4mm Randz Curte

ace22

October 09, 2002 18:01

Found an old box in a thrift store that said "4mm Randz Curte" I have never seen or heard of this cartridge,so my interest picqued,I opened it in anticipation of a "new" discovery only to find old bobbins and sewing machine needles.As I have seen bobbins and needles before I was let down.Does anyone have any info on this rimfire.I get more and better info on this forum than the reference section of my library.ACE

I'm not a hippy!I'm a well groomed mountain man

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  mark christian

  November 24, 2002 17:53

  ace, okay so it took me six weeks to get around to your question- but I wanted to be sure my information was valid and that my memmory was good about this. I don't like to make mistakes in my posts because people expect accurate answers and do not want guesses or opinions over here on the expert forum. Now for your question.
  
  There were two distinct types of 4mm ammo loaded in Europe and for two very distinct purposes: The first was a subcaliber conversion for centerfire pistols such as the Walther or Mauser. This usually consisted of a new barrel assembly and steel dummy case of the original pistol caliber. These units were available as options up to WWII and even for a while after.
  
  To use this conversion you simply removed the standard barrel, or if the design did not allow for this, you inserted a subcaliber rifled tube. The dummy cartridges were loaded with 4mm projectiles and then primed. The primer provided all of the power for the projectiles and of course automatic functioning with these loads was quite impossible. Afer each dummy was hand ejected you simply punched out the spent primer and the reloaded the dummy case for another round of shooting. The dummys would fit and feed through the magazines so rate of fire was determined by how fast you could work the action by hand.
  
  The second type of 4mm ammo was for special Zimmerstutzen (parlor rifles). These are large heavy target rifles that were built in the scheutzen style popular in Bavaria, Tyrol, and Switzerland. There was a long and short version of the 4mm cartridge and they were rimmed fixed cartridges which fired balls of different diameter- either slightly larger or smaller than 4mm- whichever load best fit the rifling of the firearms bore. There were also a few bottlenecked cartridge types, but these are very rare.
  
  These parlor rifles were intended for serious indoor shooting and competition and the accuracy at 30 meters or less is nearly identical to the .22LR, with far less noise or danger. Usually only 8 to 12 inches of the firearms barrel would be rifled, the remaining length was simply for looks and balance. Some were breech loaded while others were loaded by inserting the cartridge directly into the barrel through a port in the underside. All of these rifles are rare today and I have never seen the ammunition first hand. I hope this answers your question. It took me this long to come up with enough spare time do do the research to back up what I was sure were the facts about this 4mm cartridge.
  
  Mark T. Christian

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  string

  November 26, 2002 04:57

  Mark you are the man.How did you find all of that out.That is why I come on this forum.thanks String

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