Forum members, In a moment of insanity at a gunshow, I agreed to purchase an 1885 Vetterli. An attraction to ugly guns is my only explanation for my purchase. I got the "beauty" home and found it has a great looking bore with rifling left. Does anybody have an experience with these old girls, better yet if the brass and dies were obtainable would it worth the effort to try and reload for this rifle. Any and all comments would be appreciated. TIA!

rikkit, I found one this summer at a local auction house. Paid $15.00 for it, but the barrel was hacksawed to 26 inches and the buttplate was gone. I installed a williams ramp and rubber butt pad. I converted the rifle to centerfire by drilling firing pin hole in the bolt. Had to anneal the striker to drill a hole in the end too accomadate a decapping pin. I made brass from 348 Win cases by driving the new case into the chamber, cut the brass to length and resized the necks with a 44 mag sizer. I have been seating lyman 429244 250 grain (sized 429) boolets with the 44 mag seater. I am working up loads with Unique starting a 12 grains. Up to 13 grains (vel.1225f/s) now with 3.5 inch groups at 100 yards. Also used 20 grains 4198 plus 1 grain Dacron (1100 f/s) for 4 inch groups at 100. yds. I would like to try a 300 grain boolet. Anyone have a few that I can try? culex < !--color-->

The Italian version, either single shot or magazine repeater, were all centerfires I believe. The dies, brass, moulds, etc. are all available. Not particularly cheap but available. Probably the best place to find all that stuff would be Buffalo Arms.

I think on that magazine you want to be sure that the rim on each cartridge goes in in front of the one below it. If you don't do that you can REALLY jam those cartridges up.

I've got the Swiss version which uses and entirely different style of magazine. The magazine on my Beaumont, however, should be nearly identical. So I'm pretty sure you want to take care in putting round in in the proper order.

Also on a round like this you can use pure lead. You can also go to the Accurate Arms reloading site and ask them to recommend a smokeless powder load. In my experience those work very well.

Really interesting old guns. If you have the Italian version with a magazine I'd appreciate knowing what you paid for it. Finding one in excellent shape below $500 is unusual.