is an accessory compartment cover in the center of the docking plate, and a protruding button at the bottom of the accessory compartment cover. The accessory room can accommodate oil pots and cleaning tools. All the metal parts of the gun are blue, and the top of the case and the front of the gun are engraved with the letter "U.S.N.", the serial number and the initials of the inspector, where "U.S.N." is the acronym of the United States Navy. The address of the manufacturer Winchester Company is engraved on the left rear of the bolt.
The gun adopts a sheet sight and is equipped with a large sight holder. The gauge is trapezoidal, with V-notch doors, and the gauge range is1800 m m.
The M 1895 Lee Navy rifle is not the same as the contemporary Swiss M 1889 Schmidt-Rubin rifle and Austrian M 1895 Steyr-Manlicha rifle. The latter two will drive the nose to rotate to realize opening and closing when the nose frame drives the nose to move back and forth, which is similar to the structure of modern AK series and M 16 series. However, the bolt of M 1895 Lee Navy rifle adopts an integrated structure, which does not rotate to realize the opening and closing when moving back and forth, but relies on middleware to lock it. This intermediate part is driven by a handle. When the lock tongue is in the front lock position, the handle will rotate at a certain angle under the action of the box slot, and at the same time, the intermediate piece will be driven to unlock, and the lock tongue can be pulled backward by continuing to pull the handle. At the beginning, the handle is pulled back, which requires a certain force to drive the middleware to unlock. This design is to prevent the accident that the latch will automatically unlock when accidentally touching the handle.
There are two safety buttons on the left side at the end of the case, and the upper button is the injection safety button. Pull the needle strike safety button to the lower side to lock the needle strike to prevent accidental firing. Pull the safety button of the needle to the top to unlock the needle. Below is the bolt safety button. When the bolt is in the locked position, push the bolt safety button to the bottom to lock the bolt so that it will not be pulled out. Pull the bolt safety button to the top before pulling the bolt. Only when both safety buttons are in a safe release state can the trigger be pulled to fire bullets.
The bullets used in M 1895 Li Haijun rifle and their loading methods are also unique in contemporary rifles. The bullet used is 6mm caliber, the shell is slender and semi-flanged, filled with smokeless powder, and equipped with a round warhead of 7.26g This 6mm rifle bullet can also be used together with the M 1895 Colt "Potato Excavator" machine gun used by the US Navy, and its initial velocity is 782m/s when fired on the M 1895 Lee Navy rifle. The 6 mm rifle magazine is installed in the magazine of M 1895 Lee Navy rifle, and there are five bridge clips. When loading, first pull the bolt back to its original position, then press the bullet together with the bridge clamp into the magazine from the top, and then push the bolt forward. At this point, the gun will push the top bullet in the magazine into the chamber, and then pull the trigger to fire the bullet. When two bullets are fired, the bridge clip will automatically fall out of the slot at the bottom of the magazine. Of course, in an emergency, bullets can be pressed into the magazine without using a bridge clamp, but this loading method often leads to the failure of ammunition supply. When distributing troops, there are special mesh leather bullet bags, and rifles and bullets are distributed. This bag can carry 180 rounds of ammunition, which is 80 rounds more than the Mills bag used by US Army infantry at that time.
The M 1895 Li Haijun rifle has a special design, which is arranged under the rear of the stock, but it can be detached from the rear of the stock and installed in front of the bottom of the magazine when shooting, so that the strap ring can make way for the position of the magazine, and the gun will not hinder the fall of the bridge clamp when shooting.
A short-lived existence
Although the M 1895 Lee Navy rifle has many advantages, its defects are also obvious. For example, the use of its special bullets brought some problems to logistics supply, and its gun bore was easily corroded because of the corrosiveness of smokeless powder at that time. The soldiers also complained that the trigger spring of the gun was easy to be damaged during use, and the riveted part of the magazine support plate was also very fragile and easy to be damaged. In addition, the hook spring of the gun shell is also easy to fail and often needs to be replaced on the battlefield.
All these shortcomings led the US Navy to decide not to use the M 1895 Lee Navy rifle after several years, but to use the Cragg-jorgenson rifle with the Marine Corps instead. Soon, Cragg-Joergensen rifle was replaced by M 1903 Springfield rifle. However, the use of M 1895 Lee Navy rifles did not stop immediately, and some of them were used until the First World War.
Although the US Navy and Marine Corps soon stopped using the gun, Winchester did not completely give up the gun, but based on the design of the gun, it was transformed into a sports rifle. From 1898 to 19 16, the sports guns sold for about 3300 yuan.
Classic shooting experience a hundred years ago.
The M 1895 Li Haijun rifle used in the test is a well-preserved military version. However, due to the age of the gun and the uniqueness of the bullets used, we can't buy the finished 6mm bullets now, so we can only make them by hand. Fortunately, after the 6mm bullet used in this gun was stopped, 1975 a 0.220-inch Swift brass bullet was derived from this bullet. Experience shooting M 1895 Lee Navy rifle. Generally, the 0.220-inch Swift brass bullet is modified to suit the gun.
After the bullet reform, new problems followed. It is not easy to load the bullet into the appropriate bridge clamp, so the use of the bridge clamp was finally abandoned and the bullet could only be loaded into the magazine once and for all.
When shooting, the bolt operation is fast and simple, the shell throwing is normal, and the recoil is very small. The gun is safe and reliable, and the safety button of the bolt is easy to operate. Although the trigger force is relatively large, at the distance of 9 1m, the average dispersion circle diameter of a group of five bullets is 83mm, and four of them are distributed in the dispersion circle of 5 1mm-this shooting result is quite good for rifles with mechanical sights.
M 1895 Although the service time of the Lee Navy rifle is short, it has participated in many wars in the modern history of the world. Especially its participation in Eight-Nation Alliance's war of aggression against China is evidence of the humiliating history of the Chinese nation more than 100 years ago.