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Old 02-05-2019, 11:12 PM
Eagle_view Eagle_view is offline
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Default 41 Swiss



Several years ago a friend came dragging in an old and very odd looking bolt action rifle. I recognized it right away as a Swiss Vetterli bolt action repeating rifle from a long time ago. My friend said that he did not want the rifle so if I did it was mine. I hung it on the wall in the shop under a .43 Egyptian 1867 Remington Rolling Block. A little research and some help from another forum told me that was truly a 1869 two digit rifle with double set triggers and a very unusual butt stock. A 150 year old rifle that we know now still shoots.

The rifle was chambered for the swiss .41 Rimfire, but at some point this rifle had been converted to shoot the 41 Swiss Centerfire cartridge. This cartridge shoots a 313 grain .429 bullet with 55-57 grains of black powder for a muzzle velocity of about 1450 fps and about 1461 foot pounds of muzzle energy.




Last fall the rifle began to bother me, could I make it work, could I make the ammo? At sometime someone had tried to shorten the rifle and kind of messed it up. I got it down one day and clean the barrel with a little scrubbing and some bore magic the barrel cleaned up and was amazingly bright with good rifling.

I learned that I could make cartridges for it by shortening and fire forming the old 8mm Lebel cartridge.

This itch was compounded when I found a unaltered barrel, forend and tube magazine in the internet and bought it. Now what do I do with it?

A google search showed that MidwayUSA had them in stock at a decent prize, I bought a box of 50 empty cartridges and began planning on how to form this old case.

I mount a case in my metal lathe and cut the neck off just at the junction of the shoulder. This gave me a slightly long case that I could trim down after fire forming. I primed the short cases with primers and some shotgun powder, tamped in a wad of blue paper towel and then filled the case with cornmeal. I sealed each case with melted paraffin. and stepped outside the shop to fire each case. They came out perfect.






It seems that Sears Roebuck and several other mail order companies bought these rifles by the ton and brought them here to the USA as inexpensive rifles for ranchers and farmers. Remington and other companies manufactured ammunition for them up to 1957. Many were converted to centerfire cartridges before being sold to their civilian owners. Just maybe the rifle that really settled the homestead West was a bolt Action 10+1 shot Swiss Verreti rifle and not some lever action rifle that we most often think about. It certainly has more power than the old 44-40 round.

I then began making a neck sizing die that I could tighten the bullet holding power of these cases. I casted some 220 grain semi-wad cutter bullets from an old 44 magnum mold and powder coated the bullets. Then came the sizing ball for the inside of the case neck and to punch out the primer. I loaded the cases with these bullets, they were to short to be able to test the 10 shot magazine but they loaded as a single shot just fine.

Today I could not resist any longer. I moved our new bullet trap to center in the parking area along side the shop. I asked my wife to take photos and we got these.

I put up a large piece of cardboard and had intended on sticking on a orange center but got too busy and forgot that.

We stepped back about 20 yards and I took a guess at where it would shoot. I don't have a front sight on this old barrel so it was just point and shoot. Four shots, four holes in a surprising small group of about 12" by 4" . If I had markers it would have been tighter.

The rifle was a blast to shoot. almost no recoil but we hit the steel plate hard enough to shatter the cast lead bullets to dust. I would not have wanted to have to stand in front of it. We will work with it more, I will get the new barrel and forearm put on and then we will see what this does. It would be a hoot to hunt with.
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Last edited by Eagle_view; 02-05-2019 at 11:39 PM.
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Old 02-06-2019, 12:14 AM
AzSam AzSam is offline
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You better be careful. Black powder cartridge rifles are/can be very addicting. There is something about them, that words alone cannot express. Everyone should have and shoot at least one, or.......
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Old 02-06-2019, 12:47 PM
JSH JSH is offline
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348 brass will work and is some what easier to find than Lebel brass. I think Starline is making 348?
There are several good threads at castboolits on these rifles and the conversion.
There is also a Swiss rifle forum with a good amount of info.
I had a couple of examples of 41 Swiss rifles. I was all ready to switch them to center fire. A fellow offered me way more than they were worth. I then took those funds and invested into the K31' when the first started showing up, $70 each, and if I bought three they threw in a pile of ammo. At one point I had over a dozen. Milsurps are a weakness of mine.
Jeff
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Old 02-06-2019, 05:03 PM
Tparrish Tparrish is offline
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Good read, interesting project. Thanks for sharing.

Tom
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Old 02-08-2019, 05:53 PM
Eagle_view Eagle_view is offline
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Thanks for everyone's interest and suggestions. The one other thing that I am doing with these loads is that I am powder coating the bullets. It has worked really well so far is so very easy to clean. I found PVI Brass from MidwayUSA for about $39.00 par fifty. I had never used this brass before but it looks good.

Lowell
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Old 02-08-2019, 07:07 PM
DittoHead DittoHead is offline
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Thanks for writing about your rifle. I think it's really cool seeing how people bring rifles back to life that have been presumed dead.
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Old 02-10-2019, 04:04 AM
pocketshaver pocketshaver is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eagle_view View Post
Thanks for everyone's interest and suggestions. The one other thing that I am doing with these loads is that I am powder coating the bullets. It has worked really well so far is so very easy to clean. I found PVI Brass from MidwayUSA for about $39.00 par fifty. I had never used this brass before but it looks good.

Lowell
well I have an idea your rifle will do wonders if given actual barrel bands, tape just doesn't have the right hold to it from experience.

surplus muzzle loaders from the union army got sold off to the folks going west. Theres a reason that when repeating rifles became COMMON and AFFORDABLE they became well loved.

Its a reason that surplus henries were worth their weight in gold to everyone.
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