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#294168 09/20/12 06:11 PM
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I have a 16 ga., hammerless, double with a trigger plate lock and a rather complicated cocking system employing a forestock under lever. The top barrel rib is marked in silver "A. Kirchhof in Schmiedeberg". No proof or other marks.

Schmiedeberg is in Saxony near Dresden. A reference from about 1890 indicates A. Kirchhof as a Master Gun Maker.

I would appreciate a first name or any other information about this maker.

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FJS,
It would be helpful if you would post pictures of the gun.A photo of the whole gun,of the action,of the "forestock under lever", and of any marks under the barrels.While these may not be proof marks,they may help others on this site ID people that may have worked on it,which may help in "dating it".Also check closely for a "Crown V" on the rib near the breech which, if present,would date it even closer.Hammerless(triggerplate)guns really predating the proof law(you said it had no proof marks and was from 1890s)would be rare.
Mike

Last edited by Der Ami; 09/21/12 10:40 AM.
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I do not know how to include photos in a Posting. I would be glad to send you photos as an e-mail attachment, if I had your address.

There are NO markings, anywhere, that I can find, save on the barrel rib, as described, plus a few punch assembly marks.

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See my PM
Mike

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The info is from Adolf Zimmer's 1877 text, 2nd edition, curiosity of Axel E.

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=201021&page=1
Some later Berger variants.

Subject Teschner-Collath / Berger variant:




Sometimes touchmarks will be found on the rotary lockup.





Kind Regards,

Raimey
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This thread is probably in the above but I wanted to make sure it was included as it has W. Collath info as well as image components by Cordell:

http://doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=193971&page=1

Teschner-Collath did sourced the makers of Zella Sankt Blasii & Mehlis for their offerings:

http://www.littlegun.info/arme%20allemande/artisan%20c%20d/a%20collath%20w%20%20gb.htm
Probably a percussion predecessor.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
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Nothing more than "A.Kirchhof in Schmiedeberg" existed is known by us.
IMHO this Kirchhof gun was not made by the Teschner-Collath factory as it is an unique recombination of known features. Sorry, but Raimey posted the wrong drawings from Zimmer's book. Those show Berger's needlefire gun and cartridge.
Kirchhofs gun features the slide-and-tilt action as patented by L.J. Gastinne through the agent A.Bellford in Britain, # 2778 of 1853, and used by Charles Lancaster on his base-fire cartridge guns. Gastinne was the son in law of Albert Renette. During his travelling years Rudolph Berger of Köthen for some time worked at the Gastinne-Renette company in Paris. Back in Köthen as a master gunsmith Berger combined the Gastinne action with his own coilspring locks to use a needlefire cartridge of his own design. This is the gun shown above by Raimey. Now Gustav Teschner of Frankfurt on Oder comes in. He copied the Gastinne action as modified by Berger and combined it with triggerplate locks and an improved cartridge that is more aptly named a "nailfire", as he inserted a small nail, "c" in the drawing, into the cartridge head. This nail was struck by rather conventional short strikers and in turn pierced the primer "e".

Teschner's son in law Wilhelm Collath took over the company about 1870.He later adapted the action to centerfire cartridges. The Teschner-Collath factory continued to build guns on this action up until WW2. This is why such Gastinne-Berger-Teschner-Collath slide-and-tilt actions are now universally ascribed to "Collath".
This cut from Zimmer's book shows the Teschner-Collath gun with it's triggerplate action, strikers linked to the hammers. Soon Teschner (or his shop foreman and successor Collath) added the "Collath" "wing nut" hammer-blocking safety.

As you see, Kirchhof's gun has very different locks. The strikers are driven by the hammers in a straight line. Such locks are shown by Zimmer "as offered by Leue & Timpe, Berlin" on a true centerfire gun.

Kirchhof combined the G-B-T-C slide and tilt action with the "Leue&Timpe" lockwork and added a hammerblock safety apparently of his own design, activated by a small crank in front of the triggerguard. He was not alone in making "improved" slide-and-tilt actioned guns in northern and northeastern Germany. F.i. both Kief and Westphal in Peine , though both outlets for Teschner too, offered their own "improved" guns with different safety arrangements. I have also seen a "Teschner-Collath" lookalike by another gunsmith, but with coilspring striker locks inside, and a shotgun by G.L.Rasch in Brunswick with a Lefaucheux breech action and Teschner's triggerplate locks and wing-nut safety. So the possible variation and recombinations are endless. Remember, the rough Damascus barrels were mostly imported then from Belgium anyhow and all other parts of a gun were hand-filed from very rough forgings. Any village blacksmith then was capable of producing such forgings and a shop employing a dozen gunsmithes like Kief's or Störmer's was certainly capable to make such guns.
IMHO this Kirchhof gun was really made by himself to his own ideas of a combination of features he thought the best. As it comes from the transitional time from pin- and needlefire to centerfire, it may have been built as a centerfire from the start.



Last edited by kuduae; 11/04/12 03:15 PM.
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BTW, the information on littlegun.be about Collath is all wrong. The gun shown as a "Collath" is in fact a "Schnellader" on Gastinne's slide-and-tilt action. "Schnellader" = quickloader was the term used by both Zimmer and Corneli for such early, outside-primed percussion breechloaders. This type of gun was alreadyout of fashion when Wilhelm Collath entered the scene in 1865.

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Kuduae, that is excellent information indeed, thanks for sharing.

With kind regards,
Jani

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BTW, the centerfire hammerless gun Zimmer ascribed to Leue & Timpe is known in GB and other English speaking countries as the "Daw hammerless" and described as such in W.W.Greener's book "The Gun and it's Development".

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