Yesterday's Weapons Forums

That looks like one of the Italian Vetterli's. I think it was their earliest centerfire( and possibly smokeless power) rifle.

I have a Swiss Vetterli, in 10.4x52 or 54 cannot remember. It was a rimfire caliber. and had a tubular feed with a lifter copied from one of the early Winchester/Henry rifles.

The give away for the Vetterli rifles is the receiver and bolt. The large mainspring housing at the rear of the bolt( I have been told a VW valve spring will work as a replacement if needed) Locking lugs are on the rear of the bolt, just in front of mainspring. If it is like the Swiss version it lacks a safety.

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Jeff

Looks like a 6,5 Carcano to me too.

Jeff, I own a Swiss Vetterli too.
It used to be in 10.4x38R or(like mine) in 10.4x42R.
I had mine transformed to CF so reloading would be easier.
I love to take this rifle to the range, it's a great shooter.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin

Martin, the 10.4x38r or 42 r sounds better, I must have been having a senior moment.

Mine is converted to centerfire also. I think some of my confusion was from the fact you can trim brass to different lengths, with the variance up to 4mm, so you can load different length bullets.

It is a great shooter, and mine had one of the best looking bores of any rifle I have, just forget that it is an 1871 model. I have new guns that do not have as clean and pretty of a bore as that one.

My only problem is that it shoots very high, I need to jury rig some kind of higher front sight to bring the point of impact down. I did see where someone made one out of some spring wire, so may try that, but will use copper first so I can determine a proper height.

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Jeff

Thanks for your reply Jeff.
Mine is a great shooter too.
I use black powder only in this rifle.
It took me a while to find the right bullet and load though.
Here's a picture of the components when I started reloading.
I use reformed .348 Winchester brass, LR or LP primers and 40 grains of WANO PP (German) black powder behind the bullet.
To fill up the gap between the BP and the bullet I use couscous.




I also bought myself a LEE mold on another board(group buy)
The bullets that come out of this mold are all according to the specifications of the original Vetterli bullet.
The only problem I had was that after the first shot the bullets had to be paper patched to fit into the brass.(I don't use a die set)
Works great for me now and I love to take this rifle to the range.
I should do it more often.

Take a look at this link.
It might help you a bit with the front sight.


Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin

Update: The thread was about a Martini-Henry artillery carbine I bought from an ad on another site for $100. I was cleaning up my hunt101 account recently & deleted the pic. I added the pic of the Vett as I bought it the same day.

Here's another I saved showing the M-H, a Steyr for size perspective and a pair of iron knuckles someone said are US military. They are iron and are rusted badly enough that any lettering is obliterated. SW

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Slava Ukraini!!

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Jeff