7 Comments

  1. I would like to know why this rifle was never adopted by any country?

    Was there a specific reason or just too soon?

    Allan

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  2. I was always under the impression that this was a French gun, but reviewing the patent revealed that Hallé was an Englishman (full name Clifford Robert Stephen John Hallé). The gun was tested in Britain by the Automatic Rifle Committee at Enfield and against the Rexer rifle at Bisley. The Rexer rifle was deemed favorable. Neither gun went anywhere in the end.

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    • Just did some research over the past few days and it does appear that this rifle was British. Clifford Hallé was the son of Sir Charles Hallé, the famous conductor. The family was from Germany originally.

      The Hallé operation is really interesting. It used a series of scissor links (or “lazy tongs”) to pull the bolt – I’ve never seen that in a gun before. The links ran over the top of the receiver and therefore there was no top-loading breech for stripper clips; the bullets were loaded through a hinged door at the bottom of the magazine. It was a less practical system of loading but it did allow for extended magazine attachments to be fitted onto the bottom of the magazine. The user could fit an “emergency magazine” with 10 extra rounds to the bottom.

      Development of the rifle lasted from about 1902 – 1906. After the British Army rejected it, it appears that the rifle’s investors lost interest and the funding was gone.

      The pamphlet you see on this page is actually an advertisement for the weapon’s demonstration at the 1905 Great Exhibition in Liege, Belgium – hence why it’s written in French. Clearly a sporter variant for the civilian market was planned, although it never reached production.

      I’m not aware that any examples of the Hallé have survived to this day – by my estimation, there were only 3 ever made: two military and one sporter.

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  3. There is also a Halle self loading or automatic rifle prototype which was tested in London in 1910. As far as I know it was intended to become a competitor in the search for a automatic rifle by the British. But it never made it.
    As far as I figured out two rifles exist. One is at the Royal Armories Museum at Leeds U.K. The other is in a private collection.

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  5. So, this rifle not only exists, but is also located in the Museum of St. Petersburg.
    These photos were taken a week ago and it is not known how long she will be at the exhibition. Some instances are constantly stored in storage and are rarely accessed.

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    • There’s also a Hallé rifle at the National Firearms Center in the UK. I’ve seen and photographed it, although I didn’t get the chance to look at the innards. A Hallé pistol went to auction in the US some years ago.

      I don’t know that there are any Hallé sporter rifles still around.

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