Shooting a Swiss Vetterli for the first time

[Dave DeLaurant]

I've passed on a number of these rifles because adding another round that needs to be loaded from relatively expensive brass that still needs formed didn't interest me.

I totally understand. I used to feel the same way about oddballs.

Perhaps I suffered brain damage somewhere along the way; over time I found that cracking the weird ammo problem gave just as much satisfaction and fun as the shooting did.

The reloading costs look daunting, and they definitely are compared with white-box factory fodder in normal times. I currently have 59 formed Vetterli cases (I damaged one rim -- that case is now a OAL reloading dummy); the cost for those plus the dies and my first hundred bullets was right at $150. That's probably only $35 over the average amount I spend whenever I buy a gun in a new chambering though. I usually stockpile fewer cases for the oddballs and more for common cartridges, but I did some extras for the Vetterli due to its large-ish magazine capacity.

Forming gets to be a sort of Zen activity once the procedure is worked out, weirdly satisfying in its way -- plus the cases last a long time, so usually it's a one-and-done chore. I've done enough caseforming now that when I take on a new cartridge I can be fairly confident of success.

At present I'm using ammo with reformed brass for 8.15x46R, 32-40, 8x50R Austrian, 8x58R Danish. 7.5x23R and .41/10.4x36R Swiss, plus a .308-357 cartridge I designed (3057 Shadow). I shoot 7.35 Terni but I can buy those cases read-formed -- bullets are the fun part! I also used to load .41 Colt, but I sold my brass (made back in the pre-Starline days) and dies with my problematic Army Special as a package deal.

Compared with doing a hundred 8.15x46R cases from 30-30 brass, which requires cutting, annealing, forming, final trimming and two rim reduction operations, forming .41 Swiss brass seems like a walk in the park.

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

And if you think case-forming is time-consuming, last night I stayed up late doing a high-rez scan of the Remington box and retouching the heck out of it. About three hours later, here's the result:

 

[Kleanbore]

Neat!