We have a slotting head for our horizontal mill which is also rotatable. The machine that Piotti use would have been purpose built for the gun trade, a practise which was fairly common in the old days. The large gun making firms such as Mauser, Mannlicher, FN, Winchester etc. used to have their own internal machine design and construction departments which would make machines to suit the design of firearm being built. Often these machines would perform only one single cut before the work piece was moved to another machine. These days a handful of CNC machines can do everything that a whole factory floor of machines were required to do in the past.

Waidmannsheil.