doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Seeking info on this rifle maker

I posted this on the German Gun Collectors site, but since it is a double rifle I thought it might be of some interest here.

This rifle is a O/U swivel barrel rifle, about .58 Cal. The maker is inlaid in gold on the barrels and engraved on the side locks, "Keidusch/Weyerburg". I can't find any reference to either the maker or the location by those spellings. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Larry

There's a Weyerburg in Austria.

I think the neatest thing are the loaded indicators, if that is what they are. My 1st guess was that it was A.V. Lebeda sourced but it doesn't have the stepped locks. So with the dragons on the hammers I would lean toward Herzberg but it could have been sourced from Austria. I would guess it to be a 15mm, thereabouts.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

I was trying to locate a similar German lock design or Austrian like the Augustin-Console Schloss - Z�nderschloss. It may be the design of F.M.L. Augustin of 1842.




1848 definition


Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

I think one of the neat things about it are the nipple covers. They are just about watertight. I delight in asking my friends to figure out how to activate the release to swivel the barrels. Following Kutter's lead I looked at Weyerburg in Austria. Then I looked closer at the town name on the barrel and noticed the period after the name which I am pretty sure indicates a contraction. When I checked google maps for Weyerburgstrasse I came up with a street in Sinzig Germany. Nothing definite yet. thanks, Larry

I may get up my courage and pull the lock off, but I am hesitant to do so.

A German speaker would be highly unlikely to put the street (e.g., Weyerburgstrasse) rather than the town. A lot of those German makers were small-town craftsmen, as opposed to the concentrated numbers in London, Birmingham, and such. Moreover, a German-speaker was abbreviating it, it would almost certainly read "Weyerburgstr.", particularly since it appears the maker did it in gold.

A skim of google's entries and German Wikipedia tells me the Austrian Weyerburg is a pretty small town, current population 144, in the Hollabrunn area of Lower Austria (Niederoesterreich) north of the Danube. There is, however, a castle which has been inhabited since the Middle Ages, indicating there was some money there. The pictures of the area indicate an agricultural rural area, probably not much changed from 150 or so years ago. From the minimalist maps I can get right now, it seems not too far from Vienna, too. I'll have to look at more detailed maps later - my train is pulling in.

And "Keidusch" sounds way more Austrian than Pfalzisch to me.

So, my opinion is "Austrian".

Great rifle, I've seen a few of these short two-barrel swivel rifles and they all show great workmanship.

I can't find "Keidusch in any of my books but I'm sure Weyerburg is the Austrian town mentioned above. Although if you search with with an umlaut over the "Y" ..nothing.

These safety / cap protectors sometimes work by gravity as the hammer is cocked but because this rifle is a O/U I'm clueless, please tell us ;-).

Indeed, the nipple covers are impressive but I think that we thought that the loaded indicators originated with the breech-loader but if those tabs on the sides are as I think, their origin goes back quite a bit further.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

If yu are referring to the raised panels on the breech that have a small projection to the front I looked at them more closely just now and they do not seem to have any purpose. they dont move in any direction. I put a wooden ramrod down the bores but could not feel any interior projection and again they did not seem to move.

I googled Schloss Weyerburg and got some good ground shots of it. It seems a fairly substantial place and widipedia says it belonged to the Schoenborn family, so lots of money there