After his rifle was rejected by the Russian military, Belgian gunsmith Léon Nagant set out to develop a method for converting existing Russian Berdan II rifles to the newly adopted 7.62x54r smokeless cartridge. This was an ingenious conversion that involved a new bolt head with dual locking lugs at the front. The bolt had minimal modifications and retained its cock on close mechanism. The new bolt head simply slides on and off the front of the bolt and is retained by a set screw that applies force to the extractor. A barrel with the exact same dimensions as an M1891 Mosin barrel was used. The rear sight assembly was reused from existing Mosin spare parts.

Approximately 3,000 trial rifles were created between 1892 and 1905, but the design was ultimately rejected by the Russians. Only a handful of these rifles still exist today