One of the true gems of my collection – a naval kammerlader not converted to cartridge and with the original rear sight. This hardly exists at all - I believe I’ve seen a total of three with the original rear sight over a period of 35 years.
As mentioned, all Navy archives were burnt during WW2 and therefor there is no factual information in regards to model years, quantities produced etc.As far as I've been told, there were made 100 navy kammerladers in 1845-1848 and then an almost identical serie in 1849-1851 of 500 - both series starting at # 1.
Both the M1845 % the M1849 are very like the army’s M1842 with the narrow hammer etc. and are more “old-fashioned” than the army’s M1846. The naval kammerladere had about the same length as the later M1859 for the army, but the first three models always had three brass bands on their large bore kammerladere.
The difference between a M1845 and M1849 is only supposed to be that all the screws on the M1845 were numbered. You can, of course, also tell the difference by looking at the prodsuction year.
Another interesting detail is that the locking of the side-lever on the naval kammerladere is a square lump of iron fastened on the locks right side. The army models have three small 10 mm long bolts sticking out as locking device – and kept to this. So alike and yet these strange little differences.
The M1848 in good condition and with the original rear sight is extremely rare. An incomplete relic was sold at an auction in Oslo in December 2000 for a total price of some NOK 40 000. I’ve said that mine probably is worth at least NOK 50 000 – but people have just sneered – a rifle only 150 years old and in addition naval – you must be joking. |
