WITHDRAWN 1863 Swiss Infanteriegewehr

Swiss pattern 1863 Rifled Musket. .41 cal. (10.4mm). This gun bears a 'Schaffhausen SIG 24' stamp, leading one to believe it was produced by SIG (SIG's first facilities were in Schaffhausen).

The particular rifle has a .407 bore diameter. The orginal bullet was a 290-300g paper patched minie style. Any .399 smooth sided paper patch bullet will work. I will include the paper patch template.

I am currently awaiting a custom "bulholzer" mold from moose molds. The mold will be forwarded to you once complete for the cost of the mold, or you can contact moose directly with the order.

63.5g of 1.5f Swiss has worked exceedingly well. This rifle is identical to the famed 1851 Feldstuzer other than the single trigger, bayonet lug and buttplate.

The rifle takes a standard 5/16s nipple and has a new one installed. I will include the orginal.


A little background: in the 1860's, the Swiss were trying to rapidly keep up with modern firearms technology in order to be on equal footing with the other countries of Europe that were adopting breech-loading cartridge rifles. They adopted a number of "transitional" breech loading arms, until the Vetterli design was finalized. The most notable of these transitional arms, was the Milbank-Amsler breechloader. The Swiss converted most of their old muskets to the Milbank-Amsler pattern. This one was spared from being converted, making it very rare.

The musket is 54" long, and is very interestingly engraved with the name, "F. Vetterlin." , the designer of the famed Vetterli breech loading repeating rifle. This makes its history even more intriguing. According to the museum. This rifle was either made by Fredrick Vetterlin or supervised by him during his time at SIG. Ive contacted the Swiss Marksmanship Museum In Bern Switzerland and they have confirmed the rifles provenance. I have all the emails if you would like to read them.

There is a good chance this is one of the few 1863 Swiss Infanteriegewehrs in the US, the only other examples I could confirm existing were in the museum in Bern Switzerland.

It has good rifling and is overall in excellent original condition.

More pics avaliable, image limit has been reached.

$1500 + shipping

I belive i priced it to fairly. The only record of one for sale in the US was a 1992 Christie's auction. It sold for the equivalent of $3000 today. They are hard to find even in Switzerland per a conversation I has with the YouTuber BlokeOntheRange.

Do you know the twist rate of the rifling?

Jshorter said:

Do you know the twist rate rate?

Click to expand...

Yes it's 1:32, same as the Feildstuzer

This 1863 Swiss Infanteriegewehr rifle appears to be an excellent option for a hard core competitor & antique arms collector..

For fine competition accuracy over my 40 yr. stint I've always prefered original muzzleloading English & European rifles & pistols as most have faster twist rifling averaging one turn in length of the barrel & rifling is much deeper than most modern barrels.

Firearm safety & value considerations;
Some of us who shoot original firearms are antique arms gunsmiths or have them evaluated by a someone qualified to determine if their condition warrants being put back in action.
Many never consider shooting high value antique guns in near mint condition to avoid greatly devaluing them, personally those I've encountered get sold to those who can afford display-only pieces.

Relic shooter said:

This 1863 Swiss Infanteriegewehr rifle appears to be an excellent option for a hard core competitor & antique arms collector..

For fine competition accuracy over my 40 yr. stint I've always prefered original muzzleloading English & European rifles & pistols as most have faster twist rifling averaging one turn in length of the barrel & rifling is much deeper than most modern barrels.

Firearm safety & value considerations;
Some of us who shoot original firearms are antique arms gunsmiths or have them evaluated by a someone qualified to determine if their condition warrants being put back in action.
Many never consider shooting high value antique guns in near mint condition to avoid greatly devaluing them, personally those I've encountered get sold to those who can afford display-only pieces.

Click to expand...

Relic shooter said:

This 1863 Swiss Infanteriegewehr rifle appears to be an excellent option for a hard core competitor & antique arms collector..

For fine competition accuracy over my 40 yr. stint I've always prefered original muzzleloading English & European rifles & pistols as most have faster twist rifling averaging one turn in length of the barrel & rifling is much deeper than most modern barrels.

Firearm safety & value considerations;
Some of us who shoot original firearms are antique arms gunsmiths or have them evaluated by a someone qualified to determine if their condition warrants being put back in action.
Many never consider shooting high value antique guns in near mint condition to avoid greatly devaluing them, personally those I've encountered get sold to those who can afford display-only pieces.

Click to expand...

The rifling is deep on this rifle. Some use a unpatched buholzer with success. I fired some samples of patched, unpatched buholzers and some swaged conicals from Buffalo arms. They all shot very well.

Overall I'd describe this rifle as a .40 cal target rifle dressed for infantry use, which was exactly what it was