Another Holy Grail Find- Austrian Captured Russian Berdan II

MilsurpDan · May 7, 2017

Never thought I'd get the chance to own one of these. Picked this up from a fellow collector friend today. He showed me it and I was astonished when he said he'd sell it to me for a price I could afford.

I'm a huge Austro-Hungarian freak, and I love weapons that have been captured and re-purposed by enemy armies, so this was one of my personal holy grail rifles.

Somewhere along the hellish fight on the Eastern front, this 1880 dated Imperial Russian Berdan II was captured and re-issued by Austria-Hungary along with a heck of a lot of Mosin-Nagants. A-H captured Mosin's are fairly common, but Berdan II's are downright rare. You can see the A-H applied "AZF" marking on the receiver. The holes in the stock were added by the A-H's for their wire sling swivels. The "W" on the stock is also found on other A-H rifles.

The rifle is covered in dried grease which is what gives the metal that brown appearance. Unfortunately, it's missing the cleaning rod and wire swivels, but the bore is surprisingly good. I wish this thing could talk. It looks good in my safe right next to the A-H Captured M91 Carcano I have.

toolness1 · May 7, 2017

Awesome rifle! You going to shoot it?

Red1917 · May 7, 2017

Nice find, cool rifle with a lot of history. Thanks for sharing

CodeWarrior1241 · May 7, 2017

Your rifle was made here: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сестрорецкий_инструментальный_завод. No English-language page for this appears to exist, but the town this factory was in - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сестрорецк is near St. Petersburg and had the arsenal set up there by Peter the Great in 1714, with production beginning in 1724. Berdanki started getting made there in 1869, that would be the "trapdoor" type 1 (as opposed to your type 2 I guess). By the 1880s they were making ~100K rifles a year there.

Old-style Czarist Russian reads a bit funny... They don't write that way and use all of those letters anymore.

Minuteman · May 7, 2017

Great story, congrats!

The chair and rock wall are amazing too.

h2u · May 7, 2017

Great pick up!! Congrats :thumbsup:

Don't feel too bad. Mine didn't come with the correct cleaning rod or volley sights. The rifles are OLD-things tend to disappear on them

mawkie · May 8, 2017

At first I thought you might have somehow charmed Zeebill into selling his recent Berdan II capture to you. But that's obviously not his. Good catch! I can imagine how excited you were to add this to your collection.

MilsurpDan · May 8, 2017

Thanks guys! I don't think I can bring myself to shoot this one. It's so rare I'd hate to mess it up somehow. It is very tempting though. I have some original .42 Russian ammo I picked up in Timonium last year though.

If I can get my hands on another Berdan I'd probably shoot that one though. I think brass can be made out of .348 Winchester if I remember right.

MilsurpDan · May 8, 2017

CodeWarrior1241 said:
Your rifle was made here: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сестрорецкий_инструментальный_завод. No English-language page for this appears to exist, but the town this factory was in - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сестрорецк is near St. Petersburg and had the arsenal set up there by Peter the Great in 1714, with production beginning in 1724. Berdanki started getting made there in 1869, that would be the "trapdoor" type 1 (as opposed to your type 2 I guess). By the 1880s they were making ~100K rifles a year there.

Old-style Czarist Russian reads a bit funny... They don't write that way and use all of those letters anymore.

Thanks for the links! After looking at them, it looks like it might've been made at the Sestroryetsk factory. That's pretty cool, it'll be the first rifle I have made by them besides a Finn VKT M91 made using a Sesty' receiver.

MilsurpDan · May 8, 2017

mawkie said:
At first I thought you might have somehow charmed Zeebill into selling his recent Berdan II capture to you. But that's obviously not his. Good catch! I can imagine how excited you were to add this to your collection.

Did Zeebill win the one that was at the Redding auction a few weeks ago? I would've liked to see how much that one went for, but I couldn't make it up there that day.

yellowsled · May 8, 2017

Beautiful gun and excellent find!

mawkie · May 8, 2017

MilsurpDan said:
Did Zeebill win the one that was at the Redding auction a few weeks ago? I would've liked to see how much that one went for, but I couldn't make it up there that day.

He did. I wasn't there that day but if memory serves it was $1100 or $1200. He stole it. We just don't know for sure if it's Finn, Austrian or Balkan capture. Has the holes in the stock with wire sling hangers (like yours) but no Austrian capture marks. Anyway, it's a cracker jack example. Was floored when I heard that he pulled it off in that room full of sharks.

MilsurpDan · May 8, 2017

mawkie said:
He did. I wasn't there that day but if memory serves it was $1100 or $1200. He stole it. We just don't know for sure if it's Finn, Austrian or Balkan capture. Has the holes in the stock with wire sling hangers (like yours) but no Austrian capture marks. Anyway, it's a cracker jack example. Was floored when I heard that he pulled it off in that room full of sharks.

That's a very good price. I hope he posts it on Gunboards, I'd like to see some pictures of it. I'm surprised it went that cheap at Redding.

If it's got the wire sling swivels, I'd be willing to bet 99.9% it's at least Austrian use somewhere along the line.

Too bad nothing appears to be matching on my rifle though. The Austrians probably switched some parts around when they "re-arsenaled" it.

mawkie · May 9, 2017

Seem to remember Zeebill's bolt not matching either. Hard to find a matching Berdan.

MilsurpDan · May 9, 2017

Minuteman said:
The chair and rock wall are amazing too.

Thanks! My Grandfather made the chair, the "rock wall" is actually our chimney. My Uncle is/was a stone mason, so he made it.

Another Holy Grail Find- Austrian Captured Russian Berdan II

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