Bavarian Werder Rifle
The current issue bavarian infantry rifle at this time was the model 1858 podewils rifle a percussion muzzleloading firearm that was a 139mm gun nominally54 caliber the same caliber as the austrian m1854 lorenz.
Bavarian werder rifle. The werder pistol model 1869 was an infantry and light cavalry falling block pistol invented by johann ludwig werder in bavaria and based on his rifle design of 1868. The werder rifle is the brainchild of johannes ludwig werder a prolific bavarian engineer who besides this rifle designed locomotives and many other implements. Although it was originally known as the bavarian lightning pistol because of its rate of fire the werder pistol proved too heavy for. This particular m1869 aptiertes werder rifle is really nice and appears to have all matching serial numbers of 19942 located on the barrel receiver stock and action.
In 1877 bavaria then officially adopted the mauser m71 and the all of the various werder rifles were then relegated to reserve units and in some units saw service up until the first world war. This case was also used in the bavarian lighting single shot pistol. Adopted by bavaria in 1869 johann ludwig werders breechloading rifle was a brilliant piece of engineering offering an automatically ejecting falling block system with a remarkably high effective rate of fire and a wonderfully modular system of parts. He was a specialist in production engineering and tooling design.
Werder to replace the linder a paper cartridge breech loader. At the end of the testing and after king ludwig of bavaria personally inspected the trial rifles the werder was adopted by the kingdom of bavaria as the breech loading rifle model 1869 we know it simply as the werder. It was one of the first centerfire pistols to be adopted for use by a european military.