Steyr-Mannlicher M1895

Origins

Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher was the most prolific rifle designer of the late nineteenth century, and the Austro-Hungarian army was his great customer. His straight-pull M1886 and M1890 rifles, built by the Österreichische Waffenfabriks-Gesellschaft at Steyr, had used a wedge lock beneath the bolt; the M1895 replaced it with a stronger rotating bolt head with two forward lugs, turned by helical grooves in the bolt body as the soldier pulled the handle straight to the rear. Adopted in 1895, it was produced at Steyr and at the Fegyvergyár in Budapest, and it armed the whole Dual Monarchy — Austrian, Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Croatian and Bosnian soldiers alike (see Austro-Hungarian Arms & Weapons).

Design & Construction

The M1895's action is its signature. A rifleman working a turn-bolt such as the Mauser Gewehr 98 must lift, pull, push and lower the handle; with the Mannlicher he simply pulls and pushes, and a practiced soldier could fire noticeably faster. The five-round magazine takes an en-bloc clip that is inserted with the cartridges and falls out through a hole in the bottom of the magazine when the last round is chambered — fast to load, but the rifle cannot be topped up with loose rounds. The original cartridge was the rimmed 8x50mmR with a round-nosed bullet, later a spitzer. The infantry rifle was long, at just over fifty inches, and was complemented by a short Stutzen carbine for cavalry, artillery and later assault troops. The straight-pull action is strong but less tolerant of dirt than a turn-bolt, since it gives the soldier less leverage to force a stiff extraction.

Combat Use

The M1895 was the rifle of the Austro-Hungarian soldier throughout World War I, from the disastrous opening campaigns in Serbia and Galicia in 1914 to the eleven battles of the Isonzo and the mountain war against Italy in the Alps. Bulgaria also adopted it, and Greece and others bought it. After the war the successor states kept their rifles: Austria and Hungary converted many in the 1930s to the more powerful 8x56mmR spitzer cartridge as the M95/30 and 31.M, and Italy received large numbers as war reparations. In World War II M95s served with the Hungarian, Bulgarian, Yugoslav and Italian armies and in German second-line and Volkssturm units, and partisans of every side in the Balkans carried them.

Legacy

With roughly three million made, the M1895 was the most successful straight-pull military rifle ever built. Its speed of fire impressed contemporaries, but the future belonged to the rotating turn-bolt and then the self-loader, and the Swiss Schmidt-Rubin family was the only other straight-pull design with long service. Surplus M95s and Stutzen carbines came to the American market in large numbers, and their unusual action, the Budapest and Steyr markings, and the many conversion variants make them an interesting and affordable collector's rifle.