By Jim
I won’t go into detail about this rifle, except to say that there’s a few of them on the surplus market today. Most of them are in pretty decent shape considering they were made in the 1870’s and on, but there’s a reason they are not worn out. The ammunition is impossible to find since these guns utilize a rimfire blackpowder cartridge. So if you want to play around with the guns, you have to convert them to centerfire and make your own ammunition. I’d like to remind you that this is NOT going to be a step by step tutorial on converting your particular Vetterli, as there are too many variables to take into a account depending upon the model of rifle that you have. Therefore no exact measurements are included in this pictorial. This is considered a guideline of what needs to be done. As usual, I recommend a professional gunsmith to perform any conversions and ammunition being made. This is for information purposes only.
The first step to this after removing the bolt is to completely disassemble it, and find the original two prong rimfire pin.
Trim down the two prongs slightly and center drill a hole to accept a new made firing pin.
You will end up with an insert that makes up a two part firing pin that free floats, and you can easily replace the pin if it ever breaks.
Before reassembling the bolt, check to make sure you have enough firing pin protrusion from the bolt face, and that the head of the firing pin can fully retract into the bolt body. In the retracted position you don’t want any of the firing pin sticking out at all. You could accidentally ignite the cartridge while cycling the firearm. The firing pin should have a slightly flattened hemispherical tip to prevent a pierced primer in the cartridge.
This is what the bolt assembly will be like once everything is back together and installed in the rifle.
The brass cases for the now .41 Swiss centerfire can be made from cut down 8mm Lebel cases. From left to right shows the stages of going from 8mm Lebel down to a complete fire formed 41 Swiss case. There are several different specifications for the 41 Swiss, so you may have to make a chamber casting. I trimmed my cases to 42mm, then annealed and resized the cases.
Once the cases are trimmed, annealed and sized, you will need to trim the rim of the case to fit in the shell holder for the reloading die set. In my particular situation, I trimmed the rims to .603”. This seems to fit my particular rifle and function through the action just fine.
The bullet mold I chose came from an online shop called Accurate Molds. There are several different molds to choose from for the Swiss Vetterli. Keep in mind that there’s no cartridge interruptor in the tube fed magazine, so you need to keep the overall cartridge length to 2.2”. Any more or less than that and you will jam up the action and it will not feed from the Henry/Winchester style magazine and elevator. Shorter lengths of cartridges will have to be fed one at a time in the chamber.
Despite the gun being built during a time when cartridges were loaded with black powder, I have found that the Swiss Vetterli was built very robust. I use AA 5744 smokeless loads in my Vetterli with no problems.
Before you fire any smokeless loads in any antique rifle, you should always have a competent gunsmith inspect the firearm for any damages or thinness of the metal. Many designs of antique firearms are not strong enough to withstand even a tiny amount of pressure from smokeless powders. The Vetterli is a heavy duty gun, and in later years the Swiss had switched to mild smokeless loads for this particular rifle.