clueless......need ID help

[hishergarrett]

I recently found this at a site that I believe is from the turn of the century.I believe it to be a bullet casing but I don't know what kind.It tapers down in the front and it looks to be some sort of rim fire.I included the two nickels that wre also found for reference on size and date("V" is 1900 and "Buffalo" is 1920).Any help is greatly appreciated.Thanks.

 

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[hammered]

Hi hishergarrett, did a resize to help with the id for you .


hammered

 

[hishergarrett]

Thanks,hammered.I didn't check it before I posted.This really helped out alot.

 

[NOLA_Ken]

can you get an approximate diameter of the mouth of the shell? That would help greatly. thinking it could be .41 Swiss rimfire.

http://gadcustomcartridges.com/ at the bottom of the page.

 

[Monty]

Can't tell without some measurements on the shell, but it looks to be a .44-40 or .38-40 rimfire. Monty

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

If I recall correctly, it is Swiss manufacture, from around the 1880s or perhaps 1890s. I can't recall the specific name. I'll have to see if I can find the ID for it, somewhere in my computer's old files.

The cartridge's base shows it has been struck multiple times by a rifle which has a "double" firing pin ...and the firing-pins are round. That will help with identifying the rifle. I am not as familiar with Indian Wars era firearms as I am with Civil War era ones. In the 19th-century, there were very few types of firearms with a "double" firing-pin (or hammer). One of the few was the Henry Repeater of Civil War fame ...but its "pins" were bar-shaped, not round, so this rimfire cartridge wasn't fired in a Henry.

 

[hishergarrett]

Thanks to everyone for their help so far.The size of the opening is about 7/16" best I can tell because it is bent pretty bad.

 

[Retired Sarge]

I thought IIRC that the plus sign in a circle was a NATO symbol meaning the ammunition met NATO specifications.
Not saying that this is the case with this shell casing, but that's what I remember, somebody correct me if I am wrong!

Mike
USAF Retired

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Ffuries wrote:
> somebody correct me if I am wrong!

Mike, your memory about the cross-in-a-circle stamp on NATO ammo is correct.

However, this large-caliber rifle (or carbine) cartridge is the rimfire type, which excludes it from being NATO ammo. Wrong century.

 

[Retired Sarge]

Figured I was off base there, but that's all that came to my mind.

Mike
USAF Retired

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Hishergarret... as BigCypressHunter would say, please put a green check on your post.

My old memory that your cartridge-case is Swiss was correct. Now I've found the exact info, by following memory-jogging advice from my fellow researcher Dave Poche, and a friend of his in Canada. Your cartridge is a .41 Swiss Rimfire, first manufactured in 1866, all the way into the early 1890s, when the Swiss rifle they were made for was phased out. Specifically, your cartridge is a 10.4millimeter (.41-caliber) Swiss Rimfire, length 38 milimeters long, for rifle use. There was also a 10.4mm Swiss revolver (pistol) of the same era, but it used a centerfire cartridge, which excludes it from being your catridge.

To see photos of an Original (1867-1890s) copper-case cartridge (not a centerfire brass-casing modern Reproduction), complete with the Original lead bullet, go to:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=21917
and
http://www.swissrifles.com/ammo/index.html

To learn about the Verletti rifle which fired your cartridge, go to:
http://www.swissrifles.com/vetterli/

Also see:
http://www.militaryrifles.com/Switzerland/SwissVet.htm
which says:
"The decision to use the 10.4 millimeter rim fire cartridge in the Veterrli rifle was apparently motivated by considerations of economy since the cartridge was already in existence and proven in the Milbank-Amsler conversions of the Federal rifle. Notwithstanding that it is a rimfire, this round was a relatively high velocity, flat trajectory load, far ahead of the short range, large caliber rounds used in the other converted breach loading cartridges. The Vetterli striker has a forked firing pin which passes through two firing hole pins in the bolt face for double striking the rimfire cartridge."

 

[hishergarrett]

Thanks everyone again.This is definitely solved.Way to go!!!!!!!!

 

[hishergarrett]

>41 cal. Swiss Centerfire-solved

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Rimfire, not Centerfire. Please re-read that section of the info in my post. It's a .41 Swiss Rimfire cartridge-casing. The difference may seem small, but it is important, at least in the Historical sense, because centerfire cartridges weren't invented until about 30 years after the first rimfire cartridge invention (by Flobert, in 1836).

 

[Monty]

Makes one wonder if the person who fired it was a Swiss immigrant. I've never seen that caliber nor that rifle even at a gun show. I'm about ready to quit guessing unless I know darn sure it's an American cartridge case. I do have a couple of 7.5X55 Swiss rifles that fires the GP11 ammo, but nothing as crude as the one that fired that particular round. Good work guys. Monty

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

For all readers:
Whenever a war ends, the victor tends to sell off a bunch of his own (and captured) "war-surplus" weapons and gear. Thus comes the advent of the war-surplus dealers ...such as Bannerman here in the US. Large quantities of obsolete US weapons & gear (and captured CS stuff) got sold to European and South American governments in the years following the end of the Civil War. That's why the famous 1866 shipwreck of the USS Governor contained a huge cargo of militaary-surplus stuff. Scuba-divers found the wreck in the early 1990s, off the Carolina coast. I've owned some obsolete-type SNY buckles and obsolete artillery shells which were found among that 1866 shipwreck's cargo of war-surplus equipment.

War-surplus sales by the victorious government is also why the Bannerman Catalog was full off such stuff (even Confederate items) in the postwar era.

For Monty, who wrote:
> Makes one wonder if the person who fired it was a Swiss immigrant.

My info-sources say that in the very late 1800s a few hundred or thousand obsolete Swiss Vitterli rifles (and their .41-caliber ammo) were imported into the US by Bannerman, for sale to large-game hunters, as an attractively cheaper-priced alternative to state-of-the-art rifles.

Monty also wrote:
> I've never seen that caliber nor that rifle even at a gun show.

Because only a few hundred or thousand were imported to the US, they are rarely seen for sale. But there are enough still-shootable Vertelli rifles remaining even now that my Google-searching turned up two webpages for owners who want to shoot them, but can't, due to the unavailability of .41 ammo which correctly will fit them. The webpages show how to alter the rifle itself, or to convert near-sized modern ammo to fit properly in the Vitterli. if you care to see the webpages, go here for rifle-conversion info (with photos)
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=21917
and here for modern-cartridge conversion info (with photos):
http://www.militaryrifles.com/Switzerland/VetConversion/VetterliShooting.html

 

[Monty]

That looks like a pretty puny round to me when compared to something like the ones buffalo hunters used. It reminds me of the old .44 Rimfire that was a good manstopper at short range, but I doubt it was very good for large game unless awfully close as well. But never the less, I suppose the old imported rifles and ammo were cheap? Monty