Kammerlader - Development

Development

In the early 19th century, the Norwegian Army decided that the nature of warfare was changing away from the massed ranks firing in volleys towards smaller units advancing and firing independently. This conclusion was reached after having observed the American Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars and the short Swedish campaign against Norway in 1814. Lessons were also learned from the Gunboat War, where small, mobile gunboats outmaneuvered larger, more heavily armed ships. It was decided that a breech loaded rifle was needed, more accurate than the old smoothbore muskets, yet quicker to load than the rifles issued to the Norwegian Jeger and Skijeger units. A special committee was created, and it started considering various firearm actions in 1837. It was soon clear that the desired weapon should:

• have a reduced caliber compared to the then standard musket;
• have reliable ignition, with the means of the caplock mechanism (earlier muskets had been equipped with the flintlock mechanism);
• be quicker to load than the musket, and therefore be a breech loader; and
• be more accurate than the old smoothbore muskets.

The end result was that a modern, breech loading rifle was approved for use on the 18 May 1842. The caliber chosen for the new rifle was 18 lødig (gauge); in other words, one could manufacture 18 round bullets out of one Norwegian pound of lead. In modern terms this means the caliber of the rifle was 17.5 mm.

From 1842 until the Remington M1867 was approved in 1867, more than 40,000 kammerladers in more than 80 different models were manufactured. In 1860 the caliber was reduced again, to four Swedish Linjer, or about 11.77 mm. When some of the Kammerladers were modified to rimfire after 1867, this meant that the barrels had to be bored out to 12.17 mm to accept the new cartridge.

During a military sharpshooting competition held in Belgium in 1861, the Kammerlader was proven to be among the most accurate military long arms in Europe. The Norwegian rifles were shown to be accurate to a range of about 1 km (0.6 mi), which is quite an achievement even by today's standards.