[4] While most of the early breech-loading rifles adopted after 1865 used integral metallic cartridges and had hinged breechblock (Snider-Enfield, Krnka, Wänzl, Springfield Model 1873) or falling block (Peabody, Martini-Henry) with firing pin, the Green system rifles had a primitive version of the bolt action, but they were loaded with a semi-integrated paper cartidge (without a primer), which was fired with the traditional percussion lock.

By simply pulling the breechblock back, the chamber was opened and loaded with a semi-integrated paper cartidge (with powder and ball), after which it was closed by pushing the lever forward.

Principality of Serbia was still an Ottoman client state, but nevertheless the Serbian government did it's best to modernize the army, which consisted of some 5.000 professional soldiers in the Regular Army (Serbian: Стајаћа војска, Stajaća vojska) and all the able-bodied men in Serbia of age 20–50, who were conscripted for military service into the National Militia (Serbian: Народна војска, Narodna vojska) and divided into three classes, according to their age (the first class were men younger than 35, the third class elder than 50).

With no money to buy new breech-loading rifles, Serbian government chose a cheaper solution, to upgrade some old muzzleloaders to breechloaders, using some of the existing conversion systems.

Serbian military experts chose the very cheap British Green brothers' system for conversion of small calibre muzzleloaders to breech-loading rifles.

To make things worse, the chamber and receiver clogged with powder residue easily, requiring cleaning after every 7-8 shots.

[3][9] The only known example of a Serbian Green M1867, listed under the name Infantry rifle Model 1862 (Lorenz) transformed to breachloader of the Lindner system, is held in the Naval Museum in Venice.