Cork Shipwrecks Aud 1916 Rifles

*The Armaments on board the Aud* A selection of the rifles recovered from the Aud exist in various museums in Britain and Ireland, -among these are the Cork Public Museum in Fitzgeralds Park,Cork, The National Museum in Dublin,The Irish Defence Forces Museum, Collins Barracks, Cork, and the Imperial War Museum, in London. It is agreed tht the majority of these rifles are the model known as the Mosin Nagant 1891,captured in the German rout of Russian forces in the battle of Tannenburg. These rifles have been referred in various publications as being 'outmoded and out of date' - when in fact they were comparable with many of the leading makes of the era. They were a rifle with a magazine, which enabled the owner to pre-load 5 rounds from a clip, and then fire in reasonably rapid succession. The Mosin-Nagant was the first Russian rifle to incorporate the ideas of a small calibre high-velocity magazine rifle, and replaced the earlier single-shot Berdan rifle in the hands of Tsarist troops.

Stock of Mosin-Nagant 1891 recovered from Aud
They were known as 'three-line rifles' which referred to their calibre. A 'line' was approximately .10in, so the calibre of the guns was .30in. After the Russian revolution the Soviets adopted the metric system, and thereafter this calibre was referred to as 7.62mm. The Rifles on the Aud were of the type 'Russkaya 3-lineinaya vintovka o1891g'. - (Russian 3-line rifle, model of the year 1891). This was the basic model, fully stocked except for a few inches of muzzle to which a socket bayonet could be fitted. Although obsolete elsewhere, the Russian army placed great reliance on the socket bayonet, which was intended to be carried in a permanently fixed attitude. Bayonets for these guns were carried on board the Aud.
Part of bayonet scabbard ('frog') recovered from Aud

Rifle Dimensions Length: 51.25in Weight unloaded: 8lb 12oz Magazine: 5 round integral box Muzzle velocity: c.2600fps Ref: Military Arms of the 20th Century By Ian Hogg and John Weeks (1973)