Original French Chassepot Gras rifles have finally arrived from Africa!
New to RTI! We now have All Matching Serial Number Chassepots available! All metal parts will be numbers matching with this option. We only have a select few rifles in this rare condition, get yours today before it's too late!
The rifles and carbines are in fair to good condition. Metal has some patina and/or minor rust pitting. The wood is all there but has some dents, dings or minor cracks. Please look at detailed pictures and the video below. Please note: the rear sight may be missing on the standard price Chassepots. We do offer a Hand-Select fee for an additional $200.00 to get the most intact rear sight assembly we have available.
Many of these rifles and carbines have the rear sight missing at the base price. Hand select option rifles will have a rear sight. We do have several grades available. We have 4 variations available: the full length infantry rifle, cavalry carbine, Gendarmerie carbine, and artillery carbine.
Bolts are all functioning and trigger mechanism works as well. These rifles are about 130 to 140 years old. The firearms are considered an Antique and no FFL is required
A Brief History of the Chassepot Fusil Gras rifles:
The Chassepot (pronounced "shas-poh"), officially known as Fusil modèle 1866, was a bolt action military breechloading rifle, famous as the arm of the French forces in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. It replaced an assortment of Minié muzzleloading rifles many of which were converted in 1864 to breech loading (the Tabatière rifles). A great improvement to existing military rifles in 1866, the Chassepot marked the commencement of the era of modern bolt action, breech-loading military rifles. Beginning in 1874, the rifle was easily converted to fire metallic cartridges (under the name of Gras rifle), a step which would have been impossible to achieve with the Dreyse needle rifle.