Werndl–Holub rifle


The M1867 Werndl–Holub was a single-shot breechloading rifle adopted by the Austro-Hungarian army on 28 July 1867. It replaced the Wanzl breechloader conversion of the muzzle-loading Lorenz rifle. Josef Werndl and Karel Holub designed and patented their rifle; Werndl later bought out all the rights, but was involved in name only.
ÖWG produced the Werndl and chambered it for the 11mm scharfe Patrone M.67 cartridge. In 1877, the military rechambered the Werndl for the bottleneck 11mm scharfe Patrone M.77 cartridge.

Production

In 1867, the army ordered 611,000 of the new rifles. The first batch of 100,000 rifles cost 5 million gulden, or 50 gulden per rifle. The army received 14 million gulden in funding to acquire Werndl rifles and ammunition in 1868. The budget was then cut to just 1 million in 1869. As a result, by November 1870, only 316,650 Werndl breechloaders had been produced and the army still needed an additional 302,810 rifles to fulfill the needs of the regular troops, without taking into account the demands of the Imperial-Royal Landwehr and the Royal Hungarian Honvéd. In February 1873, the war minister Franz Kuhn von Kuhnenfeld stated a need for 370,000 more Werndl rifles for the army.

Use

In spite of the Werndl being long obsolete by World War I, the Austro-Hungarian forces issued Werndl rifles to rear-echelon units to free up more modern rifles for use by front-line troops.

Comparison with contemporary rifles

Users