1850(ish) Württemburgische Beutter Needle Rifle

[chrisftk]

Hi all,

Here's a very weird one that I mentioned a while back. This one came out of the same collection as the Doersch von Baumgarten I posted a month or so ago. Officially, this is an experimental needle rifle designed by Johann Georg Beutter of Reutlingen. These are very difficult to find information on, but I did have two German language sources I was able to consult. I know there's enough of a needle gun following here, so I thought I'd share.

Essentially, Beutter was a gunsmith that designed a new breach-loading system with a needle-fire mechanism that he wanted to try to sell to the Württemburgische military. From what I read, he was able to get an audience with military officials in January of 1850. The system borrowed some elements from the Prussian system and had an unusual 12 groove rifling in the bore. They examined the rifle and thought it was interesting, but complicated to manufacture. They requested a live fire test, but Beutter was not prepared and did not bring ammunition. The military concluded that the system was not suitable for adoption and purchased the prototype for the state model collection. Two years later, in July of 1852, Beutter again approached the military; this time with ammunition. The rifle performed well at 200 paces, but was still deemed not suitable, so Beutter requested they buy this example as well for their model collection. It appears that others were constructed, though given the size of Beutter's operation, these appear to be very few and far between. Today, they have fallen into obscurity. Any firearm from Beutter is considered extremely rare and only a small number appear to have survived.

This particular example bears SN 34. It was sporterized at some point (possibly to sell on the civilian market), though only the forend of the stock was cut and the brass rod receptacle removed and filled; it appears no other modifications were made. I plan on restoring it with an old fore end and brass ramrod guides I have on hand. The bolt operates by tilting the handle forward, lufting up and rotating like a regular bolt, the movement of the handle is what actually cocks the action (unlike the manual cocking of the Dreyse system) It's very odd.

While extremely niche, it's a neat window into early breach-loader designs and frankly a model I never thought I'd be able to hold, let alone own.





Normally, I'm not a bore photo guy, but it's pretty neat to see the 12 groove rifling....



Sources:
Wirtgen, R. (1991). Das Zündnadelgewehr: Eine militärtechnische revolution im 19. Jahrhundert. E.S. Mittler.
Lehner, H. (1986, July). Eine unbekannte militär, jäger oder scharfschützenbüchse. Deutsches Waffen-Journal, 780–785.

 

[Cyrano4747]

Very, very cool. I wonder if the model buying wasn't some way for the local officials to encourage and mildly subsidize tinkerers and small inventors. As memory serves Wurttemberg did something similar, I've got a recollection of one of the very earliest design attempts by the Mauser brothers being a small cannon that was similarly purchased and put into a model collection.

 

[biggymu]

That’s a wild weapon Chris. Using a side lever to cock the needle certainly isn’t a crazy idea, but unwieldy. The rear sight is a unicorn. Outside the conventional box for sure. Early micro-groove rifling. Thanks for posting it!

 

[chrisftk]

Very, very cool. I wonder if the model buying wasn't some way for the local officials to encourage and mildly subsidize tinkerers and small inventors. As memory serves Wurttemberg did something similar, I've got a recollection of one of the very earliest design attempts by the Mauser brothers being a small cannon that was similarly purchased and put into a model collection.

Thanks, I'd agree I think it served two purposes; some sort of subsidy and a way to freeze out potential competitor states for designs (if they have a copy, the other states so not have something quite as earthshaking)

That’s a wild weapon Chris. Using a side lever to cock the needle certainly isn’t a crazy idea, but unwieldy. The rear sight is a unicorn. Outside the conventional box for sure. Early micro-groove rifling. Thanks for posting it!

Thanks Rick! I've got some bizarre actions (the Saxon m65 based on the Terry system comes to mind), but this is my weirdest needle rifle!

 

[MichaelWC]

Very unique type of bolt action. The bolt operation in cocky mechanism is kind of fascinating. Did this rifle fire the same type of cartridge as the Dreyse or was it different?

 

[dreed3]

I've been reading some of your other posts and I registered just to ask you how you find these sources! I'm an amateur collector and I'm starting to get better at finding primary and secondary sources, but I don't know where to start when it comes to sources outside of the United States. What advice do you have to help research these antique firearms?

 

[chrisftk]

Very unique type of bolt action. The bolt operation in cocky mechanism is kind of fascinating. Did this rifle fire the same type of cartridge as the Dreyse or was it different?

Thanks Mike-- it would have used a similar type of cartridge, but in a different caliber than the Dreyse rifles.

I've been reading some of your other posts and I registered just to ask you how you find these sources! I'm an amateur collector and I'm starting to get better at finding primary and secondary sources, but I don't know where to start when it comes to sources outside of the United States. What advice do you have to help research these antique firearms?

First, welcome to the forum! Secondly, information on a lot of these older, black powder weapons can be scant at best for English sources. Leonard and Guy AR West wrote some of the better English sources on the Dreyse system, as well as some of the Bavarian systems such as the Podewils-Lindner and Werder. Dieter Storz does discuss some of the earlier systems in his model 1871 book, though it's a more cursory overview. The Storz book is easy to find through a good search and the AR West books can be found here: https://www.woodfieldpublishing.co....y-needle-ignition-system-zundnadelgewehr.html

If you know German, it opens up things significantly. As an example, the publisher Mittler has a nice series on older German arms.. I reference the needle rifle book in my post above. Depending on what you are looking for, I or others here can probably provide recommendations.

 

[Cyrano4747]

To add to what Chris said, a lot of times it's a process of digging down and cross-checking the sources listed in the existing secondary literature. The problem with this is that a lot of them, the English language ones in particular, are sloppy at best with citation. Put simply, the literature is dominated by collectors who, while extremely knowledgeable, frequently were either not concerned with citation or were not trained on it. (edit: if you really want to see a take on this that will make you cry, flip through a copy of the Gortz & Sturgess Borschard & Luger books. In total it's over 1000 pages of extremely dense information at a very high level, and it even includes a very detailed bibliography, but there is not a single citation. As a result if you're trying to figure out where they got something from it's challenging, to say the least). In this regard Storz is invaluable, since he is a trained academic who was careful to cite his sources in his books. Back tracking what he cites can be a really good start to getting your feet wet with period literature on these.

If you really want to dig in on it, though, I really can't recommend enough Bibliographie zur Technik und Geschichte der Handfeuerwaffen und Maschinengewehre / Biography of the Technology and History of Small Arms / Bibliographie sur la technique et l'histoire des armes a feu portives et des mitrailleuses by Wolfgang Seel. The over-long three language title is because, usefully enough, it is a single volume text that is written in the three languages in parallel. It's worth searching all three titles as a lot of sellers will only list the language that they're targeting. If you do a bit of hunting you should be able to find a copy for about $50 shipped, likely from a seller in Europe. (there's one on ebay right now for $47 shipped, for example). Certainly under $100, which makes it fairly cheap as far as these things go.

It's a very traditional finding guide, but it covers a LOT of periodicals and can save a lot of time trying to get lucky with university library searches and the like. I'll throw a page up in a second to give you an idea, but it's really, really useful. Past that finding the periodicals themselves often boils down to getting lucky with google and finding a university that has digitized versions publicly facing. I forget which one, but there's a midwest university (Madison maybe?) that has a lot of the Militair-Wochenblatt publicly viewable.

Here's a column from one page to give you an idea. Number 68 there is "Regarding the provisional regulations in relation to the Fusilier rifle m/60" This being topical as the m/60 was one of Dreyse's needle rifles as adopted by Prussia. From there you know you need to track down issue 30 of the MWB from 1861. That obviously can be a challenge, but it's not an insurmountable one.

 

[dreed3]

To add to what Chris said, a lot of times it's a process of digging down and cross-checking the sources listed in the existing secondary literature. The problem with this is that a lot of them, the English language ones in particular, are sloppy at best with citation. Put simply, the literature is dominated by collectors who, while extremely knowledgeable, frequently were either not concerned with citation or were not trained on it. (edit: if you really want to see a take on this that will make you cry, flip through a copy of the Gortz & Sturgess Borschard & Luger books. In total it's over 1000 pages of extremely dense information at a very high level, and it even includes a very detailed bibliography, but there is not a single citation. As a result if you're trying to figure out where they got something from it's challenging, to say the least). In this regard Storz is invaluable, since he is a trained academic who was careful to cite his sources in his books. Back tracking what he cites can be a really good start to getting your feet wet with period literature on these.

If you really want to dig in on it, though, I really can't recommend enough Bibliographie zur Technik und Geschichte der Handfeuerwaffen und Maschinengewehre / Biography of the Technology and History of Small Arms / Bibliographie sur la technique et l'histoire des armes a feu portives et des mitrailleuses by Wolfgang Seel. The over-long three language title is because, usefully enough, it is a single volume text that is written in the three languages in parallel. It's worth searching all three titles as a lot of sellers will only list the language that they're targeting. If you do a bit of hunting you should be able to find a copy for about $50 shipped, likely from a seller in Europe. (there's one on ebay right now for $47 shipped, for example). Certainly under $100, which makes it fairly cheap as far as these things go.

It's a very traditional finding guide, but it covers a LOT of periodicals and can save a lot of time trying to get lucky with university library searches and the like. I'll throw a page up in a second to give you an idea, but it's really, really useful. Past that finding the periodicals themselves often boils down to getting lucky with google and finding a university that has digitized versions publicly facing. I forget which one, but there's a midwest university (Madison maybe?) that has a lot of the Militair-Wochenblatt publicly viewable.

Here's a column from one page to give you an idea. Number 68 there is "Regarding the provisional regulations in relation to the Fusilier rifle m/60" This being topical as the m/60 was one of Dreyse's needle rifles as adopted by Prussia. From there you know you need to track down issue 30 of the MWB from 1861. That obviously can be a challenge, but it's not an insurmountable one.

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Thank you! I've found the "citation rabbit hole" to be profoundly informative for both general historical work and that pertaining to firearms. My wife bought me a reprint of "US Army Ordnance Memoranda No. 15" for Christmas and that opened my eyes to the potential in accessible primary sources. I've also found that master's papers and journals can be especially helpful since they (mostly) remedy the issue of citation you've discussed. Major Davis' paper "U.S. ARMY RIFLE AND CARBINE ADOPTION BETWEEN 1865 AND 1900" and the Military Affairs article "The Army's Search for a Repeating Rifle: 1873-1903" have both helped me significantly thanks to their thorough citation and direct quotation from the primary sources.

I appreciate your response and giving me another direction to look in for firearms outside of the US. I'm trying to get better with my collection, as right know it's a general overview of metallic cartridge breech loader conversions, single shot breech loaders, and repeating rifles between 1866-1889. I would like to specialize in these earlier breech loading firearms, which of course then requires first and foremost an awareness of them via research and information from people like you and Chris.

 

[OnlyMil]

The funky folding bolt makes it great for a paratrooper rifle. Just ahead of it's time! Very unique rifle I had no idea existed. The backstory is fascinating too. Super cool you were able to find information on it.