doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion German & Austrian Sporting Guns @ doublegunshop.com Sauer Triggerplate Round Action

Though this ultra-rare Sauer & Sohn gun is not recorded anywhere, asking around showed that tales about it are still known among old Suhl gunsmithes, one of them even remembering having such a thing repaired and restocked many years ago. It is remembered as a major blunder of the major gunmaker Sauer&Sohn.
As both guns show pre-1912 Suhl proofmarks, dates from 1906-10 may be ok.
In the early 1900s the Anson& Deeley boxlock action was not so entrenched as it was post-WW1. At that time Sauer & Sohn, always on the outlook for new designs that are easier/cheaper to make, were offerd a "novel" design from Liege, the Belgian Gunmaking centre. Just to give it a try they bought in a handful of these actions in the rough from Liege and completed them. The resulting guns were not to their liking, so they dropped the design after offering the few guns, apparently for export also.Less than ten were ever made. The design proved to be as complicated to make as their then standard designs, so there was no advantage here. The stocks had to be hollowed out a lot and were prone to breaking, as there was little wood to metal contact.. The handling qualities, weight distribution, were unsatisfactory.
As usual with most break-open guns, the action is a recombination of known design features. So this action was probably never patented.
The design with triggerplate locks, but mainsprings inside the action bar, is a relative of Tranter's gun, British patent # 1881 of 1882, sold by Tranter's son-in-law Watson as the "Carlton gun". Some Belgian substituted Tranter's cocking lever with a slide, pushed back by the inclined rear surface of the front lump. In the photo of the watertable above the roller on the slide that bears against the front lump is visible.
Nevertheless, I am still interested in how the cocking of the locks is accomplished. In the photo of the watertable you can see a roller in the forward cutout for the front barrel lump. Apparently this roller is forced back by the incline on the lump to cock the locks. This roller may be attached to a seperate cocking slide, but a simpler solution would be the mode of the British Gibbs & Pitt "Second Model". Here the locking underbolt forces back the hammers. On the First model G&P, British patent # 284 of 1873, cocking was accomplished by turning the toplever 90 degrees, which pulled back the underbolt far enough to cock the hammers. On the second model, dateable before 1887, cocking is just started by moving the toplever until the barrels are unlocked. Then an incline on the front barrel lump, very similar to the one on this "Sauer" gun, takes over and pushes the underbolt back further until the locks are at full cock.

Oh, wonderful, wonderful on all fronts. Great info there Axel and much better than my guess. I wondered where you had been and guessed you had been digging as I saw quite a lot of dust your way. I still would guess that FN was the Belgian source.
I still find it odd that it doesn't wear the wildmann with a club mark of quality. I would say the tubset was sourced but it does wear a touchmark of a "W" on the underside of the right tube just forward of the flats and a scrip "W" on the lower rib just ahead of the flats, both marks typical of Sauer mechanics.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

July 1914 Advert.

Seems S,D&G were trying to dispose of the odd Sauer Model 0.



Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Upon closer inspection and additional pondering, it would have been highly probably, and possible, that Schovering, Daly & Gales wanted a lower end hammerless model. So they set up a deal with a source in Liege to send a gesteck to Sauer and then Sauer forwarded the finished product on to the U.S. of A. That would begin to explain how several arrived on our Eastern shores just prior to WWI. Of course a copy of the Sauer ledger would prove or disprove this straightaway.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Joseph Gales, Charles Howard Daly(Yale Grad)(November 6, 1874 to November 17, 1924), Theodore William Stake(an original 1899 incorporator along with Ella Daly King) & Frederik J. Wilbur were at the helm from the 20th century until Joseph Gales expires in April/May 1916(April 29th 1847 - May 1st 1916). Joseph Gales attended the "Free Academy", which became the College of the City of New York and then entered the world of peddling sporting goods as a member of Spies, Kissam &
Company(Gales' mother was a Spies). I can't say if Charles Howard Daly testified before a committee but Joseph Gales seemed to be there quite often trying to keep the tariffs in their favour. The American gun makers were attempting to siphon off some of the business of Schoverling, Daly & Gales by having the tariffs in their favour. But they were still importing components from Liege and tubes of the Plain Jane variety of Krupp fluid steel were being imported from Jupille by the boat loads up to WWI. From early on, George Fisher's name was used as a trade name and post 1900 Theodore W. Stake had his name on a hammerless. Schoverling, Daly & Gales were trying to get a $45 hammerless on the market and the odd Sauer variant No. 0 fit the bill. It is possible that T.W. Stake was closely involved as of late 1902 he was crossing the pond for business purposes.


From 1908 tariff hearing comparing foreign & domestic sporting weapons. I think it is interesting that the cost at the sourcing point in Marks or Francs is noted.


1914 advert noting lower & upper limits of hammerless offerings


1906 Advert noting $125 to $750 range.

S,D&G could not compete with their Lindner sourced guns so they turned to Sauer


1906 Advert noting $60 to $600 range. It seems it was late 1906 when the cost was lowered from $80 to $60.

Up till say 1906/1907 a $60 peddled Sauer example was their choice for competition. It was all about the Benjamins.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse