This unusual gun—made for indoor use—was manufactured in New Orleans by French native Jean-Baptiste Revol. Zimmerstutzen “parlor rifles” are Swiss in origin and are essentially small-bore, light caliber target rifles with low muzzle velocities. They feature short rifled barrels and fire a small spherical lead ball via a priming charge triggered by a long firing pin. Though used only for short-range target shooting, they are extremely accurate, able to group shots tightly at fifty feet. Enthusiasts in Alpine countries once used them for indoor target shooting during the long winter months, when outdoor shooting was impractical. While known to late-nineteenth-century European sportsmen, Zimmerstutzen rifles became much less common after World War I and are now hard to find; some antique firearms dealers mistakenly classify them as air rifles. Jean-Baptiste Revol worked in New Orleans as a gunsmith from about 1850 until his death in 1886. Revol’s last business and residential address was 400 Chartres Street, the Perrilliat House, a building now owned by The Historic New Orleans Collection.
Number: 
20
Citation 1: 
1850s; tiger-stripe maple, steel
Citation 2: 
by Jean-Baptiste Revol, gunsmith
Accession #: 
2007.0079
Author: 
Jason Wiese, Curator / Associate Director, Williams Research Center
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