Marga Trials Rifle: Competition For the Belgian Army
Forgotten Weapons
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When the Belgian military decided to adopt a new rifle in the late 1880s, they attached a wide variety of competitors. The best of the batch were Mauser and Mannlicher, with Mauser ultimately winning - but among the other entrants was Belgian Captain Uldarique Marga and his bolt action rifle design. Marga’s rifle used a Beaumont-style V-spring for the firing pin, 10 rear locking lugs, a single-stack blind magazine, and included a cartridge cutoff. It was an acceptable rifle, if not excellent (the V-spring Beaumont system was less reliable and durable than coil springs, and the rear locking lugs were an artifact of the recent black powder days) - but it simply did not show the excellence of the Mauser rifle.
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