Adopted in 1874, the Gras rifle was the first long gun adopted by the French army to use an 11 mm metallic cartridge which was made of brass and centerfired. The Model 1874 rifle was actually a relatively simple transformation of the Chassepot Model 1866 rifle into a metal cartridge weapon. This transformation had been proposed by Commander Basile Gras in 1873 and accepted in 1874. Tens of thousands of Chassepot rifles were transformed into Gras rifles (the 1866-1874 model), in addition to new factory-made Gras rifles which were manufactured several times. hundreds of thousands of copies (about 450,000). The acronym M80 designates the Gras rifles which have undergone a very slight modification of the breech box by creating a bleeding, and of the head of the breech (enlargement of the notch next to the bleeding of the case) in order to better protect the shooter in case of case rupture and gas escape. The weapon gained an excellent reputation for ruggedness and ballistic efficiency during overseas expeditions of this period.
The Gras rifle underwent a last modification in 1914, to compensate for the lack of weapons, consisting of a change of barrel in order to be able to fire the 8 mm Lebel ammunition. Two variants exist. The most common is that made with a Lebel barrel, but there is also a recanned variant with a Berthier rifle barrel. The two weapon types have a slightly different rise. The weapons then normally bear the additional marking M14. These weapons were intended to equip troops not intended to be at the front, such as gatekeepers, while providing them with a weapon using standard ammunition, thus simplifying manufacturing and logistics.
The weapons of the Gras system include, in addition to the rifle, the cavalry rifle, the rifle of the gendarme on foot, the rifle of the gendarme on horseback, the artillery snap hook. The mounted gendarme's rifle is identical to that of cavalry. Only the assignment allows them to be distinguished (gendarmerie or cavalry).