Zimmerstutzen rifles

Steve Johnson
by Steve Johnson

B.B. has written an interesting article on early target shooting with the Zimmerstutzen rifles.

The Zimmerstutzen was the ancestor of the 10-meter target [air] rifle and extends back to at least 1840. Zimmerstutzen is the rough translation of “parlor rifle” in German. The first zimmer was powered by a percussion cap that propelled a small lead ball through a short rifled barrel.

What I found fascinating was that there were 25 different Zimmerstutzen calibers!

A Zimmerstutzen comes in the nominal caliber 4mm, but in fact there are over 25 discrete calibers that range from 4mm to 5.55mm, in half-milimeter increments.

Zimmerstutzen vs .22LR

Read the article here.

Steve Johnson
Steve Johnson

I founded TFB in 2007 and over 10 years worked tirelessly, with the help of my team, to build it up into the largest gun blog online. I retired as Editor in Chief in 2017. During my decade at TFB I was fortunate to work with the most amazing talented writers and genuinely good people!

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