Rare and Expensive Ammo

Swiss Vetterli Rifle .41 Swiss

     I used to think finding  ammo for my 7.35 Carcano was hard until I recently purchased a Swiss Vetterli  chambered in 10.4x38 Rimfire (.41 Swiss). Now I know what hard to find is really like! I tried my usual haunts like Old Western Scrounger and Graf and Sons finding not a trace of this beyond obsolete round. Best I could find on Google was some guys suggesting it could be converted to a centerfire and custom make the ammo using some strange combination of  .348 Winchester Brass and .44 Magnum Bullets. Sounds great, after several months of work you end up with the firearm equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster.  For me would probably end up with a similarly dangerous and gruesome outcome.

     I finally found some on Ammo-one for the low, low price of $14.95 a round, limit 3 rounds per customer. Guess I won’t be doing any plinking with this one. To make myself feel better I decided to see if there were any other rounds out there that were even more expensive and scarce. Here are some of the results I came up with.

.700 Nitro Express vs 30/06

700 Nitro Express $99.95 per round (Ammo-one) : This behemoth giant killer shoots a 1,000 grain bullet at 2,000 fps with 9,000-15,000 ft-lb’s of energy. If you really want to get that bull elephants attention this is your round. This is actually a fairly new round developed in the 1980’s by Jim Bell and William Feldstein after Holland and Holland refused to build Feinstein a rifle in .600 Nitro Express. H&H had ceased production of the .600 rifle but was looking for a new big game round.  (Shoulder replacement sold separately.)

.50 Crispin Long $399.00 a round: Developed and patented by Silas Crispin, a U.S. Army Ordnance officer in the 1860s mainly to circumvent a patent issue. Pistol versions of this cartridge in several calibers were made for pistols manufactured by Smith Arms of New York. The rifle cartridge was patented for use Smith breech-loading carbine manufactured by Ethan Allen. As far as I can tell the rifle never made it off the drawing board so you probably won’t be looking for a box of these any time soon. This is a highly coveted collector round

Pinfire Pistol ammo $20-50 per round: I owned several of these guns and the old European pistols can actually be bought fairly cheap right now. It’s been 100 plus years since any ammo was produced for these in some of these calibers. Quiet often enough ammo to fill the chambers will cost you more than the pistol.

.43 (11x52) Egyptian Beaumont $25-$78.00 a round: This close cousin to the Dutch Beaumont was one of the first bolt action rifles produced in Europe along with my Vetterli. In fact it looks like the two rifles were close in the size and design of the ammo. I could find very little other than vague references to the Egyptian but the Dutch was sold in small batch production by Buffalo Arms for $78 a round. I will have to look through some of my old gun books for further reference to the Egyptian model; even Google has its limitations!

Small, Medium and Large Bore Ammo Comparison Charts

These posters are available from Cartridge Comparison Guides Website HERE. These are some really awesome and unique visual guides that are great for your gun room or man cave. An actual size visual comparison is always nice to have when discussing various ammo cartridge variations. These posters also look great on the wall. The American Heritage one at the bottom is my favorite with all the classic cartridges of the Frontier and Wild West days.

Micro and Small Bore Ammo Cartridge Comparison Chart

Medium Bore Ammo Comparison Guide Poster

Small Bore Ammo Cartridge Comparison Chart

Big Bore Ammo Cartridge Comparison Chart

American Heritage Ammo Cartridge Poster Frontier and Wild West

The American Heritage poster highlights black powder ammunition (Rifle, Shotgun, and Handgun) used by the American Rifleman and US Military from 1776 to roughly 1885 when the conversion was made to smokeless powder. It includes all versions of the musket ball, paper and combustibles, and self-contained black powder munitions that were used by the US Military including Confederate and Union Civil War ammunition. The poster contains over 280 different Cartridges, Paper and Combustibles, or Projectiles – all life size (measuring within 4/1000 of an inch).

Includes prominent cartridges from every American military engagement as well as Frontiersman, Buffalo Bore, and Cowboy/Ranger cartridges.
Includes the full range of musket: Ball, Mini Ball, Buck & Ball, Paper Patch, Shaler Triple Bullet, Whitworth, and Williams Self Cleaning. Also includes a full range of Paper and Combustibles, even including rubber and animal intestine case.
Rifle cartridges range from 22 caliber Maynard and Stevens up through the big 45, 50, and 55 calibers and terminates with the 58 caliber cartridges of that era.
Handgun cartridges range from 32 X-Short to 50 Navy and 50 Army.
Shotgun cartridges include Maynards, Ropers, Winchesters, and Remington UMC ranging from 410 Bore up to 8 Gauge.
Included cartridges: Sharps, Bullard, Ballard, Burnside, Peabody (What Cheer), Remington, Hepburn, Maynard, Stevens, Winchester, Spencer, Colt, Thuers, Mississippi Rifle, Snyder, Roper, Evans, Wesson, Smith & Wesson, Ward-Burton, Meigs, Dangerfield-LeFever, Schofield, and Roberts.

Poster dimension is 27 x 38 inches. Images are full color on High gloss / High quality 100lb poster paper.