WW1 Dutch Carbine

[mauser9]

Yeah does look awesome. Like to know more about gun and the maker. Caliber is of interest too. Great condition!

[Kilian]

In 1895 The Netherlands adopted a new rifle, designed by Austrian designer Von Mannlicher. It was to replace the 4 shot 11mm calibre Beaumont rifle from the 1870s/80s.

They adopted the rifle plus various shorter carbine variants. “Of course” the various branches of the army could not use the same carbine, so there were different variations for cavalry, artillery, engineers, cyclists. The differences were in the stocks, the system used was the same. A later development of the carbines resulted in new models. These were designated NM, for New Model, as opposed to the old models. So the Dutch ended up with at least 8 variations of carbines. Of course each branch also needed their own variation of the bayonet.

The guns in 6.5x53.5R used 5 round clips and they were initially purchased from the Oesterreichische Waffenfabriks Gesellschaft in Steyr, Austria. It was a good design for its time. Bayonets were also acquired from Steyr and were marked OeWG, but they were also purchased from German bayonet manufacturers, such as Alexander Coppel (and others).

Originally the main Dutch military arsenal was based in the city of Delft. In the late 19th century a new arsenal was built in the North of Amsterdam; the Artillerie Inrichtingen Hembrug. The reason was that they wanted to bring the main arsenal within the protection of fortifications and inundation zones around Amsterdam. At Hembrug they made anything the army would need, including bicycles. Interestingly, due to the great demand for weapons during WW1, they temporarily also restarted production in the old arsenal in Delft.

Anyway, Hembrug acquired a manufacturing license from OeWG and from about 1904 they made the rifles, carbines and bayonets in the North of Amsterdam, more precisely: Zaandam. By the outbreak of WW2 there were some 400,000 rifles and carbines made. Almost all fell into the hands of the Germans.

During WW2 Hembrug was forced to produce for the Germans. After liberation the new management never wanted to produce weapons again and they focussed on making manufacturing machines, such as lathes.

In the 1950’s Hembrug was invited to bid for a new automatic rifle for the Dutch Army to replace the Garand M1. They acquired a license from Armalite, but that Armalite rifle was not fully ripe for production. Hembrug did a lot a development work, including converting drawings from inches to millimeters and making improvements to the design, based on field tests by the Dutch army. That resulted in the AR-10 rifle which was somehow a predecessor of the US M16 rifle. In the end they lost the bidding proces to Belgian FN, with their FAL rifle. They only managed to sell a few thousand AR-10s to other countries.

Later the arsenal was taken over by a German arms manufacturer, Rheinmetall, if I remember correctly. It finally closed its doors around the year 2000.

[tony75]

Hello Kilian
Thank you for the information and your time
The carbine was a flea market pick-up along with a few other rifles I will post later. Unfortunately, I can't keep the rifles, not a firearms collector. I have to move these rifles along soon.
It appears to be 6.5 MM ( see pic)

[Kilian]

Is there a stamp similar to this on the buttstock?

[tony75]

Hello Kilian
No stamp on the Buttstock
I'm go try and get a better pic of that eagle that looks like a waffenamt.
Thank you
Tony

[Kilian]

I have tried, but it is hard to find more information on this carbine on the internet. Martens & De Vries have written a series of books on Dutch Firearms, but I do not have these, so I do not know if they covered it. In the past however I did some research on Dutch M1895 bayonets and wrote an article for a magazine of the French bayonet collectors association. Here is what I THINK:

The metalwork started life as a carbine for the Dutch army during WW1. As stamped on the receiver, it was made by the Hembrug Arsenal in 1916. The inspection marks crown Z and crown B are for certain from inspectors that were active at Hembrug during WW1. You find these on bayonets as well. I have not seen the marks crown R and crown W before, so I cannot comment on these.

The reason I think it started as a carbine is the serial number, 4 digits plus one letter. By 1916 the long M1895 rifles had serial numbers consisting of 4 digits plus two letters. These were made in greater numbers. It does not appear that the original serial number has been removed and a new number stamped, so I do not think we are looking at a rifle that has been shortened.

I cannot be more specific on the original type of carbine, as all variants used the same system, with different stocks.

All original M1895 rifles and carbines, at least from the WW1 period, I have seen so far have this circular stamp on the buttstock, indicating the manufacturer, the year of manufacture and the large crown over W, which is the royal cypher for queen Wilhelmina. Therefore I believe the original stock of the carbine would most likely have had this stamp on the buttstock.

So my conclusion is that we are looking at a Marechaussee carbine for the KNIL (Dutch East Indies Army) that was created by converting a 1916 carbine, given a new stock and probably a new blue finish, possibly in the very late 1930s as it does not appear to have seen action in Indonesia, or even has been there.

Maybe someone else has thoughts on this?