Thanks for the reply. I am trying to figure out the history of a percussion rifle I purchased in Montgomery, AL about a year ago (that's a pic of it in my post). The rifle is in very nice condition showing little use. I had never seen one like it before and suspected it was a Swiss as it had features similar to the M1851 Stutzer. The lock is marked with a Crown over V.C.S., each part including the stock has a small mark that looks like a sideways "B" which is probably an inspectors mark. Only other marking is a "W" stamped on the bottom of the buttstock. After studying photos on the internet I deduced it was not Swiss but German as I learned V.C.S. stands for Valentin Christoph Schilling of Suhl. By searching European auctions and a German website that specialized weapons of that German States before 1871 I was able to find several Jagerbuchse and Scharfschutzenbuchse that were similar but never one like mine. I finally sent photos to the German website and they replied it was a Model 1859 Scharfschutzenbuchse of Hesse-Darmstadt, but the rifle lacked serial number, unit marking, and acceptance proof that one issued to the German military would have.

This only made the rifle more mysterious. Was it made for commercial sale in Germany? Was it perhaps a pattern gun? Did the Hessians cut back the number procured leaving Schilling with excess rifles? Was it a presentation piece? We have thought of several scenarios about who it was made for and how it ended up in Alabama and been carefully preserved for almost 150 years. One is that it was purchased during the Civil War and shipped for use here. Did arms buyers visit Suhl, a major arms producing area, to procure weapons? I'm just investigating this hypothesis to see where it leads.

My next step will be to contact the firearms museum in Suhl to see if they can help me. Here's another pic of her.