The rifle was constructed to a patent registered in France under the number 3580293 on the 25th. September 1905 by the joint inventors Jules Marie Demay, Blaise Ferreol and Jean Marie Murigneaux.

The patent was published exactly four months later in January of 1906. The associated abstract has yet to be located, but the drawing is practically identical to that used in an application for a British patent made on behalf of the Peddie Small Arms Corporation Ltd., at their London address, for their submission to the Small Arms Committee in 1905 of their proposed design what would eventually become the War Office PatternMiniature Rifle. That the submitted Demay rifle was unsuccessful is frankly unsurprising. We have inspected and shot an example of this Lebel style training rifle, and have to say that, despite the not widely appreciated design of the War Office rifle, the Demay rifle, in our opinion, fails to reach even that level of acceptance, the action being lightly and loosely constructed, and the agricultural extraction system not the most effective.

N.B. Groove and land widths opposite to the norm; narrow 1mm rifling groove and wide 2mm land.

CLICK ON THIS IMAGE TO VIEW VIDEO CLIP OF BORE & RIFLING CONDITION

There are a number of badly eroded areas ahead of the chamber, but also a significant ring bulge just over half way along the bore

< land impression >

See also the Buffalo Lebel Training Rifle by ManuFrance