Vetterli rifle

The Vetterli rifles were a series of Swiss army service rifles used from 1869 to 1889, when they were replaced by the Schmidt-Rubin rifles. They paired the tubular magazine of the American Winchester Model 1866 with a bolt that for the first time had two opposed rear locking lugs, and they were the first repeating bolt-action rifles with a self-cocking action and a small-caliber bore. An eleven-round magazine gave them more capacity than any other rifle of the time, so they were among the most advanced military rifles in Europe when adopted. Designed by Johann Friedrich Vetterli, they were built in several models between 1867 and 1881, including carbine and sharpshooter versions, at the SIG works in Neuhausen and later the federal arms factory in Bern. Italy adopted a single-shot variant, and surplus rifles later reached Paraguay, Finland, and American coal miners.