had adopted new breachloading military rifles: Austria upgraded its own Lorenz musket to Wanzl rifle (after 1867. replaced with Werndl rifle), while Ottomans adopted British-made Snider-Enfield (after 1870. replaced with even better Martini-Henry). With no money to buy new breechloading rifles, Serbian government chose a cheaper solution, to upgrade some old muzzleloaders to breachloaders, using some of the existing conversion systems. However, existing conversion systems (as in Austrian Wanzl rifle, British Snider-Enfield and American Springfield M1873) worked only with small calibre (under 15 mm) muzzleloaders, which Serbian army did not have: most of the existing military rifles were large-bore (15–18 mm) Russian percussion muskets and carbines. However, in 1867. large quantities of very cheap percussion rifles were available on the European market, as the end of American Civil War (1861-1865) left many rifles made for the US army unsold in Europe, while the rapid adoption of breech-loaders by all the main powers made them suddenly obsolete. In that situation, Serbian government easily bought about 60.000 rifles in 1867: some 27.000 surplus Lorenz M1854 (cal 13.9 mm, known as Austrian caliber) were bought in Austria and 33.000 Belgian rifles M1850/56 (cal 14.7 mm, known as English caliber) were bought in Hamburg (of this number, 5.000 were sent as military aid to Principality of Montenegro). At the same time, as early as 1866. Serbian military experts chose the very cheap British Green brothers' system for conversion of small calibre muzzleloaders to breachloading rifles. In 1867, military workshops in Kragujevac began the modification of Lorenz M1854 rifles to the Green system: by 1869, all the 27.000 rifles were converted. However, the first use of this rifles on a state funeral (in 1868), showed a tremendous rate of missfire of more than 50%, which clearly showed the weakness of Green system in practice. So in 1869, this conversion system was replaced by a more complex Peabody system, with a metallic cartridge, which was used to convert 28.000 Belgian 14.7 mm rifles in the Belgrade Arsenal from 1871 on. The war against the Turks was fought with these rifles in 1876–1878. Military use During the war against the Turks in 1876–1878, the second class of Serbian infantry was armed with Green system rifles, while the soldiers of the first class received more modern Peabody rifles. During the war, more than 6.000 Green rifles were converted to Peabody action: however, in 1877. Serbian army still had