The Daudeteau Bolt Action Rifle,Most gun people know of the famous Mauser rifle, the Enfield rifle,

The Daudeteau Bolt Action Rifle,Most gun people know of the famous Mauser rifle, the Enfield rifle, the Lebel, Berthier, Mosin Nagant, perhaps even Switizerland’s many straight pull bolt action rifles, however the Daudeteau is one of the interesting bolt action designs that 99.99% of all gun people have never heard of.  That is why peashooter certainly raised an eyebrow when one of these rare beauties showed up for auction with Rock Island Auctions.  First designed by Louis d'Audeteau in 1884, the Daudeteau was intended to be an improvement upon the Austrian Mannlicher design.  A bolt action rifle, the Daudeteau features a split reciever and a two piece cock on opening bolt.  Unlike many bolt actions of the age, the Daudeteau featured a turned down bolt, something much more common on bolt action rifles produced around World War II and after.  The Daudeteau also had an interesting manual safety which when activated, could uncock the bolt, and when deactivated, could recock the bolt.  The rifle used a five round single stack magazine.  One of it’s flaws was that it was loaded using a stripper clip which could only be inserted one way into the magazine.  Typically the correct end of the stripper clip was painted red letting the operator know that it was the end to be inserted first.  Along with a new rifle, Louis d’Audeteau invented a new cartridge for it, called the 6.5x53mm Daudeteau, a small caliber bottlenecked cartridge which fired a 150 grain bullet, reaching velocities of 2,400 feet per second.  At the time such a rifle was very unique, as only a few rifles such as the Lee Navy and Italian Carcano used small caliber high velocity rounds.At first Louis d’Audeteau tried to secure a contract with the French military.  He was able to sell limited numbers to the army as the Daudeteau Model B and a larger quantity for the French Navy, called the Fusil de Marine Mle. 1896.  While most of the powers of Europe rejected the rifle, only ordering small numbers of test rifles, most of Louis d’Audeteau’s sales were not the regular European customers, but instead newer and less powerful militaries.  The two largest customers of the Daudeteau were El Salvador and Uruguay.  Around 15,000 Daudeteau rifles and carbine were manufactured.  A later sporting model was also produced in 6.5mm Daudeteau, 8mm Lebel, .303 British, and .405 Winchester.http://www.rockislandauction.com/viewitem/aid/64/lid/1522http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Franco-Uruguayan+Connection%3A+Daudeteau+and+Mauser-Dovitis+rifles%3A…-a0194332413 -- source link

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