It’s a bit of a different book review today – since we’ve been looking at Swiss arms all week (and there’s a really unique one coming up tomorrow), we needed to find a book on the Swiss. What we have is one of 9 or 10 volumes on Swiss military arms, both issued and experimental. This volume (the only one of the bunch we have in our reference library) focuses on machine guns and mortars, and it has a tremendous number of photos of really unusual firearms. It was printed in either Germany or Switzerland, and the text is all German unfortunately – but the illustrations alone are worth the price. We picked it up overseas several years ago, and have not been able to find any of its companion volumes – if you know of a source for them, please let us know!
The full title is Bewaffnung und Ausrustung der Schweizer Armee seit 1817, by Christian Reinhart and Michael am Rhyn.
For a more practically useful book dealing with Swiss rifles, I would suggest Joe Poyer’s Swiss Magazine Loading Rifles, which is inexpensive, readily available, and does a very good job covering the rifles which are generally found on the market today.
http://www.forgottenweapons.com/video-book-review-swiss-magazine-loading-rifles/
At Forgotten Weapons I think the most interesting guns out there are the most obscure ones. I try to search out experimental and prototype weapons and show you how they work, in addition to more conventional guns that you may not have heard of before. You’re much more likely to find a video on the Cei Rigotti or Webley-Fosbery here than an AR or Glock. So, do you want to learn about something new today? Then stick around!
