The battle at first appeared to favor the French, for they had better rifles, the Chassepot, an early bolt-action rifle replacing the musket with a range of over 1,500 yards, far superior to the Prussian Dreyse bolt-action rifle, also called the needle gun, which had a range of only 600 yards.
This simple yet effective technology was successfully adapted to artillery in 1877 by Colonel de Bange, who invented grease-impregnated asbestos pads to seal the breech of his new cannons (the De Bange system).
The success of the Dreyse needle gun spurred subsequent developments in firearms technology and, before the start of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the French introduced the Chassepot rifle.
•
Its effective range was very short compared to that of the muzzle-loading rifles of the day, and conspicuously so as against the Chassepot.
On 7 October, hungry and immobilised, Bazaine dispatched two 40,000 man foraging parties along both banks of the Moselle, but the Prussian guns blew the French wagons off the road and the Prussian infantry cut swathes through the desperate French soldiers with Chassepots captured at Sedan.
In 1864, the modern factory was built, new steam-powered machines were installed and the first military standardized bolt action rifle, the Chassepot, was produced from 1866 on, then the Gras rifle after 1874.