The .32ACP Dreyse Light Carbine
Germany
•
11m
Manufactured by Rheinmetall and designed by Louis Stange, this light .32ACP (7.65mm Browning) carbine is a bit of a mysterious item. Very little written information exists about it, but we know it was sold on the commercial market as it appears in several firearms sale catalogs and it is, frankly, and wonderfully handy little small game rifle. It is a simple blowback action with a 6-round detachable magazine, sharing a number of elements with the Dreyse 1907 pistol from the same company (Johann von Dreyse died in 1867, but the brand name was owned by the Rheinmetall company). One feature of the rifle that is likely to be overlooked given today's cultural insistence on eye and ear protection is that the Dreyse carbine's small .32 caliber cartridge and long barrel made for a relatively very quiet report when firing. Not quiet enough to be considered hearing safe today, but much less unpleasant than many other firearms using higher pressure cartridges.
Thanks to H. in Sweden for letting me shoot this handy little carbine!
Up Next in Germany
-
A Well-Traveled Luger
This Luger has seen basically all of 20th century German history. It began as a 1917 production DWM pistol, used in World War One. After the war, it was one of the guns remarks for use by the police and military of the Weimar Republic, and at some point in this period had a special police safety ...
-
H&K VP-70M: Polymer Framed Cutting Ed...
The VP-70 was designed by Heckler & Koch cofounder Alex Seidel, and introduced in 1973. It was made with the idea of being a gun easily mass produced for arming a civilian resistance in case of Russian invasion of East Germany, but the West German government opted not to adopt it. In the original...
-
Walther's .45ACP MP (P38 Precursor)
During the process of developing the pistol which would become the German army's P38, the Walther company was also interested in potential export contracts (like the one they actually did get from Sweden). One potential contract briefly explored was to the United States, and a few prototype MP pi...
