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| It is said that Jarmann spent most of his time at the ship yard in the late 1870’s working on gun design. The Jarman rifle started out as a single shot hunting rifle, patented in 1877. In 1879 the first tubular magazine 10,15 mm versions were ready and Jarmann tried getting the rifle approved for the Swedish and Norwegian army. A large number of prototypes were made – with box-, drum and tubular magazines, with different shapes on the bolt etc. I’ve had several myself and Forsvarsmuseet in Oslo must have about 20 different ones. In 1881 it was agreed on producing a trial run of some 1200(?) rifles with an eight round tubular magazine at Carl Gustav Stads Gevärfactori. These were made in 1882 and 1883, but all of them were probably not assembled in the military version. The Jarmann was, however, never used in the Swedish army and most of the rifles were sold off to the public. The Norwegian production started at Kongsberg in 1884 and some 29 000 rifles were produced in only 3-4 years. |
| Norway's first repeating rifles - 2 |
| The Jarmann was the first rifle used for both the army and the navy in Norway. The army ordered about 28 000, the navy some 800. It was supplied with a 50 cm long cruciform blade for the army and a knife bayonet for the navy. Both bayonets are very difficult to get hold of for the collector. The rifle had a couple of rather impressive features. Although using black powder, it was reckoned deadly at up to 2800 m! It was a very good sharpshooter for its day. On the other hand, the tubular magazine altered the balance of the rifle for every shot and black powder was rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Jarmann was replaced by the Krag Jørgensen after only ten years. With more than 30 000 rifles produced, what on earth happened to all of them? Why are they so unbelievably difficult to get hold of? There is a rumour that 20 000 were sold to a country in South America in the late 1920,s and that the ship sank in the mid Atlantic. This might be true of course, but…. |
| The Jarmann rifles were stored in warehouses as the Krag Jørgensen took over – and there they stayed for a long time. This started creating a storage problem and finally dismantling of the guns started, some were converted to harpoon guns for the fishing fleet (redningsgevær – saviour gun), some were re-melted, some even used for concrete re-enforcement. Next to brand new extremely rare collectors pieces. Terrible! I have seen a picture from WW2 were German soldiers pour gasoline over a stack of Jarmanns - some 2 m tall and 50 m long – that alone was a lot of rifles! |
| The Jarmann lock with the bolt pulled out. The magazine lid is tilted down on the right hand side of the picture, ready for a new round. |