Thursday, March 31, 2011

Barking mad Swiss gun nuttery.


Swiss Vetterli 1869/71

.44 rimfire Swiss gun-nuttery. Looks like a cross between a Winchester and a coffee-grinder. Vetterli Rifle. Absolute Alp-induced barking madness. Rusty Mitchum loaned me this one- his dad traded five bucks for it when Rusty was a kid....last century. (Not sure which way the five bucks went.) It was current the century before THAT. 1869/71 Swiss Vetterli .41 rimfire. The first bolt action repeating service rifle in the world.

Cleaned it, foamed out the barrel. Pulled the feed equipment and the forestock. Wiped it down. Some total shade-tree gunsmith converted this one to centerfire with a drill and a ground-off sheetrock nail, but there is some great wood and metal work in there.

Buffalo Arms makes some brass. Couple of googlers make the bullet. You can buy your own dang powder and large rifle primers and get ready to turn back the Papal Guard if they come marching up the schwedenhoffen.

If you could afford about 40 rounds of the brass and manage to get the thing to feed it would be quite the piece to pull out of a case on the line during a vintage match.

I'm craving clocks and chocolate and think I faintly hear fluglehorns on the fir-scented air. Maybe I'll get a pair of leather shorts, one of those little hats with a feather and some big suspenders. How about a little cider and some of that cheese with holes in it and then we'll shoot apples off the kids heads?

1 comment:

Tam said...

Have you seen Oleg's photos of mine?

http://cosmolineandrust.blogspot.com/2006/10/gew-71-vetterli-19th-century-assault.html