In the years following the Crimean War the major armies of the world came to notice that rifled weapons that loaded from the breech were much more effective than their muzzle loading counterparts.  The Russian government embarked on several programs to modernize their infantry weapons.  The results of these programs were mixed and saw four different infantry rifles enter service in just two years.

It was only in 1868 when two Russian officers, Colonel A. P. Gorlov and Captain K. I. Gunius, traveled to the United States to test infantry weapons discovered the rifle of Colonel Hiram S. Berdan.  Colonel Berdan had a great deal of experience with rifles and had commanded a regiment of sharpshooters during the American Civil War.

Over the next year the two Russian officers spent a great deal of time working with Colonel Berdan suggesting improvements in his basic design and developing the .42 caliber cartridge.  The Russian War Ministry soon placed an order for several thousand of these trapdoor rifles that would later be known as the Berdan I.

Colonel Berdan then made a visit to St. Petersburg in early 1869 to display a new version of the Berdan rifle.  This version featured a sliding bolt action that was both simple and rugged.  The weapon was rapidly adopted and designated the M-1870 Berdan II rifle.  Reasons for the rapid adoption of the rifle included the superiority of the .42 caliber cartridge as well as advocacy of Russian War Minister Dimitri Miliutin.  Four variants of the rifle were to be manufactured; the basic infantry rifle, a carbine for cavalry, a dragoon version, and a Cossack rifle.

The Russian government ordered rifles some 30,000 rifles from the Birmingham Small Arms Company as an interim measure until domestic production could be arranged.  From 1873 until 1876 the Russian government assembled the required machine tooling to produce the weapons domestically at the Tula and Izhevsk arsenals.

This delay in production would be felt in the upcoming Russo-Turkish war.  By spring 1877 only 232,000 Berdan II rifles had entered service with the army.  These rifles were issued to Guards, Grenadier, and some line regiments.  Other units were forced to use the Krnka or even older weapons.  The Russian army would only  complete its rearmament in the mid-1880's.

During the war the Berdan II performed well, but it soon became evident that the single shot rifle was going to be obsolete.  In combat the Russians found that their rifles could not match the Turks who were using lever action Martini-Henry rifles.  This problem became more difficult when the first magazine rifle entered service in 1879.  The Russian army saw that magazine rifles were becoming the new trend in shoulder weapons and wanted to field one of their own.  Several designers took up the challenge, one of which was a man named Sergei Mosin who developed a magazine version of the Berdan II.  It was not adopted for service and he continued to work on other magazine rifle designs over remainder of the decade.

Another attempt to solve the rate of fire problem came later in the decade when two inventors named Rudnitsky and Glinsky attempted to develop an automatic rifle based on the Berdan II.  They soon found that the .42 caliber black powder cartridge was unsuitable for such a purpose and none of their designs were adopted.  The need for any further experimentation disappeared in 1891 with the adoption of the Mosin-Nagant 'Three Line Rifle' which featured a five round magazine.  Production of the Berdan II ended soon after with over three million examples being produced.

The Berdan II was to remain in service with reserve units until they could be completely phased out.  As an interim measure (and to standardize ammunition supplies) the Russian army decided in the 1890's to convert some 200,000 Berdan II rifles to fire the 7.62x54R smokeless powder cartridge.  These weapons would be known as 'Three Line Berdan" rifles and would be fitted with new barrels and a stronger breech section to handle the more powerful smokeless cartridge.  While the stock was modified to handle the new smaller barrel.

A new bolt body had to be constructed as the original bolt body could not hold up to the new higher pressures of the 7.62x54R smokeless cartridge.  The new bolt also had a locking lug added to it that would fit into a groove machined into the receiver.  These modifications allowed the weapon to be fired safely with the new cartridge.  The sights of the 'Three Line Berdan' rifles changed to those of the Mosin-Nagant M-91 infantry rifles.  These modified weapons would remain in inventory along with the remaining Berdan II rifles until the First World War in 1914.

When the First World War began in 1914 the Russian army quickly found itself short of both weapons and ammunition.  Russian industry simply could not keep up with the demands of modern warfare.  To solve this problem the army began to pull weapons out of its reserve stocks.  These included some 362,400 Berdan II rifles still chambered in the original .42 caliber black powder cartridge.  These rifles were used by the Russian army alongside the Mosin-Nagant though the war and during the Russian Civil War that followed.  It would only be removed from Russian inventories in 1922 when the Revolutionary Military Council decreed that the Red Army would adopt a standard weapon based on the Mosin-Nagant rifle.

Even though it had been removed from service in its home country, the Berdan II would continue to serve with the armed forces of Finland.  This was due to the fact that during the Russian Civil War many of the Berdan II rifles were captured by the Finnish Red Guards.  When Finland won its independence from the Soviet Union these weapons were kept in inventory.  They were later issued to Home Guard troops during the Winter War of 1939-1940.  It was only in 1955 when the Berdan II rifle was removed from the Finnish army inventory bringing an end to over 85 years of military service.  The remaining rifles were sold commercially as hunting weapons and as collectibles.

Tactical Use and Limitations

The Berdan II infantry rifle had a number of features that made it an excellent choice for the Russian army.  The first was the powerful .42 caliber cartridge which was one of the most powerful service cartridges of the day.  The weapon was also very rugged and accurate.  It had few significant shortcomings.

The most notable of these was the single shot nature of the weapon.  The rifle simply could not match the volume of fire of lever action and magazine rifles that it found itself fighting against.  This would be the greatest weakness of the weapon and what would ultimately lead to its replacement.

In battle the rifle was used by line infantrymen.  Initially tactics dictated that the men fight in close order groups as they had in the Crimean War, but these tactics were quickly changed during the Russo-Turkish war to allow the men to fight in more dispersed lines.

Method of Operation

The M-1870 Berdan II infantry rifle is a single shot manually cycled bolt action rifle.  After firing, the user pulls the bolt handle up to unlock and cock the action, then backwards to eject the spent cartridge.  At this point another round has to be placed in the breech.  The bolt is then pushed forward and locked down in the 45 degree position.  This chambers the round and the weapon is now ready to fire.

Deployment Chronology

The Berdan II infantry rifle was the end result of a long search for a modern breech loading rifle.  When it was first adopted the rifle began to replace the older Berdan I rifles which had been purchased in the United States the year before, as well as the Krnka rifles purchased in Europe.  It was only after several decades of service that the introduction of smokeless powder and the magazine rifle would cause it to be replaced by a more modern shoulder arm.  In this section you can read more about the weapon that the M-1870 Berdan II infantry rifle replaced and the weapon that eventually replaced it.  You can find out more about each weapon by clicking on the links below.

Sources Cited

Here are some of the most informative sources that we have used in compiling this information for you.  We hope you can find them as useful as we have.

• Bayonets before Bullets, The Imperial Russian Army 1861-1914, by Bruce W. Menning, published by Indiana University Press, 1992

• Soviet Small-Arms and Ammunition, by D.N. Bolotin, published by Finnish Arms Museum Foundation 1995

• The Illustrated Encyclopedia of 19th Century Firearms, by Major F Myatt, published by Salamander Books, 1979

• The Russo-Turkish War 1877, by Ian Drury and Raffaele Ruggeri, published by Reed International Books, 1994