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Russo-Turkish War of Liberation 1877-1878 Chapter Three - Small arms of the warring states - Serbia and Montenegro "Roberts" model 1867
The Roberts rifle has a caliber of 14.8 mm and was provided to Serbia in two versions – peripheral and central firing. The bolt is of the block type, at first sight close to the one of Martini Henry, but the hand grip is placed above. The bolt block together with is produced of an entire metal piece together with the triggering lever. There is a wide groove in the upper part, which facilitates the cartridge placing. In the rim rear parts, there is a slot with an axle, which holds a disk made of thin elastic steel. A thick disk spring is attached to the base of the block, which keeps it locked. When lifting the lever, the bolt block moves around the axle, overcomes the force of the spring and dips downwards, thus opening cartridge chamber. The chamber is closed in reverse movement. The firing pin is placed in a curved groove, which gradually gets into the block when its last 6 mm run into the interior and then come out on the front side. The firing pin moves by inertia and has no spring. It is in the form of a flat, twisted steel disk, which in the rear has a rectangular thickened part taking in the percussion. It is rounded in its front part.1 Apart from the normal sight device for the distance of 200-300 feet, there is a lifting sighting disk with three furrowed openings. Fire at respectively 400-500, 600-700 and 800-900 feet takes place when the sighting disk is lifted.2 The firing is carried out in the following sequence: the hammer comes in first position, the lever is lifted with which the block dips in and opens the cartridge chamber; the cartridge case is placed, the lever comes down, the block lifts up closing the cartridge chamber. Then it is only necessary to place the hammer in the final firing position and to push the trigger. After the shot, the block opens up and set in motion a ?-form extractor, which pulls the cartridge case at 15 mm. As a whole, the construction is simple and easy to handle.
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