Swiss Rifle

[Eljay]

Here's what I know about this.

1. It's in the basic form/shape of a Swiss match rifle. But those all seem to be about .40-.45 and this thing's more like .60 land-to-land. I can just roll a .60 ball down it if I give it a nudge every couple of inches.
2. Speaking of the bore, it's 16 groove. The barrel's about 34 inches long. Rate of twist is around one turn in 40 inches.
3. The apareture sights aren't original and were added in the 1970s or earlier.
4. The little bear on the shield is the logo of Bern, Switzerland.
5. I assume this was intended for bench shooting. It's incredibly heavy and the bottom's pretty flat. If you set it on something it pretty much stays put.
6. Googling 16 groove swiss rifle comes up with some hits from the 1840s.
7. The nipple shown is modern. The one that was on it was a little big - #12 cap maybe?

And, um, that's about it.

Any suggestions on what to call it past a really big Swiss match rifle? Any suggestions as to load?

 

[Eljay]

After some research I've learned what to call it anyway. It's a Berner Stutzer. Stutzer is a short rifle or carbine (which by the standards of the time didn't have to be all that short). Berner meaning from Bern. So it's a short rifle from Bern.

Which I knew but being able to Google that term and find out that from 1826-1851 Bern was developing these as sniper rifles in smalish batches, playing with interchangeable parts, percussion, all that new stuff. Schenk was a maker at the time who made these. In 1848 Bern became the capital of the new combined Switzerland and in 1851 they standardized the design.

So basically instead of a big Swiss match rifle, a Swiss match rifle is a small one of these.

 

[cynthialee]

Well I was right when I said to myself it was probably a sniper rifle.
:grin:

 

[matt denison]

Wouldn't make sense to have swivels on a bench gun. Also the highly diverse adjustable rear sight would be more for distances found in the field.

That's a very cool gun. Almost want to call it a machine rather than a gun.

:hatsoff:

 

[mhb]

None of the sights are original...
The rear sight on the barrel is a U.S. Model 1898 (Krag), and the front sight appears to be a Redfield with interchangeable inserts - their equivalent of the Lyman 17A.
Ought to be a shooter, though, if the bore is as good as the rest of the rifle.
mhb - Mike

 

[Eljay]

Good point about the swivels - as noted it turns out it is a military gun. I have trouble wrapping my head around exactly what a "sniper rifle" was in the 1840s. Did they plan on shooting it prone with support? Out of the top of a fort? The stock design does imply to me that it's supposed to rest on something, but it also has that bicep type butt.

The front site was described in the notes from the prior owner as a Lyman. I'm sort of hoping that 17A inserts will work on it, it seems about that size. The tang sight was obviously hacked in later. Good to know about the extra bonus rear sight - I suspected it wasn't original given pictures I've seen of period sights but it wasn't something I recognized.

The bore looks great. I'm definitely looking forward to shooting it. I have a .590 and .585 mold on order from Jeff Tanner. I'll patch it up and try some different loads and see what happens.

The other thing my Googling has turned up is that the C. Schenk on the lock would be Christian Schenk, who was an important gunmaker in Bern in say, 1830-1850, plus or minus.

Oh, and it's hard to get a good weight on the bathroom scale but it's around 13-14 pounds. Feels heavier, maybe because it's relatively short. Just feels massively solid in the hand.

 

[FredBoulton]

The rear aperture sight is a BSA no8 from a target small frame Martini.
Fred

 

[TFoley]

Well I was right when I said to myself it was probably a sniper rifle.
:grin:

The Swiss of the day would most certainly not have called it a 'sniping rifle' - the term, which is of course English, would have had no meaning to them. As in any other German-speaking language, it is more likely to have been called a 'Scharfschuetzengewehr', or even '-buechse'

Apologies for lack of umlaut - my Japanese keyboard does not possess the facility for making one.

tac

 

[Eljay]

First off - Fred - thanks for the tip on the rear sight!

Scharfschützen = Marksman
gewehr = military rifle

Sounds like sniper rifle to me. Or designated marksman anyway.

What does "buechse" mean?

This specific kind of rifle seems to have been called a Stutzer which appears to be a bit of a Swiss idiom. The literal translations from German are more like "gentleman" or "dandy" but the Swiss used that term for shorter guns. It seems best to translate it as "carbine" although simply "rifle" might be OK given that in this context it means "shorter than a musket".

 

[TFoley]

Copied it to get the umlaut but sadly I can't see it except as a little box -

Büchse

Old word derived from High German 'Buhsa' - rifle.

'kay?

When you can't print an umlaut it is acceptable to use the dipthongs '-ue-' and '-oe-' to denote the accented letter, as in 'fuenf' and 'froehlich'.

Still in common use - see the Frankonia or Kettner catalogues - the term 'Buchse' is loosely used to describe any rifle.

tac

 

[Eljay]

Gotcha - thanks!

 

[Eljay]

PS You were right - it's a Redfield sight. Just a little bigger than a Lyman 17A.

 

[Eljay]

Just as a postscript - it's a shooter. I only had time for a short session today but I finally got to shoot it. I started at 20 yards to at least get on paper and after a couple of rounds had it zeroed in and just did a quick sanity check with a couple of different loads to get some idea how it shoots. At around 70 grains it was shooting so consistently that I had trouble convincing the guy next to me that I even hit the target - just opened the hole up a bit further.

Next time I'll get some distance and see if I can widen that group out enough that I can fine tune the load a bit...

 

[BillinOregon]

That thing is just gorgeous. Please post a Youtube of you shooting it!

 

[Eljay]

I'll see what I can do. I really should start collecting some video of shooting muzzleloaders.

 

[Newtire]

I bought this rifle on GunBroker in January 2018 for $800.00. It reminds me of the guns I saw in a museum in Speyer, Germany while vacationing there back in the 1980’s. There were racks of these kinds of rifles standing right next to the aisle where one could touch them. Most of those were vastly more ornate than this one I ended up with. The thing that set them apart was just how deep the rifling grooves were. They all had very deep grooves and we're of a very large bore.

So, this rifle of mine is supposed to be .62 caliber and it has very deep cut 16 groove rifling. The bore appears to be very clean and shiney. The rifle weighs about 18 pounds with a 33” octagon to round barrel. There are 4- tapped holes of approximately ¼” diameter on the bottom side of forend for maybe some sort of palm rest. Written/engraved in script on the top flat is the inscription “E Trischh~necht.a.Schpeiker”. The sights are a rear one with a ⅜” tube for an aperture and a hooded front blade. Rear sight is screw adjustable for both windage and elevation. Set trigger with rear of a normal curved design and the front being a kind of thin wire with a screw adjustment. There is no provision for a ramrod in the heavy figured walnut-looking stock. Has a hooked buttplate with it, the toeplate, the trigger guard, and drilled & tapped strip on bottom of forend being made of brass. The nose cap is made of horn.

Does anyone have an idea of what I have here and/or what kind of ball & patch combination or bullet I may be looking at? Looking down into the bore, I can see that the rifling makes one complete turn in the 33” length of the barrel. This would seem to be a barrel made for a slug rather than a round ball. Light powder charge with a round ball?? I am guessing at this point. I used one of those little battery powered LED light sold by Thill made to be put on a fishing float or a lure maybe. They are about 1-½” long and .150” in diameter and drop right down the barrel of any muzzleloader barrel, so I got a good view of the rifling.

So, anyone have any ideas of what I have and what loads I might use? Sorry about the double picture post.

Thanks in advance,
Calvin Sent from the all new AOL

I'll see what I can do. I really should start collecting some video of shooting muzzleloaders.

Hi Eljay,
I have a somewhat similar rifle I bought off of GunBroker in 2018. Here's a description of it that I posted over on castboolits.gunloads.com to give you an idea of what it is. I'll try to post pictures.