RSC 1917: France's WW1 Semiauto Rifle 

I'm consistently impressed by Ian's ability to describe metal parts of guns, instead of "this pointy bit with a hole in it" or "the surrounding thing with a hole in it".

"The French don't get much respect for small arms design, but they ought to." Forgotten Weapons in a nutshell

I have one of these, the Garand used at least 7 features of this design. The French were years ahead of everyone with this design...The Kalishnikov uses the trigger/sear without many changes. My gun is a late 1918 gun with the improvements that were added to the Mle 1918...

i'm amazed that Ian can keep so many facts and figures in his head....and speak without notes....He is a joy to listen to.....

That bolt gliding is satisfying to watch.

As a French myself, I'm a bit surprised when you say the rear sight is graduated in yards, which isn't common in France. I think we're talking about meters here ! Great review though !

didn't garand study French autoloading rifles when designing the garand?

It's a damn shame the French don't get the reputation they deserve with weaponry, it all seems to be focused on WWII with people.

I love the look of Great War firearms. The Semi-autos and automatics are so rough and industrial. It reminds me of a lot of concept guns in Steampunk.

So basically, the French invented DLC.

One of my absolute favorite rifles from my country. Hard to find, even in France. They're not notably accurate and have some flaws but I think it looks super cool and is a very significant weapon for us along with the 1886. The Meunier is pretty cool too.

The French deserve more respect in the way of small arms development. Flintlock, Minie ball, smokeless powder, first to use FMJ bullets I think (Swiss design?), wasn't the Chauchat the first practical LMG(?), and of course here's the RSC 1917, as well as the French-Canadian designed M1 Rifle(Garand). Vive la France! I do not say that as a Frenchman because... well... I'm not French, but I say that as a gun owner, because they've done SO MUCH to help advance firearm technology over the centuries. Also, have you tried escargot? It's actually pretty good!

I love how much I learn from this channel.

Never knew about this. Cool video.

You constantly ,through your incredible vids , make more for the conservation of the french rare arms ,than the french Army itself.Really brilliant and so far from the usual "i am a badass retired from the USMC and i love firing guns" .Thanks so much.

That gun looks like a Lebel got impregnanted by a Chauchat! XD

I absolutely love this channel. I learn so much just from one video. Keep this channel alive, brother. Greetings from Poland.

It's amazing how French arms development is sort of dismissed. I've learned so much about French weapons of this period lately and it's given me a real respect for them. On the artillery front the Canon de 75 modèle 1897 (75mm field gun) was fantastic, in the air Neuports and Spads were wonderful. And this rifle is pretty nice too.

Hope the "they shall not pass" dlc has this weapon added to bf1

The description on the RIA catalogue says "mechanically fine" and doesn't mention the clipped firing pin; maybe you should advise them of its condition so that they can improve their description?

I think that the intent of using the Lebel furniture was that first of all it is already available, and second of all, it might make it harder for enemy snipers to distinguish who had a Lebel and who had a RSC 1917. Just my thoughts

Ian has taught me that the French developed some pretty cool stuff the past 125 years or so. Thanks Ian!

Best gun in the verdun game!

I know there's only 4 in existence, but if you can, I would love to see a video about the Huot automatic conversion of the Ross rifle. I read a bit about it (It cost about 50$ to convert the ross rifle into a full auto LMG instead of 1000$ for a new lewis gun) and I'm super intrigued by how it actually works. That, and I'm also a french speaking Canadian so It would be cool to see a prototype weapon from my part of the world :P

I like how at the end you said, "Good Luck, if you want to try and make this your own." Something with this much history must be extremely expensive and go for a lot at Auction Houses such as Rock Island.

Wow, amazingly modern design. It's remarkable how similar the action is to the Garand, mechanically speaking. I definitely think the French are much maligned when it comes to anything military, sometimes unfairly as this rifle demonstrates. Another great vid, thanks Ian! :)

Coolest semi automatic rifle ever. I want one. I want many of them. The fact that they handed them specifically to "Spirited" individuals makes them that much more awesome. Many years ago someone probably held that rifle and went aww yeah just like someone would today.

I just realized thanks to this video that I never 100% understood how a rotating locking bolt actually unlocked until now. I'm still not sure how recoil operated ones functioned so I was wondering if he has a great video where he shows one? I can't help but admire the mechanics.

So early 20th century had it's own form of downloadable content.

Thanks a lot to show us one of our rarest rifles ! I was looking since a long time for a closer looks of that's rifle. I hope that one day you will present us the meunier 1916 and maybe, an another rare weapon, the STA modèle 1924. Thanks a lot for your high quality presentations. Best regards from France

That's some hard-core machining on that bolt. No? I can't imagine these being cheap to mass produce.

I got a chuckle when you said they were given to the guys who could best exploit them and listed company CO's. Not that you are wrong (how would I know), but it made me think of some of my CO's exploiting any weapon. The CO's with the most decked out M4's tended to be the ones who would be the least likely to be using them.

This channel is so amazing. Not only do you showcase modern weapons but you also help educate and preserve history by showing old rifles like this.

oh i love how many videos you are putting out now

50% of the comments are BF1 hopes for French faction... Tnx a lot EA... I am just here to learn the gun

Didn´t the French use meters on their sights? Interesting video btw.

Great stuff, I'm hoping C&Rsenal will do a peace on this.

This channel rules!

When you pulled back the bolt, it seemed like a real smooth action, at least in camera

+Forgotten Weapons Hey Ian have you ever played the PC game Verdun?

Who in their right mind would dislike this video? Great work Ian, I love the channel and always get excited to see new videos.

French DLC for BF1 i guarantee that.. I'm really hoping we get to play as a Legionnaire, in the French DLC

Great video Ian ! I have been curious about this rifle for a long time, thanks for all the info:) Best regards Vintovka builder

i don't know how i've gone this long without knowing the proper use of those old iron sights, Thank you

Bygone politics aside(as many of the comments herein seem to focus on), I just want to say that your videos are the most informative and well rounded firearms entries on youtube. I enjoy firearms mostly for their mechanical innovations and intricacies. I can tell that you share my fascination with the history and ingenuity that created these instruments. Only their use is subject to politics.

I can get used to 1 video a day...

Thanks Ian, entertaining and informative as ever. I guess the gas port plug would make it easy to adjust the amount of blowback by machining plug grooves to different depths and/or different hole sizes - I wonder if this was intentional ?

I just about did a happy dance when I saw you'd done a video about this! Thanks for bringing such a cool piece onto the show. It's great to finally see one. I think I read once that certain features of the Mle. 1917 and Mle. 1918 rifles inspired John Garand with his project.

I've been waiting for a video on this particular rifle for ages. Ever since I learned of its existence I've been fascinated by it. Everything about it screams that this is how semi-automatic battle rifles should look (in over all design, not specifically this configuration). Aesthetically, this is what I prefer in battle rifles. A long stock that comes up near the end of the barrel, the gas tube concealed withing said stock, and just being long like that. That's part of why I'm more of a fan of the Gewehr '98 than I am of the Kar98k. To me, for some odd reason, a short bolt action just doesn't seem right (but a shorter semi-auto is fine with me, and I'm not sure why for either of these), and the distance between the front and rear barrel bands looks too short for my preference (again, I prefer the Gewehr '98 in this regard). With all of those things in mind, when I saw this, I fell in love with it, which was odd for me, because there was a bit of a stigma in my mind towards French firearms, which I guess, rather illogically, stemmed from how I viewed them in WW2, which is to say that many were desperately thrown together just to get something out there to kill Germans with. On a slightly related note, I'm actually designing a rifle like this for Germany in a story I am writing set in WW2, and this obviously is instrumental in that design (both in the lore of the story setting and in my actual design).

your videos are so great! Thanks for all the history behind each. I had no clue this all happened

The magazine system is pretty similar to the one of the PTRS-41 anti-tank rifle. Maybe Simonov got the inspiration from this french rifle. I guess that style of magazine works well for an AT rifle, but not so well for an infantry rifle. The SKS is pretty much a scaled down PTRS, but with a more conventional top loading fixed magazine..

It is ever a pleasure to listen such an informative and well-balanced lecture about weapons.

Every once and awhile I come across a firearm that I didn't know existed. Bravo Ian. As in most things, including firearms design, one can see with this rifle that there are few concepts and ideas that are new. More than 100 years ago the rotating bolt and multiple locking lugs were not only thought of but were being used in production firearms. Nothing new under the sun , huh. Semper Fi

It's such a silly thing, but that magazine cover is adorable.

I can't seem to find the A6 Minie you mentioned, or the 7mm Minie cartridge. Am I spelling it wrong?

this one is obviously a holdover from the musket era, super cool pioneer in semi-auto design

Other than also being a southpaw named Ian, I also look at French small arms favorably (setting aside bias that comes with French heritage) - I know I'm gonna love your channel! ;D

Very nice piece. the action sounds smooth as well. Very pleasing to look at.

cool to see more detail on this rifle!..... you can still see the influence on later designs....

I had no idea about this gun! Thank you for the informative video.

I am not surprised the French were the first to mass issue semi-automatics. They also made the first modern style tank layout. The French have been on the cutting edge of weapons technology for a good long while. Only after WWII did the French start to be surpassed.

Geez - all the machining that went into that bolt! Quite time consuming and expensive (it looks to me)... Otherwise, it looks like an interesting rifle.

It's cool seeing a bolt that looks like it's from a later era automatic rifle being pulled out of a 1917 weapon.

It’s kind of strange that machine guns became mainstream before semi-auto rifles.

I want one of these so bad, they are so interesting and I love them to bits.

You always bring up a gun that just blows my mind. Very very neat.

What a cool rifle---another one for the wish-list. By the magazine design and gas piston, I could see Chauchat's engineering right away. Question on this gun: what is the recoil like with that gas-piston design in a semi-auto?

That thing looks really heavy.

I actually did realise the French equipped soldiers with this weapon. Cool design and asethetics. Excited to learn about its performance here

It would be interesting to see a comparison between this, a Mondragon M1908 and a Fedorov Avtomat.

I think someone might be stealing your videos. The up next is the same video, same thumbnail, with mp4 stuck on the end, uploaded by TheLoner47.

Hope this makes it into Battlefield 1 with the french DLC

Great Job Ian, another rife even someone like myself was not aware of.

So can the magazine system be comparable to a Russian PTRS?

Never knew about this rifle --- nice video Ian, keep them up!

interesting that it uses a spring in the gas system as a return spring instead of behind the bolt.

Ian, I learned more about my own country, France, in your all American videos, than I care to admit :)

Amazing! This is almost like an AK. Wonder what would have happened to the WW1 if they just had added a 30 cartridge magazine and a semi/full auto possibility

Love the sound of the bolt getting cycled

So I wonder what it would take to get the devs of Verdun to put this in the game.

Wow. What an interesting rifle. Compared to other early semi-auto rifles, this thing was fairly simple didn't come apart in to 100,000 little pieces.

Learnt alot there and to be honest a very nice looking piece of kit.

After seeing one of these in the Kansas City WW1 museum I have wanted one.

It might be just me but when yiu operate the charging handle that sound it makes sounds amazing

Just got the gun in Bf1, it's awesome!

I have actually handled and shot one of these. We did not have any clips for it but it was quite easy to use as a single shot. Recoil was negligible from such a heavy rifle but the action was quite violent.I can see how it would break parts. It must have been the later design because it held open on every shot.

This is one of my favourite channels

Really glad to see a video about this rifle. I am French but i am also a reenactor and this is my favourite rifle. Next a video about the italian breda 30?

I'd love to know the reasons of why people give your videos a thumbs down. They're clear, concise and informative. What possible reason could they have?

Hi Ian, big fan of the channel. Feel that you ought to know a RU-vidr under the username TheLoner47 is reposting your RSC 1917 video. Keep up the good work.

Great video, Ian!

It amaze me how they can mill parts with such precision hundreds of years ago.

I knew the French had some semi-auto rifles in WW 1, but not to that extent. Thanks for the info, interesting as always. :)

To say Garand didn't mess around with one of these is crazy. I really wish I had the cash to bid on this rifle.

Hi Ian, that gas port cover looks like a type of delay valve design. Ive seen similar used in other applications. Of course I could be completely wrong lol !!

Do a video on the Ribeyrolle 1918! It was the first functional weapon with an intermediate cartridge.

This rifle has a shockingly smooth sounding action

Ian, I bet you drooled over this rifle. I've heard you mention how badly you want one of these bad boys. How often have you heard of these being on the market?

I think that's a remarkable design; with many excellent concepts; that we're going to see repeated many times in the future of the Self-loader. Ian, have you ever studied the French 75mm Fast-Firing light artillery piece of WW1 ? Actually started around 1895, or so; it's a text book example of "development"; and the fact that the testing and improving phases started so early, vis a vis, the "Great War"; allowed it to appear on the Battlefield as a truly outstanding piece of ordnance. It was studied in great detail by the Americans at Aberdeen, I believe; and it includes so many perfected, and yet, wholly new, systems and principles of operation; that it should put anyone's mind to rest about the fact that weapons design genius is pretty evenly distributed amongst the nations. It was a huge battlefield success story; and did you know that %75 of the Weapons induced casualties in the War were caused by Artillery ? No matter how many times; various "historians" repeat the story of the Generals "not understanding" the machine gun; I suppose this will remain a fact. I would heartily recommend to you the US study of the "French75"; as a really remarkable example of cutting edge, and / or, just plain newly invented technology that was also %100 successful in real world conditions. It was a remarkable weapons system. I've learned many interesting things from your video reportage; and I certainly appreciate your efforts. Cheers.

so cool to be shown such things