French Gras Mle1874 M80 Mousquton D'Artillerie

[Four Fingers of Death]

There is one of these for sale in Sydney and I sorta fancy it. I am interested in old rifles, but only of I can shoot them.

Has anyone had experience with them? Is brass available or can it be adapted?

They are a Black Powder cartridge rifle and from what I see use a paper patched lead boolit!

[Oldeyes]

I am assuming that this fires the same cartridge as the big Gras rifle, the 11x59R, since I can't find any other Gras listing in Cartridges of the World.
348 Winchester works as a parent case but comes up a few millimeters short, altho that causes no problems. I use 45-90 Win. and get full length cases, it is also easier to neck this down and fire form than to expand the 348 up and sometimes crack a neck..... You can probably find a die close enough to neck down the 45-90 and avoid buying the expensive Gras die set.
Boolits, well the chamber is typical of many old black powder rifles and the chamber will not accept bore diameter boolits. Mine shoots 446 diam. pretty well altho the groove diameter is about .454. I will someday try out a new heeled mould that I picked up; it works well in a 71 Mauser and the 43 Spanish so I have high hopes for my Gras. Too many projects and I am not retired yet!

[Four Fingers of Death]

This is one nice looking rifle,here is the link;

http://www.lawranceordnance.com/shot_and_shell/rifles_ex_military/gras_f86905.php

I have a M16Lebel and a 36MAS, this would go will with them.

I did a Google search in the rifle and saw a picture of one with an external gravity fed 10 shot magazine, now that's a whole heap of flame and smoke!

Here's a link to that;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_(firearms)

scroll down the page a bit for bolt action magazines.