10.4mm Küchlin - von Steiger REVOLVER

Research notes

The Swiss adopted a rimfire, black powder revolver in 1872 and like all revolvers in service by various military powers, the slow speed of reloading was a concern, especially to the Swiss military and they set out to find some way to solve the problem. The Thun based firm of W. von Steiger came up with an ingenious design for the time from a patent by one of its employees, a fellow by the name of Küchlin that ejected fired cases from a revolver. Original designs from 1872 – 1873 were in 9mm, but the later versions from around 1876 were in 10.4mm when the Swiss military decided to remain with a 10,4mm cartridge instead of a 9mm version. The von Steigers were tested in Swiss trials apparently as early as 1872 and performed well with quick loading tests. The very first designed von Steigers were flawed in that the fired cases were ejected straight back into the face of the shooter, but that problem was rectified by a deflector on the side of the frame that will deflect the fired case away from the shooter. After extensive testing, the W. von Steiger revolver was initially recommended for adoption by the Federal Military Department in 1875, but ultimately the von Steiger was not succesful as the Swiss decided on a simpler design, namely the Abadie design that was developed into a Swiss revolver by Rudolf Schmidt, the director of the Waffenfabrik Bern, which was ultimately adopted as the M1878. There is a very good video on Forgotten Weapons describing the history of the von Steiger Revolvers.